Longlevity of LED bulbs not so long

[THAIPHUKET]

Have you noticed a difference in brand when it comes to quality?

I m a light freak. 6x13 W for small room .

 

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[Crossy]

With that much light Trinity House may be able to help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_House 

 

Seriously, the cheap (Chinese) units seem to be less reliable than the bigger names (Lamptan seem to be our favourite, YMMV).

 

Find a brand that suits you, add some extra surge protection if you have a lot of lightning.

 

[mahjongguy]

I have a range of brands and wattages of LEDS in the house and I am satisfied with them. But, there are five bulbs outside and none of them are long lasting. Sure, they're on for twelve hours a day but that's no excuse for burning out in four months. All of them are in enclosures and they all get extensive exposure to the sun. They seem to fail during the day when they're not in use, so it seems to me that they can't take the heat. 

[BritManToo]

LED bulbs you can pull apart and repair.

They are fairly simple, and the failed part is usually obvious.

Keep the broken ones, and cobble together new ones from the good parts.

[THAIPHUKET]

38 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

LED bulbs you can pull apart and repair.

They are fairly simple, and the failed part is usually obvious.

Keep the broken ones, and cobble together new ones from the good parts.

And yet they promise to last much longer than conventional bulbs.

[mahjongguy]

I don't mind getting a bad deal sometimes for 120 baht. What I don't like is climbing a ladder to change bulbs.

[tebee]

The Leds themselves are fairly reliable - the problem is they run at 1.5-3 volts DC. there is a lot of electronics to convert the 240v AC mains in the base of the bulb. Much of this has very fine wire which is susceptible to corrosion from condensation or sometimes bridging of the tracks of a circuit board fron the same source.

 

How well they parts are built and waterproofed will have a major effect on the life of any bulb used outside.

 

 

[manarak]

3 hours ago, Crossy said:

With that much light Trinity House may be able to help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_House 

 

Seriously, the cheap (Chinese) units seem to be less reliable than the bigger names (Lamptan seem to be our favourite, YMMV).

 

Find a brand that suits you, add some extra surge protection if you have a lot of lightning.

 

I can confirm that.

My cheap no-brand Chinese LED bulbs had a failure rate of about 50% within 6 months and nearly 75% after 2-3 years.

I keep a logbook about LED bulbs, I have over 55 in my condo.

So far, the branded bulbs are all ok.

[sometimewoodworker]

3 hours ago, tebee said:

The Leds themselves are fairly reliable - the problem is they run at 1.5-3 volts DC. there is a lot of electronics to convert the 240v AC mains in the base of the bulb. Much of this has very fine wire which is susceptible to corrosion from condensation or sometimes bridging of the tracks of a circuit board fron the same source.

 

How well they parts are built and waterproofed will have a major effect on the life of any bulb used outside.

 

 

Humm, mostly for the less expensive ones they use a capacitive dropper power supply and have the component count reduced to the absolute minimum, so not so much in the way of electronics. 

 

It's  more likely that the components being run close the their maximum that's causing the failures.

[Crossy]

Believe it or not, considering their much lower power consumption than conventional lamps, heat is the big killer of LEDs (and CFLs). They get nowhere near as hot, but, like all electronics, cannot stand even moderately high temperatures. Ensure good ventilation / cooling and they will give a decent life.

 

Putting a LED in a closed fitting (downlighters are most guilty) intended for a conventional lamp is a guarantee of a shorter than expected life.

 

[BritManToo]

10 hours ago, THAIPHUKET said:

And yet they promise to last much longer than conventional bulbs.

I've had two last last than a year (one was a Panasonic), I think they overheat when in 'bulb' form, one fitted in a down-lighter, one in a conventional hanging fitting. The LED lights that replaced fluorescent rings have all lasted longer, much more space so run a lot cooler.

[Toosetinmyways]

Just watched the strip down of an aircraft's reading light LED. The aluminium heat sink is as big as a fist. 95% the volume of the light.

[OneMoreFarang]

LEDBenchmark - LED Life expectancy

http://www.ledbenchmark.com/faq/life-expectancy.html

[RJRS1301]

9 hours ago, manarak said:

I can confirm that.

My cheap no-brand Chinese LED bulbs had a failure rate of about 50% within 6 months and nearly 75% after 2-3 years.

I keep a logbook about LED bulbs, I have over 55 in my condo.

So far, the branded bulbs are all ok.

Oh boy, that's one for the data collectors, keeping a log book on your light globes

[Beggar]

Didn't have a broken LED yet. But if I compare the used ones with new ones of the same type the used ones are darker.

[manarak]

9 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

Oh boy, that's one for the data collectors, keeping a log book on your light globes

it's because I got 55 of them... when the condo was built, even cheap ones cost 150 baht each, and everyone advertized "40.000 hours" or "50.000 hours" or more and the chinese ones were failing almost daily at some point.

one thing I hate is false advertizing, so I was fully planning on bringing back faulty LEDs, but so far it's all good.

[RJRS1301]

8 minutes ago, manarak said:

it's because I got 55 of them... when the condo was built, even cheap ones cost 150 baht each, and everyone advertized "40.000 hours" or "50.000 hours" or more and the chinese ones were failing almost daily at some point.

one thing I hate is false advertizing, so I was fully planning on bringing back faulty LEDs, but so far it's all good.

Must be a huge condo

 

[manarak]

Just now, RJRS1301 said:

Must be a huge condo

 

small LEDs rather... about 40W equivalent

[THAIPHUKET]

MANARAK that's just common sense. Never believed these numbers but I like the light( 2x cool+1 time warm= tungsten light temperature.

Just tried 30W cool. Wonderful bright + soft light 

 

[sometimewoodworker]

15 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

15 hours ago, manarak said:

it's because I got 55 of them... when the condo was built, even cheap ones cost 150 baht each, and everyone advertized "40.000 hours" or "50.000 hours" or more and the chinese ones were failing almost daily at some point.

one thing I hate is false advertizing, so I was fully planning on bringing back faulty LEDs, but so far it's all good.

Must be a huge condo

Probably not, I have about 70 in my living room, though most are in the drop ceiling,

[Led Lolly Yellow Lolly]

I've not read every post so I apologise for any repetition. I have a lot of experience with various brands of LED lights available in Thailand. I run a large hotel, we switched completely to LED technology.

 

Initially we purchased a shed load of Eve brand spotlight for outdoor use. 80 percent of them failed within a year. You will notice this with most brands, particularly outdoor luminaires.

All of the Philips outdoor light, and I mean 100 percent, are still going strong after three years. Sometimes you've just got to stump of the money or pay double later.

 

There's a reason these cheap LED lights are cheap. The drivers are garbage.

 

One gotcha though. No matter what brand you buy, LED lights are sensitive to nearby lightning strikes. It seems that this is presently the Achilles Heel with LED lighting. I've been losing loads of LED lights this rainy season from lighting surges. It's costing us a fortune. 

[Crossy]

1 hour ago, NilSS said:

One gotcha though. No matter what brand you buy, LED lights are sensitive to nearby lightning strikes. It seems that this is presently the Achilles Heel with LED lighting. I've been losing loads of LED lights this rainy season from lighting surges. It's costing us a fortune. 

 

I bought a bag of these chaps http://www.mynpe.com/mynpe/more.php?data=116450101007&quantity=$quan&c=$data

 

 

One placed in each and every LED light fitting, not had a lightning related LED death since. We also have a big front-end supressor.

 

Of course YMMV.

[sometimewoodworker]

47 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

I bought a bag of these chaps http://www.mynpe.com/mynpe/more.php?data=116450101007&quantity=$quan&c=$data

 

 

One placed in each and every LED light fitting, not had a lightning related LED death since. We also have a big front-end supressor.

 

Of course YMMV.

It's not too clear the quantity in one order, are they about  11 Baht each?

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, sometimewoodworker said:

It's not too clear the quantity in one order, are they about  11 Baht each?

 

Yeah, 11 Baht a pop, you can get them cheaper in quantity from AliExpress.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

10 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Yeah, 11 Baht a pop, you can get them cheaper in quantity from AliExpress.

 

You must have magic search skills ????on AliExpress as I can only find them for about the same or a bit more

[Crossy]

4 minutes ago, sometimewoodworker said:

You must have magic search skills ????on AliExpress as I can only find them for about the same or a bit more

 

I got two bags of 100, but the seller has gone AWOL (UA). Only small quantities available at present ????

 

NPE may do quantity discount.

[emptypockets]

On ‎6‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 7:34 PM, manarak said:

small LEDs rather... about 40W equivalent

So roughly 2.2KW equivalent of lighting in your condo. Do you wear a welding helmet most of the time?

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, emptypockets said:

So roughly 2.2KW equivalent of lighting in your condo. Do you wear a welding helmet most of the time?

Humm your maths maybe a little off (55x40=2,200) or perhaps you have really sensitive eyes. If they were 6W LED's it might reach to a little over 10,000 lumens, my work shop has about 80,000 lumens available and neither sunglasses or sunscreen is needed.

 

The living room has about 30,000 lumens of indirect light and about 12,000 in dimmable direct lights and a few Hue lights

 

Being able to switch in as much light as you can want or have as little as you need is really nice.

[THAIPHUKET]

How close are the cool bulbs to day light temperature?

I noticed that the 30W by? Gives a wonderful soft light!

[maxpower]

4 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

I bought a bag of these chaps http://www.mynpe.com/mynpe/more.php?data=116450101007&quantity=$quan&c=$data

 

 

One placed in each and every LED light fitting, not had a lightning related LED death since. We also have a big front-end supressor.

 

Of course YMMV.

Take care where you park metal oxide varistors because they dont always snap open circuit during failure. I mentioned this in a previous post and again now because experience with surge protection has shown how nasty these devices can be on mains voltage.

 

If you would like to provide secondary surge protection for indivdual circuits then I strongly suggest placing your MOV's inside metal enclosures.

My picture below taken recently shows a RMS 275V 6.5kA MOV that managed to torch a hole through an adjacent heat sink before tripping a 6A breaker.