Found: $1 LED light bulbs at Dollar Tree

beam0,
Would you be willing to sacrifice one of the GreenLite 800 Lumen bulbs by cutting the dome off with a hack saw?
I am assuming that it also is made of vinyl and it would be nice to see how it is constructed. If not, I will be passing thru PA in a week or so and can try to find some at a DT out there. One of the things I am interested in finding out is if the bulb is made to sell for $1, or there is a PA subsidy behind the price.

You can test flicker by looking at it closely with a camera and looking at the image on the screen of the camera. If you see stripes then it flickers. The pattern of the stripe shows the pattern of the flicker. The darkest parts of the stripes shows the brightness of the lamp at its dimmest, and the brightest parts of the stripes show the lamp at its brightest. You can look at the difference between the brightest and dimmest to see how bad the flicker is. Flicker gives you headaches and eyeaches.

You can take a picture on the camera and post it here.

Another way to test it is to either shake the lamp or shake an object in front of the lamp and see if it flickers in your POV (persistence of vision). Like when you shake an LED christmas light you see a dotted/dashed line for a moment. (LED christmas lights flicker very baadly because they are usually not fully rectified nor are they smoothed. They are just LEDs directly on the mains with resistors. So they only work on half of the mains cycle. That means they are illuminated for less than 50% of the time.) If you shake an incandescent lamp, or an LED lamp on smooth DC (like from a battery) you will see a straight smooth line in your POV.

Yes, I also just saw these .99 cents at my local Lowes store tonight.
750 Lumen
3000k

I suppose I could cut one open, I’ll try to do it over the weekend.

Yeah, not sure how they could sell these for $1. They may be subsidized, but then again I just saw 60w equiv also at Lowe’s tonight for .99 cents.

I like the 3000k Lowe’s bulbs better than the 2700k DT & WM bulbs, its a bit noticeable difference, a little cooler but not too cold, nice and white color. Being the same price I’ll get the Lowe’s ones.

Also the Lowe’s 750 lumen seem a bit brighter than the DT 800 Lumen. (But that may be because of their slightly cooler tint)

Strange that some Dollar Tree stores would sell the Greenlight 450 lumen, some the Globe 800 lumen, some a Globe 450 lumen, and some (like any around me) seem to sell none.

Here’s a Globe 450 lumen torn down. LED structure is completely different from the Greenlight posted here.

It’s too bad none of these are dimmable. I need ~800+ lumen dimmable.
For example, the Utilitech Pro item 740062 (800 lumen, 18000 hours, 3000K) is dimmable, but is $5 each here.

Does anyone know who makes any of these DT bulbs?
The Utiltech bulbs are made by Feit. There are a few reports at saferproducts.gov of Feit bulbs burning, and although they might be because of faulty lamps, the mfgr doesn’t say. There are also several reports of Cree bulbs burning, but the mfgr always says it’s from faulty lamp sockets (shorting).

I just found these 60W equivalent LED bulbs at my local Dollar Tree.

De-domed :stuck_out_tongue:

Notice the “reflector” for better dispersion.

De-domed without the relector, this bulb gives off a lot of light, although is harsh with sharp shadows

Rated at 810 lumens, this is a nice bulb, especially for the money.
I don’t actually think I can expect 22.8 years out of this bulb. Like other recent bulbs there is very little heat sinking.

I JUST found these, a couple days ago. Picked up two to tear down. The internals of the “60W” one I got are much different. No “light baffle”, for one thing.
I found a YT video of a guy that did a total destruction, and the description he has matched my board after I popped the dome, so I didn’t tear it down any further.
I measured 152V out of the power supply. The main LED board is aluminum with 16 smallish SMD LEDs in series, a BP5131D constant current device, and a 10 ohm SMD resistor. The specs for the BP5131D indicate that w/ the SMD resistor, the current should be at 60 mA. My math may be off, but I calculate that as being about 3.5W, not the 9W from the outside package, or the 16W stamped on the base. I’m nervous around high voltage, or I’d pull it further and test the current.
I played w/ the bulb, comparing it to others, seeing how warm it got, etc. I’m pleasantly surprised with the results, for a $1 LED bulb.
I’ll go back maybe tomorrow to see if they have any left. If they do, they won’t when I leave.

It sounds like you calculated that 60mA output from the specs supplied by the supplier of the BP5131D.
Watts equals Voltage times Current, so 152V x .060A = 9.1W :slight_smile:

Yeah, it hit me in the shower… you’d think I’d never calculated before. :weary: My well-meant but incomplete calculations. Still, that means almost 2/3’s of the power is wasted as heat in current control. And, if I were brave enough (I’m not), I could dismantle my 2nd bulb, use just the light ring, and mount the two back-to-back and get a lot more light — :sunglasses: , and only waste 25% of the power as heat in the current control. It’s been too long since I’ve had to go figure.

No LED bulbs here in west Michigan Dollar Trees and we go there about once a week. They still sell incandescent, which I thought was made illegal to manufacture, in the US anyway. Ours usually has a good selection of button batteries include CR2032, 2025, and LR44.

Bigclive on Youtube reviewed 1 or 2 dollar bulbs (from Poundland) and said they were ok. But I always worry about the supporting electronics getting heat build up and going poof. The LED emitter usually isn’t a problem, the supporting electronics is.

I ordered some LED bulbs from China and after 4 years they are still going strong. But my Philips Home Depot LED lights died after a year. Maybe I got lucky?

I bought some on sale here. I got them 7.50 each dollars each cheapest i could find. These LEDs are really energy efficient per watt better then cheaper brands.

Meanwhile, here, I can never catch (or seldom catch) the CR2032, 2025, or LR44’s… not that I have much that uses those still — just some dog lights, and since we fenced in the back yard, I’m not as concerned about dogs in the dark. Except for our 2-y.o. german shepphard mix - who seems to be afraid of the dark, and will only wander out of the porch light if he’s wearing a little white LED clip light facing the ground. Go figure.

Anyway… I picked up 5 more and will see how brave I get. In my casual testing, I was surprised at how cool the bulb stayed, but I also am running it base down in a ventilated can, for limited periods of time. I will replace the overhead ceiling fixture CFL bulbs with these, to get warmer, faster, and brighter lighting.

I revisited my calculations and adding both sides of the circuit make the numbers balance nicely ( :person_facepalming: ). Strange markings… the base gives “120v @ 135mA” (16.2W), the package reads 9W, and LEDs seem to use 3.5W. Apparantly, all of them may be correct. CAN the bridge rectifier & filtering be comsuming another 5 watts? I don’t remember THAT much electronics theory.
Disclaimer… I did NOT measure the current used at the AC side… Un-natural fear of shocking myself, I guess. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, I’ve done it so often.

I plan on sacrificing 2 or 3 bulbs to a jury-rigged series setup to see exactly how far I can push things (like, my luck)…

  1. desolder the light disks, clipper the V+ out to the light disk through my DVM, complete the circuit, measure the current in use
  2. solder a take-off point to “the other side” of the LED string on the second light disk (LS2), clipper the near side of LS2 and insert it in series with the first string (LS1). Wear sunglasses. Measure current in use.
  3. solder a take-off point just aft of the 8th diode on LS3, insert that 1/2 of LS3 in series with the first two. Add SPF50 just in case. Raise the window blinds to let excess photons pass in a less impeded fashion. Measure the current.
  4. take the whole thing apart and consider my blessings at not having electrocuted anything (or one), pray for better sense. Probably sit in the dark quivering with adrenaline for 30 minutes, thinking of ways to use my new found knowledge to conquer the world — or lament that I now have to solder everything back together so I can at least get some working bulbs out if it again.

Re: the 4 y.o. bulbs from China… possibly over-designed because they weren’t sure how well things would go… versus the newer bulbs, which were probably also made in China, but after the accountants worked out exactly how many would expire due to cheaper design, through cost shaving, factory-floor components, and the like. With LEDs, I wouldn’t worry about tearing things down… CFLs? Heck, even when I was younger and immortal, I didn’t want mercury and glass shards near my hands and eyes… I disassembled a base of a CFL once. Nothing usable in it, by the time I got there.

I stopped by DT today to get some chips. That would be potato chips, NOT computer chips.
(anybody old enough to know who said that?)

Anyway, I looked to see if DT still had LED bulbs for $1 and they do. Here is their newest stock, FEIT Electric. Some here say they are pretty good. I bought one and will do a tear down and have a look see.

Very attractive package!

In the background is a whole pallets worth of them.

Darn, was out shopping today and forgot the Dolla Tree.

I woulda forgot too, but I have a sore throat.
The doctor told me salt will sooth it. Seems to me the BEST way to get salt is on a chip!

Whoa! That IS a great package… FEIT is supposed to be good. IIRC, FIET and CREE just tried to sue each other, and wound up trading patents or intellectual property or something like that.

I just stopped by DT today to return a faulty bulb and pick up a new one… so, I’ve got 6 of the earlier packaging - none of the nicer, newer FEIT bulbs here. I’ve popped the tops off two so far, and the board designs are “similar”, but different.

Both use current limiting chips, but different chips (BP5131D and RM9003T). I can find English spec sheets for the BP5131D, and can calc the current to 60 mA. I can only guess at the specs for the RM device and guess 110mA. Both have about 150v delivered to the LED boards. The constant current circuits are only dropping 11.3v and 12.5v. The voltage across the 16 SMD chips is 141v and 138v, so these are NOT 3.6v chips like I thought. I haven’t picked the voltage directly off the SMDs, but they calc out to about 8.8v and 8.6 volts each.

Efficiency from the DC-side of the circuit should be 92%, which makes me pretty happy.

I wish DT would carry the flood / spot lights in LED. That would make me even more happy.

I like your way of thinking my friend. :+1:

:wink:

How bout 3 LED light bulbs for a Dolla?

Actually remembered to go today. Local Dolla Tree has 3pk of the Feit Electric 60W equivalent WW, Actually NW to my eye or not yellow WW. From the outside the look the same as previous Feit bulbs. Measure out to 8.1W on my P3 Kill-A-Watt meter. Some pics…






WOW!!!
That’s 33 cents a piece. That beats even the HD deal of $10.03 for a pack of 24. But 8 - 3 packs for a buck a piece and you only have to spend $8 to get the 24. AND the FEIT bulbs are probably better than the EcoSmart bulbs that Home Depot sells.
Bravo.