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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

As a side not, something that never happened to me with incandescents happened with halogens. I refuse to buy anything with the mercury warning and noticed the halogen the was shaped like an incandescent in the 60 W replacement size. I bought it and had it in for about a week. One night I hear a "boom" that wakes me up. It sounded like a muffled shotgun. I walked into the living room to discover[1] the halogen had blown up scattering little glass shards all over the living room. I was not happy.

I went out and bought a cheap LED from Walmart[2] which seems pretty good and turns on right away. I do wonder who is the actual supplier. No heat, bright, and hasn't blown up.

We still have a couple of packs of incandescents at work because we use the chicken coop method of heating a box outside during the winter.

1) well my foot discovered this which required first aid

2) http://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-GVRLA6027ND-Great-Valu...

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I've had two Cree brand LED bulbs melt apart and blow fire. I was glad to be around so I could get them shut down. And a little terrier afterwords of what could have happened. I've had at least three Walmart brand LED bulbs that have lasted less than a couple months. (No fires though!)

Surely I'm not the only one seeing this kind of failure rate?

I'm making a personal collection of the failed LED bulbs for future purchasing decision....

It sounds like you have more serious problems here, better check your electric installation. I have cheap Chinese LED bulbs from eBay and even they shine happily after >2 years now.

Yeah, I have probably have 25 LED bulbs in the house. I've so far only had troubles with two brands

Out of curiosity though, what kind of electrical problem would disproportionately affect LEDs?

LED bulbs have drivers (usually AC to constant current converter) integrated so they should stabilize power themselves. My guess would be that there might be high voltage spikes that managed to burn a driver. Another possibility, that just came to my mind -- LED's, especially high power ones like Creed, become very hot, maybe your bulb slot is very tight and isolated and there's not enough room to dissipate the excess heat?

The LEDs are working great, the halogen went explody. I have no problems with the LED.

My answer was dedicated to danielvf's comment.

It's worth mentioning that Cree are the company that make the actual LED, and they are used in a huge spectrum of low to high quality products. Cheap Chinese manufacturers often buy these LEDs, and put them behind really cheap electronics, then sell them with a generic name including "Cree" in the brand (or -fire, for flashlights). The lumen output can also be widely inaccurate.

So if you do end up buying more online, you should be wary.

These were actual Cree brand bulbs, in Cree boxes, bought from a big box store, and I talked to Cree customer support after the problem. They sent me replacements but in fear I've never installed the replacements.

> something that never happened to me with incandescents happened with halogens ... the halogen had blown up scattering little glass shards all over the living room

I've had one incadescent explode. Maybe it didn't scatter glass all over the room, but the bulb was definitely blown and lied in pieces on the floor.

The halogen had an inner and outer bulb, it went everywhere.

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