3 ms·

This has been discussed multiple times here, a sibling comment is right - LEDs light bulbs are overdriven to show better numbers on the box - they are desi

by xxs 2y ago

This has been discussed multiple times here, a sibling comment is right - LEDs light bulbs are overdriven to show better numbers on the box - they are designed for universal voltage range: AC 90-264V - which leads to extra overheating in the US/Canada and passive component failure, due to high current on the primary - in 230V range, the common failures are the LEDs, themselves (black dot of death), due to lack of decent heat dissipation (and generally overdriven) - as a general guidance - buy the heaviest bulbs at a specific lumens, they may have Al heat sinks, better heat dissipation, better passives Overall the LEDs cannot retrofit well in the existing sockets, e.g. E27, esp E14, for incandescent light bulb. The LEDs need to have enough room to dissipate heat and run AC/DC converter with decent passives. OTOH, near custom ceiling LEDs driven at decent currents (with no terrible drivers) would last many years - but they require some electronics background to repair.

marcosdumay 2y ago
> they are designed for universal voltage range: AC 90-264V I have never thought of that, since it's not a problem on its own. But yeah, this makes the first point way worse than it by itself. It's enough to explain all the geographic difference in quality I have noticed. > as a general guidance - buy the heaviest bulbs at a specific lumens But this does not work very well. You can easily get a 20 times difference on the power supply waste between bulbs. If the one that is 20 times worse is 10 times heavier, it will still have a much shorter life time.
- xxs 2y ago
  The most noticeable difference is still the metal heatsink. LED drivers would be non-isolated ones, so only a single coil (not a transformer). The other part of the weight difference would be capacitors (hopefully larger ones), and (hopefully) input filtering. Some LED bulbs have terrible input filtering (or not at all) and can easily die due to transients (incl. inductive motor noise/kickback) - input filtering normally would be a capacitor + coil. An example of a similar (LED based discussion) a year back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35371750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35371750

by xxs 2y ago

marcosdumay 2y ago

> they are designed for universal voltage range: AC 90-264V I have never thought of that, since it's not a problem on its own. But yeah, this makes the first point way worse than it by itself. It's enough to explain all the geographic difference in quality I have noticed. > as a general guidance - buy the heaviest bulbs at a specific lumens But this does not work very well. You can easily get a 20 times difference on the power supply waste between bulbs. If the one that is 20 times worse is 10 times heavier, it will still have a much shorter life time.

xxs 2y ago
The most noticeable difference is still the metal heatsink. LED drivers would be non-isolated ones, so only a single coil (not a transformer). The other part of the weight difference would be capacitors (hopefully larger ones), and (hopefully) input filtering. Some LED bulbs have terrible input filtering (or not at all) and can easily die due to transients (incl. inductive motor noise/kickback) - input filtering normally would be a capacitor + coil. An example of a similar (LED based discussion) a year back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35371750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35371750