I need to replace some LEDs twice a year in our apartment, whereas formerly bulbs lasted at least several years. I have tested different vendors, including expensive ones, but all last equally short times.
Another problem is that manufacturers overdrive components. To make bulbs cheaper they just use few more mA of current, that makes LEDs run hotter, more smoothing is needed and caps get hammered by switch mode power supplies.
Without changing light fixtures to be open, allowing circulation of air nothing really can be done for standard e27/bayonet bulbs. I have personally experienced this and had clearly seen the huge difference in LED bulb lifetime between light fixture - glass globe with hole in the bottom (no air vents at the top) and another one that was just a bowl with open top. Never had to change a bulb in second one versus 5-6 changes in globe one.
but I had some bridgelux 10W that I just threw in some copper tubes on an aluminum slug with a minor affordance for cooling (some slots cut in the Al to promote convection). These ran at 80C and lasted for >5 yr at at least 80% brightness. and still the primary failure mode was the little meanwell dc/dc converters playing thermal runaway. and that whole assembly cost $10
it just has to be penny pinching at the end of the day.
In Dubai they actually have efficient and long-lasting LED lights [1]. These exist in order to satisfy strict government regulation there. They’re not sold anywhere else because they’re more expensive to make (more LEDs per bulb running at lower output).
In 90% of cases where LED need replacement problem happens in this transformer unit. In rest 10% it's on LED fault - but it's also problem because they are series connected and when one is gone whole circuit stop. If they are parallel connected such issue won't happen.
They don't appear to be available in the US though, that's true.
I think I'll get a couple to try for those places where I think "60w incandescent equivalent" is sufficient, although cynical experience tells me to expect 40w at most - but for low single digit wattage power draw I'll accept that in some places.
Mostly I like to see though, so I'll keep buying their 150w equivalent bulbs.
- 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
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.
An example of a similar (LED based discussion) a year back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35371750
One thing we noticed with other brands was that not only many fail after a year or so, the ones that still work have significantly redeuced efficiency.
LED bayonet fitting bulbs in the regular light fittings in the rest of the house seem to only get a few years though.