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LED lamps w/E26 base (screw-in)?

Ralph_P

Stainless
Joined
Jan 14, 2003
Location
E. TN USA
After reading all the hype about LED lamps I purchased about 20, maybe 6-9 months ago. 3 or 4 different brands and styles and wattage's. I was expecting long life from them but that doesn't seem to be true. So far I've had 6 fail. One was a flood lamp. I chucked it up in the lathe and cut it apart. It had 6 little square yellow LED's. Two LED's were burned black. Another was 100w equivalent regular house type lamp. I cut it apart but didn't find anything burned. Some of the solder joints on the driver circuit board didn't look good and looked to be done by hand manually. The other solder joints looked to be done by machine.

I've checked the voltage supply several times, it's always normal. If that's about par for LED's I'll have to switch back to incandescents. The hype of long life and high price lured me in. I also have 2 four foot double row shop lamps, about 2 years old. One of them has started flickering occasionally. Has anyone on PM had better success with LED's or are having the same problems?
 
I have installed over a dozen LED bulbs in my home over the past three years and there have been zero failures. Most of them were purchased at Wal-Mart and some were name brands like GE while others weren't. Some are outdoor spot and flood lights where I replaced the incandescent bulbs that did fail after a few months. The only one of those that I have replaced was in my driveway because it was too bright and made parking after dark difficult. I needed a smaller one.

One thing you must realize about LED bulbs is that they DO need ventilation. The do generate heat and that heat must have a way to escape. If it doesn't then the temperature inside the bulb just goes up and up and that is a formula for failure. You do not need to take extraordinary measures, but you can not put an LED bulb in a fixture where there is no ventilation. And if you are in a hot climate with no AC, you may need to have better ventilation than most. But Tennessee should not be all that bad.

Another thing to understand is that most of them are rated for only a few hours of use each day, perhaps 4 to 8 or 8 depending on brand and model. They are not designed for 24 hour, continuous service. That being said, I have three in my hall which has no windows. I use two in the ceiling fixtures in the day time and one in a wall fixture at night (perhaps 14 hours day and 10 hours night). I do this deliberately to give them a daily break. This is probably at least double what they are rated for, I have not had to replace any of them in over three years.

The above is about screw in bulbs. I also have a lot of fluorescent fixtures and I replaced over 45 old, fluorescent bulbs with 39 LED replacements. I used LEDs that work either with or without the ballasts and I removed all the ballasts because they are more efficient that way. I now have more light with fewer bulbs and zero problems. Again, these have been in service for over a year and I have had zero failures. Heck, I have had zero problems even in the $20 fixtures in my garage/shop where the old fluorescents were a constant headache. And the light in that shop is just great.

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The fluorescent style, LED bulbs are the Sunco brand. I purchased them on Amazon. They were a bit expensive compared to local sources, but IMHO, worth every cent.
 
I have installed over a dozen LED bulbs in my home over the past three years and there have been zero failures. Most of them were purchased at Wal-Mart and some were name brands like GE while others weren't. Some are outdoor spot and flood lights where I replaced the incandescent bulbs that did fail after a few months. The only one of those that I have replaced was in my driveway because it was too bright and made parking after dark difficult. I needed a smaller one.

One thing you must realize about LED bulbs is that they DO need ventilation. The do generate heat and that heat must have a way to escape. If it doesn't then the temperature inside the bulb just goes up and up and that is a formula for failure. You do not need to take extraordinary measures, but you can not put an LED bulb in a fixture where there is no ventilation. And if you are in a hot climate with no AC, you may need to have better ventilation than most. But Tennessee should not be all that bad.

Another thing to understand is that most of them are rated for only a few hours of use each day, perhaps 4 to 8 or 8 depending on brand and model. They are not designed for 24 hour, continuous service. That being said, I have three in my hall which has no windows. I use two in the ceiling fixtures in the day time and one in a wall fixture at night (perhaps 14 hours day and 10 hours night). I do this deliberately to give them a daily break. This is probably at least double what they are rated for, I have not had to replace any of them in over three years.

The above is about screw in bulbs. I also have a lot of fluorescent fixtures and I replaced over 45 old, fluorescent bulbs with 39 LED replacements. I used LEDs that work either with or without the ballasts and I removed all the ballasts because they are more efficient that way. I now have more light with fewer bulbs and zero problems. Again, these have been in service for over a year and I have had zero failures. Heck, I have had zero problems even in the $20 fixtures in my garage/shop where the old fluorescents were a constant headache. And the light in that shop is just great.

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The fluorescent style, LED bulbs are the Sunco brand. I purchased them on Amazon. They were a bit expensive compared to local sources, but IMHO, worth every cent.

So bright you need to wear sun glasses?

Tom
 
We use them in school projects. The district now buys them and supplies to Contractor to install. Maintenance folks figure on about 5% failure rate, order accordingly, and get refunds for the non-working units. These are 2x4 lay-in fixtures.
I've started installing LED strip lights any time a fluorescent goes bad. Man, what an improvement, not had a failure yet in the few I have installed.
 
I did NOT look for the lowest price. Do you think that just may have had something to do with my low failure rate? Frankly, IMHO your school district is practicing false economy.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit strange that on a board where people go nuts about posts that talk about Chinese machines that cost many thousands of dollars and that are being used in professional, money making businesses day by day; those same people will try to save a few dollars by getting their lighting from places like Costco. Save $2 per bulb and pay $50 or $100 for the labor to replace each early failure. The break even point seems to be somewhere around a 2% failure rate, not 5%. It's the labor involved that kills you, not the refunds for the bad bulbs. Duhhhhhhhhh!

The sun glasses in my photo were a way of expressing the difference between the old, fluorescent tubes and the new LEDs. It was literally night and day. Not just a little bit brighter, but WOW!



We use them in school projects. The district now buys them and supplies to Contractor to install. Maintenance folks figure on about 5% failure rate, order accordingly, and get refunds for the non-working units. These are 2x4 lay-in fixtures.
I've started installing LED strip lights any time a fluorescent goes bad. Man, what an improvement, not had a failure yet in the few I have installed.
 
After reading all the hype about LED lamps I purchased about 20, maybe 6-9 months ago. 3 or 4 different brands and styles and wattage's. I was expecting long life from them but that doesn't seem to be true. So far I've had 6 fail.

Whenever a led fails or burns out it has always been my fault.

In your case it is led's built onto a circuit board with components. Either a quality control problem or design problem. I attribute the problems to foreign countries learning how to do things.

If I could get 8 foot long led replacement tube for my existing fluorescents I would try them out.
 
I had similar short-lifespan issues with CFL bulbs when they started rolling out. There were lots of brand names, most with no track record, and the first 3 or 4 sets of CFL bulbs I bought all had at least one bulb die pretty quickly. What was especially annoying is that CFL bulbs have color temperatures all over the map, so when I replaced a bulb I generally had to replace all the related bulbs to avoid weird lighting. So, definitely was not saving any money on CFL versus incandescents. Finally, I gave in and bought bulbs from recognized names, at at least 3X the price, and they lasted.

It's true that LEDs can overheat, but I've been running some dimmable LED R20's in unventilated "eyeball" recessed fixtures and they've held up very well.
 
A few LED 8 footers in place here. 48 of them.
24/7/365 on...for a year, some lighter duty for the past 4 years.
Mostly low dollar e-yuck buys. A handful from Amazon and higher priced. Not a single failure.
These do have room to pass off the heat.
Also have them as machine flood lamps and outdoor lighting with no failures but these guys have some serious heat sinks on the back side.

I wonder if the more enclosed space like a flood lamp fixture is causing the low life.
They come in sizes. Are you pushing for max light output?

Also a handful of 4 footers but I will be buying 160 of these bulbs soon so any feedback is welcome.
In the front room experiment I bought high price, low price, cheap junk. Not much different.
Color temp and cover style yes different but I've sorted that out.

Over the old florescent there is a power bill difference along with the no disposal cost and record keeping needed for Uncle Sam.
If you have not experienced this with florescence wait until they walk in the building and ask "What do you do with your burned out lights and please show us the paperwork". Hazardous waste.
Graingers will sell you an empty box you can use to deal with such and you then have a paper trail.

Not the same light or coverage as 360 degree bulbs but I'm sort of sold on them now and I was so dead set against them at first.
Bob
 
I did NOT look for the lowest price. Do you think that just may have had something to do with my low failure rate? Frankly, IMHO your school district is practicing false economy.
Oh, I have no doubt of it. Ever read the book "A confederacy of dunces"? They used to let us spec the lights. Then they got "smart".
First school we had the Owner furnished lights at, we were doing punch and one of the maintenance supervisors started giving me hell because with these lights, you have to pull the lens to check emergency function on the emergency lights. How could we spec such a thing! They have to check every emer. light in the district every month, all the manpower that was going to eat up!
Uh, Bo, I didn't spec them. Y'all did.
oh.
We've also noticed that the LEDS are not as tolerant of voltage spikes as incandescents. At least the LEDS they buy.
 
i like to use screw in light bulb Y adapter that holds 2 bulbs. when one bulb turns on it create a voltage and amperage surge that is more moderate when 2 bulbs on the same circuit and bulbs near one another.
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dont matter bulb type it just seems to make them last longer. also i had roof antenna get hit with lightning. it went to TV then to 120v circuit where black soot arc flash showed it went into 120 volt system probably to neutral and ground. none the less without surge protection a lot of electronics will get damaged by electrical surges. lightning can hit street pole and effect the whole street of houses
 
You guys are my heroes :)

My assistant's girlfriend supplies raw LED's from Chinese factories to Korea, where they go into "Made in Korea" bulbs. I won't say how much money she makes, but when I heard the number I almost fainted :eek:
 
BTW, I just learned about "corn lights". A bit pricey but maybe useful in the shop?
LED Corn Bulbs | 1000Bulbs.com
Most of them are utter garbage. It was one of the first types of utility LEDs in the US, and they left a very bitter taste in the mouth of many buyers.

However, I had a chance to get a really good bulb of this type at one point. My friend, a professional electrician who was involved in city lighting projects got one for me. It was quite expensive (around $150, IIRC), very high output lamp for outside lighting. I don't remember the details, but it replaced my sodium vapor bulb and served for a year or two till I replaced the whole fixture. I think it's still somewhere in the storage ready to be re-used.

All the lower output ones were either DOA, unusable due to ridiculous color temperatures or didn't last longer than a few months. Maybe the quality changed over the years, but I'm not going to try them again.
 
My experience with LED bulbs has been that the electronics have almost always failed long before the LEDs themselves, and I have found that the big names like Sylvania, Phillips, and Cree seem to actually live up to the hype. I have had many off brand LED bulbs, and a lot of GE in particular, fail in a matter of months. I pretty much only buy Cree if I can help it, I haven't had one fail yet. That does not cover the long fluorescent replacement bulbs, I have not tried any of those yet. And I agree, the corn cob style large form factor high bay lights seem to be pretty hit or miss.

That said, LEDs are amazing for low power, switching, or pulsing applications, not so much for high power always on applications. They are not more efficient than metal halides, or even sodium or mercury bulbs in a lot of applications. At least, not yet. They throw off a lot of heat at hight power, and heat kills them fast.

Also, the vintage style bulbs with the long filaments seem to universally be garbage, I haven't found any of those that last or even have even coloring.

LEDs are very convenient, without a lot of the drawbacks of traditional bulbs, and I still prefer them to fluorescents, but they are not a catch all for lighting, and they are not the miracle eco-solution that they like to brag about being. If someone would get off their ass and finish developing the newest types of HIR bulbs I think they would replace a lot of LEDs pretty quickly, but I don't see it happening because all incandescents are just too politically toxic.
 
Over here in the uk were everything is 240V i have found leds good, i have not had a single dead one yet. I have only been using them a few years though, gradually replacing dead CFL's.

I do agree about enclosures and such, leds by there very nature are incredibly temp sensitive and there driver circuits the same. Have long felt that using them as a bulb replacement is unwise for this reason, rather than in more purpose designed heat sinking fixtures. That said, being able to change a dead bulb makes a lot more environmental sense than having to replace a whole fixture.

Spose in the intrest of honesty, at one customer with circa 40+ high suspended ceiling modules, they did have one die a few months after install, but its been a few years since and there all still going, with nothing like the light drop off you get with tubes.

Tubes ageing and loss of light is a big issue in the print industry were light and colour rendition matters greatly!
 
We use T8 HO LED replacements (8ft with R17-d sockets) in high-bay fixtures. One thing some of you might be interested to know is that some makes are not tolerant of vibration. In our plasma room, the lamps would fail within a couple of months and only light half the length (they are constructed with two 4' sections end-to-end). I wondered if perhaps the starts or other EMF from the plasma ops was somehow coupling in to the lamp drivers and causing the problem, but it turned out that a large evac blower on the roof of that room was causing the ceiling to vibrate, and a solder joint between the two 4' sections to fail. The lamps are so flimsy they 'hang' in a bit of a bow and supporting the lamps center-span with a strap solved the problem.

I've since been introduced to better designs that are much more rigid, but also much more expensive.
 








 
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