BowlOfRed
Master Poster
All of my CFLs carried warranties. I haven't looked at the LEDs. I just assumed they did.
LED Bulbs
- Thread starter wobs
- Start date
All of my CFLs carried warranties. I haven't looked at the LEDs. I just assumed they did.
Are those the ones filled with silicone oil? I'd expect fewer heat problems certainly.
What I find ironic is that the reason we switched from incandescents is supposed to be their inefficiency because they wasted so much power as heat. When did they ever need a heat sink on a 100w bulb?
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
A pointless question. The incandescents had a larger surface area that generated the heat, they had a larger surface area to disperse the heat, they were made of materials that could run hotter, they failed more often than a well designed and manufactured LED light. Early incandescent lights were very unreliable. LED Light technology is maturing rapidly as it reduces costs and increases reliability.
As for the ones you bought, it appears that the design is sound, the Chinese factory their manufacturing was outsourced to took some shortcuts in the manufacturing process. Probably the whole batch is faulty.
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BowlOfRed
Master Poster
They don't. But the working parts of the lamp can handle 3000K. The LED bulb is more efficient and puts out much less heat, but the working parts are also far more sensitive to temperature.
Maybe in a few decades, that will change.
My experience is that most large companies will replace defective product even if no warranty is mentioned. They likely won't want the bulb back, not worth the shipping. They likely know why they are failing.
Brian-M
Daydreamer
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A 100w bulb wastes about 95w as heat. That amount of wasted energy alone is enough to power four 100w equivalent LED globes!
The reason why LED bulbs need heatsinks and incandescents don't is because LEDs need to keep cool to work properly while incandescents need to keep hot.
roger
Penultimate Amazing
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25 years is an estimate for how long the LED will take to reach some dimness percentage level - it is not a rating for the lifetime for the entire product. The Philips' link below in particular warns maufacturers that they are providing only the lifetime of the LED itself in terms of degraded luminance, and that they SHOULD NOT base their product life on that, as the rest of the components almost certainly should not have a lower life.
It's scandalous.
sources:
http://www.litetronics.com/lighting-knowledge/how-is-the-lifetime-of-leds-determined.html
http://www.lumec.com/newsletter/architect_06-08/led.htm
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...df+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
http://www.lunaraccents.com/educational-white-LED-life.html
MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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An LED light source contains quite a lot of components (since it will normally have its own built-in voltage converter). As all modern solid-state devices, it has a long life-time, but with this number of components, it no longer makes sense to state an absolute life-span. Instead, the proper information would be MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure). Unfortunately, this is a little difficult to understand for lay-people.
With an MTBF of, say 10,000 hours, a device can be expected to fail at any time between 10 minutes and virtually never. The failures of a large number of devices will show a normal distribution around 10,000 hours, however.
Obviously, no company in their right mind will offer a warranty anywhere near the MTBF value, as this would mean that about half the devices would fail under warranty.
Since we started this thread, the availability of LED lamps have been greatly extended, and you can now buy replacements for most older incadescent bulbs. The prices are still fairly high, but considering the power saveing and the far longer lifetime, they are really quite reasonable.
In my home, I am phasing out nearly all my incadescents, and the flouroscents are going to follow.
Hans
With an MTBF of, say 10,000 hours, a device can be expected to fail at any time between 10 minutes and virtually never. The failures of a large number of devices will show a normal distribution around 10,000 hours, however.
Obviously, no company in their right mind will offer a warranty anywhere near the MTBF value, as this would mean that about half the devices would fail under warranty.
Since we started this thread, the availability of LED lamps have been greatly extended, and you can now buy replacements for most older incadescent bulbs. The prices are still fairly high, but considering the power saveing and the far longer lifetime, they are really quite reasonable.
In my home, I am phasing out nearly all my incadescents, and the flouroscents are going to follow.
Hans
I would add the same caveat to that as I did some time ago in a CFL thread.
In the case where most of a power bill is for winter heating, it can make sense to use cheap incandescent bulbs which both provide good quality illumination and contribute to your heating .
If you don't require heating , or you use air conditioning, this obviously does not apply.
Yeah. I'm just ranting because I'm finding bulbs that cost 12-15 times as much as a tungsten are actually delivering shorter life.
In a few decades, I'll be dead.
I'm not going to replace any more bulbs with something 12-15 times dearer, which does not last as long.
I feel I may have put my toe in this stream a year or two too early
Any of these on multiple bulb light fittings? I'm curious to know if failures are higher on the kind of fitting with several bulbs.
marting
Illuminator
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All of mine are on tracks or are embedded ceiling floods.
It's also possible that issues of AC line waveform spikes could be at play. AC here is underground and we don't have much lightning so the lines are pretty clean.
I've heard it is the fault of the English - they are keeping all the good electricity for themselves and sending the crappy electricity to Scotland. The SNP has promised that the life of your bulbs will be longer in an independent Scotland.
Seriously - all my LED bulbs are in multi-bulb fittings and not had any problems... so far.
I understand Scottish volts are better, because they are hydro electric and tend to flow downhill faster than English ones which are covered in coal dust.
Reason I ask about this is actually because I've heard a lot of tales of halogen GU10 s having multiple failures in multi-bulb fittings. I even knew one sparky who would replace all GU10s if one failed, because he knew he would be back inside a week.
We just got 8 more warm white LEDs for the conservatory. They are the 19-emitter type, not the triples. The clock is running...
Reason I ask about this is actually because I've heard a lot of tales of halogen GU10 s having multiple failures in multi-bulb fittings. I even knew one sparky who would replace all GU10s if one failed, because he knew he would be back inside a week.
We just got 8 more warm white LEDs for the conservatory. They are the 19-emitter type, not the triples. The clock is running...
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MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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BenBurch
Gatekeeper of The Left
Yes, liquid cooled.
A 100w bulb was made from refractory materials exclusively. Glass, Ceramic, Brass, Tungsten. No heat sink needed because it was designed to BE an oven. Hence easy-bake ovens and 4-H chicken incubators.
Unfortunately, semiconductors are most efficient at a much lower temperature than the power they consume would allow without a heat sink.
EHocking
Penultimate Amazing
And with a due sense of irony, we will light a candle for you.In a few decades, I'll be dead.
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fishbob
Seasonally Disaffected
In a few decades, I'll be dead.
Hang in there, buddy. I you are disappointed, but maybe you can have a flying car or something instead.