Found: $1 LED light bulbs at Dollar Tree

well i just had one fail in an outdoor light.
lasted 3 months of dusk-dawn service.

Unfortunately the locations I’ve visited in the Cleveland area never have ANY led bulbs.

Never realized there is a Dollar Tree 5 miles from my house. I’ll have to check it out!

Today I needed a multi tap, non grounded AC adapter. And I knew right where to go to find one, Dollar Tree.

Non grounded wiring is obsolete here in the U.S. I never thought I would need something as rare as that, but I wanted to fork a couple of LED shop lights of the built socket. The light fixture is double insulated

I also knew where in the store to find them, in housewares. My local store is a very high volume store and my biggest gripe about it is that they don’t hire enough cashiers and personnel. When I got to the housewares section, this is what I saw :person_facepalming:

The pegboards are almost bare but there are cases of replacement goods to be hung. Looks like a buying frenzy occurred for whatever reason and I missed it.
Luckily I found my adapter at the far end of this isle and snapped another picture of this isle in the opposite direction.


To the left in the foreground is the shelf with the LED bulbs. If you look carefully you can see that there are still 2 and 3 packs of 60W LED bulbs.
BTW, I hardly ever shop online. Almost always, if something I need can be found in retail, I can get it for less there. Sometimes for a lot less.
Compare that duplex adapter at DT for a $1 vs Ebay for $3.75

Ding, Ding Winner Winner - dochomak got the 3pks.

Darn those Sunbeam 90W BR30 look cool. All I have see are the 65W LEDLife flood single packs.

But I just got home from the DT…
Got ANOTHER Flat (6 pack) of the 3 packs.

I haven’t had one fail yet. Many friends picked these up too and none reported a failure.

Snakebite; which bulb failed on ya? There are several listed here. Was there water in it?
Just Curious…

I think he said it was a CREE.

I was in the local hardware store the other day and saw this. :smiley:

18 times the price!

And then there was this 100W equivalent.

Keep an eye on Walmart, they have like a power savings month or something like that once a year, LED bulbs for 88c two years ago. I ended up buying about 40 or so. Replaced all the old LED bulbs and CFLs that I hated. Can only imagine they will be cheaper, or of better quality this year

Granted, the old LED bulbs that cost from $10-20 never died in 5 years or so. I been through about 10 so far of the walmart ones. But my old LEDs were different color temps, and I only had three of them, and I HATE CFL.

Now every single light in my house is one color temp, and I still have 11 for back ups.

There is a difference between the cheap LED bulbs and the premium ones, but not sure if 10x or more the cost is worth it.

^
Pulsar, that’s right! Why spend a lot of money now for a so called Premium bulb when in a year or two higher CRI bulbs will be cheap and common.
With hitech, my motto is “Buy cheap and upgrade often”

It looks like my Dollar Tree got their act together and restocked and tidied up the shelves is house wares. Before and after pics.

And they restocked the 3 packs of FEIT’s

But the most impressive thing was realizing that $1 LED bulbs are so ho-hum these days that my DT now stocks 4 kinds.
Look closely, on the bottom shelf, left to right. Green light single pack, FEIT 3 pack, Sunbeam single pack and LED-Life double pack!

Take your pick :slight_smile:

The Dollar Tree near me FINALLY has the $1 Sunbeam led bulbs. It would be nice to see more than one option to choose from butit’s nice to see them offering an alternative to incandescents.

I was back in my Dollar Tree tonight and found that they now carry 7 different choices of LED bulbs
Remember now, EVERYTHING in the store sells for $1

Left to Right in the picture
2 pack of LED Life 800 Lumen bulbs
1 pack of GreenLite 800 Lumen
1 pack GE 280 Lumen “Designer” bulb
3 pack of FEIT 800 Lumen bulbs
1 pack of Sylvania 250 Lumen clear dome bulb
1 pack of Sunbeam 1600 Lumen bulb
1 pack of Sunbeam 800 Lumen bulb
In the forground, resting against my knee is an empty tray of a 650 Lumen BR30 flood light.

What the shelf looked like while I was there.

It looks like they are getting to restock the shelves, here are cases of the FEIT 3 packs!

dchomak, I hate you. Since this thread and others about DollarTree, General, etc have started, I’ve yet to find the first LED bulb OF ANY TYPE in my local store…EVER !!

Guess it’s just an up-North thing.

Nawwww….Don’t really hate you…lol just my local store…

I found the sunbeam 60w equivalent a while back and bought 7 then went back for 7 more. Still haven’t seen any of the others.

@ dchomak

My Dollar Tree put in those same linoleum tiles a month or two ago.

Like Streamer, I haven’t seen any LED bulbs at my local store. :frowning:

Streamer you being from Texas, maybe nothing can be done at this time.

BUT, xCentrino you’re in California!
Maybe it’s time to get proactive. Park yourself outside this address and next time there’s a shipment………………………

Well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination :wink:

I’m jealous of some of y’alls DT bulb selection :slight_smile:

Here in Jamestown NY I finally saw the 1-pack of sunbeam 9W/800lm/3000k (60W equiv.) green packaged bulb (non-dimmable, can be used in an enclosed fixture) today - so I picked up 1 to try out. I’m surprised at how lightweight the bulb is, at least compared to my 2-3 year old LED bulbs (also 9W) made by “Brighton Professional” (sold by Staples at the time) and some 1 yr old 9W bulbs that I received for free from the utility company branded “Simply conserve” - made (or imported?) by AM Conservation group out of Charleston, SC. Both bulbs are significantly heaver. Just threw the “simply conserve” bulb on the scale and it weighs 114g, and the sunbeam bulb (dollar tree) only weighs 32g!!! It feels like a toy. It makes me wonder about the heatsinking and components inside. It claims to be UL listed and RoHS compliant.

I’ll probably put it in a high use fixture and see how it does over the next couple years. I guess time will tell. I’ll be on the lookout for 2 and 3 packs of higher quality LED bulbs, and probably even hit a couple DT stores when I travel. I imagine many of the 2 and 3 packs are a mix of subsidized bulbs by local power companies and closeouts/leftovers from big box stores, so highly regional.

I still have not had or heard of the 3pk Feit bulbs failing. I have them almost everywhere now and ditched the old unreliable Cree.

I only have one of the Sunbeam 65W equivalent floods and am tempted to use outside as a test. See how long it survives if its acceptable brightness.

My last and only old style Cree bulb failed yesterday. It was the $20+ 3-Way 30-60-100W with the large Fins. Checked online at the orange store and these darn things are still $20…
Got it apart without breaking glass but broke 3 plastic retaining clips. Found the boost driver was still good and the LED array failed. Had another single mode 18W in working condition and took that one apart the same way. Tested it with the 3 way driver and Joy, Joy. Back in business. Glued it back together and good to go.

This is the 3rd failure of this Lamp. First 2 times it was still stocked and had replacements done “creatively”. I guess this is the Last time it will get revived or replaced.
It is a stained glass pedestal, I like the lamp and have matching table lamp. want to keep it.
Will start looking into other options, maybe a dimmer control in this light? Its a single socket, 3 way. Plugs into a switched wall socket by the entry door but the switch on the light is used more often for on/off changing brightness. Suggestions? Is there a variable socket out there? No more $20 bulbs…

The online prices for the 3-way bulbs have dropped to half what you paid but they are still going to be way more expensive since it is 3 bulbs in one. A single bulb just requires a driver and the LEDs so is cheap to make but a 3 way bulb has 3 separate sets of LEDs and the wiring to go with it.

I’m surprised a California dweller hasn’t discovered that the 99-cent-only store (a large southwestern chain of “dollar” stores) is now stocking LED bulbs. I’m not a fan of the A19 bulb with the E27 base because almost all of them are designed with a circular plate with the LEDs mounted on the plate. This one looks like it uses an IC driver in the center of the plate.
Space limits the number of LEDs so most of these bulbs were rated 3W or 5W which didn’t give off enough light for my uses. I bought a couple of them several years ago for $2 each but finally gave them away and replaced them with “corn bulbs” bought online from China. There is also a great difference in the type of LED. They go from SMD 2835, 5050, 5630, and 5730 which refer to the dimensions of the chip. It also goes from dimmest to brightest and least efficient to most efficient in the same order. A corn bulb is shaped like an ear of corn with the LEDs around a cylinder and at the top so you get about 270 degree coverage and can use a clear envelope for the bulb for maximum useful light. This 10W bulb is $2.25 with free shipping. Zero failures for these lights in 3 years.