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Next generation LEDs are cheap and sustainable
- NullPrefix 2y agoCan these new LEDS do proper color spectrum or are we still stuck on incandescent bulbs?
- raron 2y agoThere are some with good color rendering (CRI over 95 - 98), but they are hard to find and much more expensive than the average LED light bulb (many doesn't even have their CRI specified so probably below 70). AFAIK None of them will ever have continuous spectrum (like the sun or incandescent bulbs), that's a limitation of the physics how they make light.
- netbioserror 2y agoNever quite understood the color spectrum complaint, most of the incandescent bulbs I've ever seen are astoundingly red (low temperature), while I've always gotten the greatest color accuracy in my spaces from daylight-temp LEDs.
- rob74 2y ago> We’d like to avoid the grave. Don't we all... but somehow I get the feeling that something was "lost in translation" here?
- jonathandramble 2y agoNo. Cradle to grave is a common term in life cycle analysis for products. https://www.eea.europa.eu/help/glossary/eea-glossary/cradle-to-grave https://www.eea.europa.eu/help/glossary/eea-glossary/cradle-...
- hulitu 2y ago> Next generation LEDs are cheap and sustainable Sustainable ? Made from tropical forest trees ?
- ForTheKidz 2y agoIt seems their environmental impact was defined in terms of the (environmental) cost of mining gold. "The greatest environmental gain would instead be achieved by replacing gold with copper, aluminium or nickel, while maintaining the small amount of lead needed for the LED to function optimally."
- ilove_banh_mi 2y ago"sustainable" was incorrectly translated from the Swedish "miljövänliga" which instead means "environmentally-friendly" ("sustainable" is "hållbar" in Swedish)
- SoftTalker 2y agoIt's a marketing term anyway, it doesn't mean anything.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- etiam 2y agoI came back to say pretty much that. Since these buzzwords as used in most of society today barely mean anything at all, the writer was probably happy enough to namecheck something vaguely positive and endorsed to do with environment stuff. It would have tickled my funny bone if they'd gone with "Green" in this case. (Thanks nonetheless to ilove_banh_mi, for setting the record straight)
- KennyBlanken 2y agoThe article is about people trying to engineer electronic devices that take into account their full lifecycle? The knee-jerk cynical "hot takes" on this site are getting really tiresome. It's intellectual cowardice and laziness. Anyone can say this sort of zero-calorie edgy nonsense
- joseppudev 2y ago[dead]
- userbinator 2y agoWhenever I see "sustainable" these days, I think "they must mean sustainable profit --- due to planned obsolescence".
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- NegativeLatency 2y agoCurrent LEDs are pretty cheap and comparatively sustainable (to other lighting technology), but lots of LED based lighting devices ship with: - non replaceable batteries (flashlights) - unreliable drivers that fail before the LED does, or kill the LED by heat or excessive voltage Happy to see people working on new LED tech but the downstream effects of selling disposable stuff has to be much worse?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 2y agoThe life of indoor LED bulbs has improved over the years. But I learned to only install them in vented fixtures.
- zerocrates 2y agoIt's LED fixtures that I have a problem with; they're very common since it's easy to make them in various shapes and things, but when a component fails more often than not it's a "replace the whole fixture" situation. My parents have a ceiling fan that came with an LED light, which broke. It was barely under warranty for the LED part still and the manufacturer sent out a new light module, except they've changed the fan a little over the years and the new module doesn't fit on the old fan... they ended up having to send a whole new fan.
- ethbr1 2y agoAfaict, this is a case of the primary customer: contractors and builders. They don't care if bulbs are replaceable, since their lifetime is limited to build -> sell.
- TylerE 2y agoActually with fans specifically it has to do with legislation that requires them to not be able to mount a standard Edison bulb.
- opwieurposiu 2y agoIs the gold in LEDs just in the bond wires?
- lightedman 2y agoOccasionally the contact plating for surface mounting is also gold-plated. I can think of a couple Nichia LEDs from work that have gold plated electrical and thermal contacts.
- softgrow 2y agoSurprisingly or not, isn't a very new idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_light-emitting_diode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_light-emitting_diod... Note that extending the lifetime is key to taking advantage of their lower base material cost. Lot of work needed there.
- WalterBright 2y agoWhen I was fiddling with LED circuits back in the 70s (!) I experimented with turning the LED on and off with a square wave. If you turned it on and off rapidly enough, your eye did not notice it, and your eye perceived it as fully bright. (Adjusting both the frequency and duration of the "on" part.) Hence, you could get some decent power savings doing this. I wonder if this is commonly known. I've mentioned it to a couple EEs over the years, and they were able to reduce the power consumption of their devices.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoNominative determinism strikes again! (Or is this anti-determinism?)
- WalterBright 2y agoI have a couple LED night lights that are triggered by a photocell to only turn on in the dark. I've often wondered if the trigger circuit consumed more power than just leaving the LED on.
- nine_k 2y agoIt likely consumes next to no power: a proper switching MOSFET has negligible resistance when open, and has a very high gate resistance, so the photo cell does not have to produce any significant current. Possibly the current-limiting resistor in the power supply of the LED circuit dissipates more than the trigger circuit.
- throitallaway 2y agoPWM. This is widely used method for dimming.
- hunter2_ 2y agoHow could the same modulation achieve "dimming" and "fully bright" simultaneously?
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- temptemptemp111 2y ago[dead]
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- declan_roberts 2y agoAt this point I don't care about sustainable. I just want dimmable LEDs that don't flicker!
- quickthrowman 2y agoBuy commercial fixtures or drivers with 0-10V dimming, problem solved.
- PantaloonFlames 2y agoIs a driver something I can easily replace in an existing fixture?
- WaltPurvis 2y agoThis may be an erroneous and/or too simplistic answer, but I went through a couple rounds of using off-brand LEDs from Amazon in a chandelier, and they flickered badly when dimmed, then I finally ponied up a little more money and bought GE bulbs at Lowe's —- no flickering, ever.
- droopyEyelids 2y agoAnyone else a bit uncomfortable with how they say this next generation will have lead in it, but we shouldn’t worry about that?
- Jtsummers 2y agoIf you're not breaking them open and eating them you're probably fine.
- droopyEyelids 2y agoThey’ll be mass produced in staggering quantities, discarded everywhere, and enter the ecosystem. Plus kids be chewing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- umvi 2y agoNow we just need modern houses that have a DC circuit dedicated to lighting
- quickthrowman 2y agoThis is an uneconomical idea, mostly due to voltage drop. In the commercial world, you can get 158 28-watt 2x4s on a single 277V 20A circuit using #12 wire.
- umvi 2y agoSo it's more economical to put a failure prone AC/DC converter into every single led bulb?
- quickthrowman 2y agoNo, it’s more economical to use a fixture with built in LEDs and an external LED driver that will last for 10 years.
- econ 2y agoI've bought 3 cheap alarm clocks and the LEDs are now so "good" the display lights up the entire room. With limited bedroom materials my inner macgyver was quite pleased with himself when he put one in a sock which has nothing to do with the topic but it did work. I can also confirm that cheap clocks are still amazingly hard to configure. By pressing multiple buttons simultaneously I managed to set one of the clocks to display the time only when a button is pressed. This is quite useless, I haven't figured out how to unset it and it isn't mentioned in the manual. My point would be that the LEDs are now so cheap and good that the rest of the devices seem expensive by comparison and manufacturing can't resist the urge to wrap them in crap. I think I've purchased 30 bicycle lights in total. The Edison bulbs with dynamo sometimes last a hundred years (except from the replaceable bulb)
- imp0cat 2y agoYou have to admit that even though some parts of the LED bike lights might be lacking, they are still pretty awesome compared to what was available when incadescent lights were the only option.
- econ 2y agoLast two collect water inside the button. Can't switch them off. One more expensive set had the rubber casing peal off because the strap is gently pulling on it. My current expensive one had its button drop into the casing. I bring it inside now as it obviously can't get wet. The amount of light is great but we have a lot of "narrow" bike paths and people point them forwards blinding the opponent.
- PantaloonFlames 2y agoOpponent! I like that. People riding in the other direction are opponents! For those who know English as a second language , opponent is a term used to describe the person you are competing against in a sports event, or fighting with, in a battle!
- laserbeam 2y agoAren’t perovskites incredibly fragile? I thought the reason they aren’t used in solar panels is because they only last a couple years. Why should I believe LEDs made out if the same stuff would survive the test of time?
- baybal2 2y ago[dead]
- ryukoposting 2y agoTo make a long story short: Perovskites are a particular physical structure that atoms can form together. It looks like a box made of one element, with one atom of another element inside inside the box. Perovskites are named after the naturally-occurring mineral that exhibits this structure. Mother Nature's Perovskite is made of Calcium and Titanium. Synthetic, flourescent perovskites are made of Lead and Cadmium. You can see the problem here. And yes, Lead is a massive problem even if the article downplays it somewhat. You can't put lead things outside, because rain will cause lead to leech into water supplies. That's bad.
- noqc 2y agoleds are pretty small right? Typically encased glass? I don't think you've got much to worry about.
- baggy_trough 2y agoI don't think there are any light bulbs in my house that I have replaced more often than the LED bulbs, probably by a factor of 5x. - light quality, especially years ago, was much too harsh. Color is still just barely tolerable for certain bulb types. - inability to dim without flickering - random burnouts (wasn't this supposed to take 10 years at least?)