Well, 5 weeks later, half of my Sylvania PAR20 8 watt bulbs arrived (the 36 degree ones). I never got an answer to any of my emails to them. No telling when/if the others will arrive. They shipped the bulbs in 5 separate 6-bulb packages… they could have just taped the boxes together (called “overpacking”) and it would have cost them around half.
The replacement bulbs are a bit different than the originals. The old ones used a single Citizen multi-emitter array under a TIR optic. The new ones appear to have 5 separate LEDs under a TIR optic. They are rated a 450 lumens. They appear to start out around 460 lumens and fall off to 435 lumens after heating to 60 degrees C. 435 lumens appears to be within measurement error tolerances.
No. The Ecosmart/Definity bulbs were sent back at LSG’s expense.
LSG says to return the Sylvania bulbs to them at their expense. Sylvania said to return them to them at my expense… Nobody’s gettin’ nuthin’ ’till I get everything. They also sent me one RMA form.
Another difference is the old Sylvania bulbs had “Sylvania” cast into the heatsink. The new ones only have Sylvania on a label. It looks like maybe LSG had to build them specially just for the recall. I don’t think that Sylvania still sells that model.
I went to install the new Sylvania bulbs in one of my bathrooms (9 bulbs). They didn’t fit in the fixtures. They would not screw in enough to engage the power contacts because the heatsink touched the reflectors in the fixture. The old bulbs curved inwards toward the base. The new ones start at the base and curve outwards towards the LEDs.
Luckily as part of the replacement bulbs, were 9 Ecosmart bulbs that fit just fine. They were 350 lumen bulbs and the Sylvanias were 450 lumen bulbs.
Well, here it is the end of September, and I FINALLY got all my replacement bulbs in (this party started in March).
The last ones were some PAR20’s from Sylvania. I cost be almost $50 to send them back 53 bulbs. LSG paid for the return shipping on their bulbs and the EcoSmart (Home Depot) ones. At least Sylvania acknowledged receiving the bulbs and verifying that they were valid “flaming bulbs of horrible death”.