LED Bulb real-world life

[EasyB]

@cetary

The Archipelago filament lamps I’ve been running for years in open fixtures have been very reliable. Their only failing was some of the filaments breaking off during house moves which isn’t a fault of the bulb. The TCP’s I’ve been using in open fixtures in my bathroom have been reliable for several years. I also purchased three Sacto lamps for a friend’s bathroom. Those are running in semi-enclosed fittings and have been reliable for over the past half year.

These LED filament style bulbs are interesting. Each filament is many LEDs (~28) in series mounted to a transparent substrate. You might think the design is gimmicky, just trying to look like an incandescent bulb, but there might be some nice advantages. Maybe better light distribution pattern and simpler electronics. Since the electronics tend to be the first failure it really could help their reliability.

[Rat_Racer]

@gravelmonkey

@xevious

Interesting. I had no idea the dimmer switches can be different enough to present compatibility problems. I’m using old dimmer switches meant for incandescent and they’re working fine. But perhaps it was a matter of getting lucky. If they didn’t function right, I’d have very likely blamed the bulbs, not even thinking the dimmer could be at fault. Thanks.

I had stayed away from 120v LED bulbs for in-house fixtures for a long time, because I absolutely could not stand the emitter tints that were offered. It seems that the LED industry finally caught up. Some of the warmer bulbs are excellent. The Philips BR30 compatible LED bulbs I’m using are rated at 2700K.

Replaced my 4x 30w halogen kitchen bulbs with LED bulbs, dimmer is old style, made an annoying buzz and dimming was not smooth

Through the course of improving the kitchen, I changed the fitting and put in more powerful LED bulbs to make the kitchen brighter, dimmer works slightly better- I assume due to the greater load from the new bulbs, but still needs replacing.

Having started the journey to investigate the correct dimmer to purchase, it appears there are two types: ‘leading edge’ (old style, for incans) and ‘trailing edge’ (more modern, has a lower electrical load threshold, so can dim LID bulbs correctly).

The only indoor incandescent bulbs I have left are my 5 kitchen recessed lights with 45W PAR30 Krypton Halogens that give a nice color, which last me about 7 years each, which I had bought a case of 12 when I installed them 14yrs ago. Now I am looking for something comparable that’s dimmable, and in high CRI.

[ryukin2000]

I bought 20 of the Luminus BR30 LED bulbs sold at Costco. had 6 of them fail on me within 2-3 years. not happy about that. they wouldn’t outright die at first just flicker on and off for 2 weeks before finally failing. replaced them with Philips. hopefully it does better.

[iamlucky13]

@EasyB

@cetary

The Archipelago filament lamps I’ve been running for years in open fixtures have been very reliable. Their only failing was some of the filaments breaking off during house moves which isn’t a fault of the bulb. The TCP’s I’ve been using in open fixtures in my bathroom have been reliable for several years. I also purchased three Sacto lamps for a friend’s bathroom. Those are running in semi-enclosed fittings and have been reliable for over the past half year.

These LED filament style bulbs are interesting. Each filament is many LEDs (~28) in series mounted to a transparent substrate. You might think the design is gimmicky, just trying to look like an incandescent bulb, but there might be some nice advantages. Maybe better light distribution pattern and simpler electronics. Since the electronics tend to be the first failure it really could help their reliability.

I’ve only got a couple filament bulbs that were free from the local utility.

The light dispersion depends on the orientation of the filaments. If they are all vertical, there won’t be much light distributed to the top and bottom. If they are at angles, the distribution can be fairly omnidirectional, but the base has a sharply defined shadow. Features of the fixture can also can more defined shadows than frosted bulbs. I put one in an outdoor light that is styled like a classical streetlamp. The frames between the individual panes of glass cast very definite shadows. Perhaps I should get a photo comparing filament style with frosted.

My conclusion is the large effective emitting surface of a frosted bulb really does help with even lighting in more ways than one.

[BlueSwordM]

The biggest limitation to LED bulbs’ lifespan is honestly the driver itself, and to an extent, the heatsink design+where the light itself is put in.

The components that usually fail the first are the large electrolytic caps, and in some rare ways, some of the MOSFETs actually die because they’re not thermally managed.

Heatsinking and placement is also a big issue.

No matter how good the driver is, if heatsinking is poor, the light will die earlier than wanted, and in an enclosed fixture, a light without enough heat dissipation and heatsink thermal mass will die quicker.

[raccoon]

I get LED bulbs from Dollar Tree.

They're warm white, and they work great, but I don't remember the brand.