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The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy
HughPickens.com writes: Markus Krajewski reports that today, with many countries phasing out incandescent lighting in favor of more-efficient and pricier LEDs, it's worth revisiting the history of the Phoebus cartel — not simply as a quirky anecdote from the annals of technology, but as a cautionary tale about the strange and unexpected pitfalls that can arise when a new technology vanquishes an old one. Prior to the Phoebus cartel's formation in 1924, household light bulbs typically burned for a total of 1,500 to 2,500 hours; cartel members agreed to shorten that life span to a standard 1,000 hours.
Each factory regularly sent lightbulb samples to the cartel's central laboratory in Switzerland for verification. If any factory submitted bulbs lasting longer or shorter than the regulated life span for its type, the factory was obliged to pay a fine. Though long gone, the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today because it reduced competition in the light bulb industry for almost twenty years, and has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs. Will history repeat itself as the lighting industry is now going through its most tumultuous period of technological change since the invention of the incandescent bulb?
"Consumers are expected to pay more money for bulbs that are up to 10 times as efficient and that are touted to last a fantastically long time—up to 50,000 hours in the case of LED lights. In normal usage, these lamps will last so long that their owners will probably sell the house they're in before having to change the bulbs," writes Krajewski. "Whether or not these pricier bulbs will actually last that long is still an open question, and not one that the average consumer is likely to investigate." There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes are reached. "Such incidents may well have resulted from nothing more sinister than careless manufacturing. But there is no denying that these far more technologically sophisticated products offer tempting opportunities for the inclusion of purposefully engineered life-shortening defects.""
Each factory regularly sent lightbulb samples to the cartel's central laboratory in Switzerland for verification. If any factory submitted bulbs lasting longer or shorter than the regulated life span for its type, the factory was obliged to pay a fine. Though long gone, the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today because it reduced competition in the light bulb industry for almost twenty years, and has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs. Will history repeat itself as the lighting industry is now going through its most tumultuous period of technological change since the invention of the incandescent bulb?
"Consumers are expected to pay more money for bulbs that are up to 10 times as efficient and that are touted to last a fantastically long time—up to 50,000 hours in the case of LED lights. In normal usage, these lamps will last so long that their owners will probably sell the house they're in before having to change the bulbs," writes Krajewski. "Whether or not these pricier bulbs will actually last that long is still an open question, and not one that the average consumer is likely to investigate." There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes are reached. "Such incidents may well have resulted from nothing more sinister than careless manufacturing. But there is no denying that these far more technologically sophisticated products offer tempting opportunities for the inclusion of purposefully engineered life-shortening defects.""
the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today because it reduced competition in the light bulb industry
I see what you did there!
I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last as long as they are sposed to.
Of course they still save money in power costs
the CFL/LEDs last forever... but most don't operate off of 120/240 volts. So there are transformers in the base that ramp the voltage up. The transformers do NOT last 50k hours. That's what burns out.
I've tried 3 brands.
1. One cheap generic (long center square stack with LEDs), this model failed quickly and had poor light.
2. Discount sale LED bulb at Home Depot, with a soft rubber like coating on the exterior. Poor non-uniform light, returned.
3. 3 pack of LED bulbs from Costco. 60 watt replacement. These bulbs have about 50% more lumens than the CFLs. I've had one failure out of about 20+ bulbs. The light is in fact brighter and more uniform than even my incandescent bulbs. At $9.99 for 3 when on sale at Costco. I've decided that ALL my bulbs will be replaced by these LEDs.
(Oh and the one failed bulb was replaced by the the manufacturer.)
moved 4 years ago and bought a bunch of the old dino lightbulbs mostly because i have dimmers everywhere. used to be they burned out every few months, but i'm going on 4 years now with most of mine. granted there is no one home during the day and my place gets lots of light and i try to keep the lights off as long as i can
i'll go CFL/LED once my ancient bulbs burn out and i have to replace them.
Now I'm wondering how much of the content of Gravity's Rainbow that I had written off as fiction is actual fact.
So at the end of this whole pointless post you get to your thesis: "there is no denying that these far more technologically sophisticated products offer tempting opportunities for the inclusion of purposefully engineered life-shortening defects."
Thefuck? Cheap shit, made in countries with little to no regard to quality standards, is going to break down faster than you want it to. Not faster than it should, just faster than you want it to. Buy your bulbs from someone who knows what ISO means and you might have better luck. There is no conspiracy here, fluorescent bulbs have been used for decades in the commercial lighting business, and LEDs have been used for over a decade, with no ill effect. Pay what it's worth for a decent lamp and you will get the appropriate longevity. Pay .99 for a sealed fluorescent coil, electronic balllast, and enclosure or 3.99 for a 10W power supply, LED array, heatsink, and enclosure and you will get shitty performance.
At 50,000 rated hours, almost no light in my house should burn out in my lifetime. Yet, my experience with CFLs is that they don't last nearly as long as the advertised life. So the issue becomes a question of whether we can trust the numbers that the manufacturers put out.
Does anyone have a link to a reputable 3rd party investigating the true lifespan of CFL vs LED? By brand? By usage pattern? I'd invest in the bulbs if I were reasonable sure that I would get my money's worth.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I want a required "Good till" date printed on them, that guarantees they last at least X days, just like soda.
Yeah, most of them will last a lot longer than the printed date, because chances are you won't buy them and install them on the day they make them.
But still, if a curly bulb is supposed to last 5 years, and it dies one year after you install it, there should be an easy way to get a refund.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
NOT in my house and NOT with the expected life expectancy listed on the packing! Of course, due to power fluctuations (we still have a 100A feed vs 200A and overhead wires), we constantly have bulbs burning out. Yes, major portions of the house wiring have been redone.
If they had surge protection in the bulbs, they would probably last a lot longer and I would get my money's worth due to the cost vs power savings (7W equivalent to 75W incandescent). My kids leave lights on all day...so it makes a big difference over time.
We just put in a "sunlight" white LED bulb in the kitchen to replace a CFL. Holy crap is that bright yet energy efficient!
Get a LED headlamp and only light up the area of the room that you are looking at.
You'll only need 3 or 4 watts that way.
So, the "return" process is iffy. I didn't have my receipt when one died and I took it back to Lowe's for an exchange of the same model (Phillips).. they said they couldn't be sure it was under warranty, I told them it was supposed to last 10 years, and they had only been selling them for a few months. They begrudgingly swapped it out.
Anyway, the other 2 bulbs, I decided to pull them apart. I dug out the silicone potting, and found the failure was in a large capacitor, visibly bulging. I haven't had time to replace the bit - but I'm pretty sure that's all that blew on it. Tested the individual LEDs and they are fine.
So both failures were due to purchasing the cheapest possible components, specifically a "largish" (like 0.3uF 200v) capacitor. My guess is that there was a larger cap that would handle the load, but they needed to reduce the size. Initiating the failure was probably one or more line spikes.
meh
I've bought about a half-dozen of the Costco bulbs and so far no problems. You're right, they are bright, almost too bright!
The ones I've used the most have been replacements for the typical 65 watt recessed can lights. I have a mix of Philips Halogena 45 watt (reduced power halogen, "same" output as a 65 watt), normal incandescent and CFL. The Costco LEDs are by far brighter than any of the others, in some cases they seem almost too bright.
They all seem to have decent dimming performance, too, although I mostly use a dimmer on my bedside light. Not super linear in dimming, but acceptable for the most part.
Nobody would have profited from longer lasting lightbulbs.
In 1000 hours, a 100W lightbulb costs an order of magnitude more electricity than the puchase price. You can easily increase the lifetime of such a bulb to 10k hours, simply be reducing the operation temperature by 20% or so.
Of course, this halves lumens/W, to to get the same brightness, you need 200W of power - which means you pay twice as much over those 10k hours as if you have bought 10 100W bulbs to last that time.
High power lamps, for example in flashlight, used to be specified to operation times below 100h, because this allowed them to almost double the battery runtime...
While this may be an intellectually interesting story, I hardly think we need to consider a 100 year old defunct cartel. I'm far more worried about modern cartels, consider those in the title and there are many other besides - investment banks, teacher federations, De Beers... We need only glance outside our own personal bubbles to recognize massive manipulation starting with advantageous legislation perpetuating inefficient business models and see consumers are exploited from all directions by cartels.
I replaced 50x GU10 50W bulbs for 3W LED equivalents (no longer available) that were more expensive (slightly warmer light). Here in Scotland, energy prices are more than the USA - so the initial investment of 50 bulbs cost 20x as much as the GU10's burt due to the lower wattage (3W vs 50W) would pay back in 2 years (which they have) from lower overall electricity prices.
However, we've had a lot of failures. So far over 10% of the 50 have failed - usually blowing the main house fuse when they went. So the porblem at the moment is there is no way to assess the failure rate for LED household bulbs. This is having quite an impact on the payback period for the bulbs. .
I completely agree about the CFLs.
I've had numerous bulbs which seemed to last only a short period of time before they died. Which means they actually wiped out the cost savings, and ended up costing me more in the long run.
So much so that I stopped buying them for a while.
I've also found a huge variance across manufacturers, both in terms of longevity and color warmth.
I've got some Ikea CFLs in some lamps which have lasted an amazing amount of time. But I've seen some from Philips and GE which really only lasted a few months. I've also had several bulbs out of the same package which produce a visibly different color spectrum.
And, dimmable CFLs? A complete joke. We bought some so go into a dimmable light fixture, and the package said compatible with existing dimmers and doesn't require a special one. In less than a month all of the bulbs had burned out. They were a complete waste of money.
I've long believed the claims by some makers of CFLs are pretty bogus. And it seems that the European made stuff are of much better quality than things like Philips and GE. My guess is because they've been using them longer.
I've seen way too many CFLs burn out after a short period of time to believe you always get the savings claimed.
And I haven't been willing to replace things with LEDs, because proportionally they're even more expensive. The five flood lights in my kitchen would take around $100 to replace with LEDs. And you'd need to use a lot of electricity to recoup that cost, especially since they're not lights we use all the time.
You know, that's sinister enough .. because companies increasingly make poorly made stuff we're supposed to accept is just as good as previous versions.
And, increasingly, that's not even remotely true.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Look out for LED's because in the past some guys made the incandescent light bulbs burn shorter!
Bad LED!
We should all continue to use the incandescent light bulbs!!
The Department of Energy had a pretty rigorous test regimen set up for testing LED bulbs.
http://www.lightingprize.org/6...
What is needed is a good (and trustworthy) rating agency to test and qualify the bulbs.
But, of course, everybody wants to buy the cheapest ones, not ones tested to long lifetime.
For what it's worth, I have about 60 LED bulbs in my house, from about fifteen maufacturers. So far, four have failed.
Further - no viable light bulb replacements will work with dimmer switches (Which my house has many).
That was true five years ago-- these days it seems all of then are rated to work with dimmers . I have some Philips LED bulbs on a dimmer in the dining room-- they work fine.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
CFLs, of all brands, have not lasted nearly as long as advertised at my house. I don't think I've had any last more than a year. However, the power at my house is terrible -- lights flicker and dim several times a day, and I completely lose power several times a year. All the computers are on UPSes, but it would be prohibitive to put all the lights on one. Old fashioned, incandescent light bulbs seem much more robust than at least CFLs, and I'm not too excited to test LEDs. So, do any of these lab tests which promise CFLs and LED that last for year test with real-world power sources?
"If any factory submitted bulbs lasting longer or shorter than the regulated life span for its type, the factory was obliged to pay a fine."
Comments have mentioned the electronics built into the CFL and LED bulbs.
All kinds of electronics these days - TVs, DVD players, etc. - break down because of fairly minor electrical surges. These probably did not matter several years ago, when power supplies were very well built. Now, everything's disposable.
Surge protection at the electrical panel now make real economic sense - particularly if you haven't spent the money yet for all those surge-protecting power bars around the house.
Because the Invisible Hand has worked so well over all those years! It's even mightier than the FSM.
LEDs, while they are very bright for the energy they use, throw off fantastic amounts of heat given their overall power consumption. This is why large LEDs like floodlights actually look like radiators with their backing fins. Without them LED's would self destruct in minutes. This is relevant in a high hat or recessed lamp. Too much heat build up and they blow.
CFL's don't generate much heat but their transformers do. And it's the transformers that usually dies before the CFL tube. Again, a poorly made or mounted fixture will collect more heat and kill the bulb that much faster, maybe even start a fire.
I see what you did there too
The warehouse I work in replaced old bulbs for LED, about 30 of them. They had to be all replaced within a few months because of defects. They would keep going out and needing to be fixed. I'm just glad I stocked up on old bulbs before government banned them. If they were really the money saver people say they are, the government would not have to ban them, people would want to switch.
LEDs are only expensive if your electricity is free. If you replace a 100w bulb with a 20w replacement and burn it 4 hours/day, you'll save 117 kWh/year. Or $14/year at $.12/kWh. If you get just 6000 hours of life from it, it will last about 4 years and will have saved you about $60 over that time.
LEDs are FAR FAR more sensitive to bad manufacturing tolerances which is why cheaper, relatively speaking, units are such shit. On the other hand a quality unit from Cree is probably going to last as long as it should. I would also stay away from dim-able bulbs since they require more circuitry. Same with dim-able CFLs. The transformers are fragile enough as it is.
I use CFLs for my outside porch lights. In rainy Florida the water doesn't bother them. I have old fixtures with no globe, just the bare bulb pointing down. A wet incandescent will blow immediately when wet, CFLs last for years. I also use one in my drop light, bump a hot incandescent and it will blow, a CFL wont.
While still a cartel that should have been broken up much earlier, with incandescents it's true that out of low cost, efficiency, and long life, you get to choose two. "Long life" (now pretty much outlawed in the USA) and especially "rough service" bulbs (which are sold through a loophole) use a thicker filament. A thicker filament remains intact longer, but is less efficient. The "low cost" part comes in with the halogen bulb. Its design rejuvenates the filament so that it lasts longer, allowing for a thinner filament, but it costs more to manufacture.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Incandescent bulbs are designed to be always on. When you turn them on is when they blow out. CFLs and LEDS are designed to be on and off. Too much heat build up from uninterrupted use will kill them. So '50,000' hrs isn't supposed to be 50,000 continuous hrs.
I've never had a CFL bulb last more than 2 years. I've had several fail in under a year, and a couple that died within a few weeks. Of those that have failed, 1 exploded, and 2 others made audible pops and burned up. Thankfully, the glass cover of the light fixture captured the pieces from the one that blew up, and there was no fire started by the other two that ignited. I've tried different brands, and all have seen extremely high failure rates. The cost and unreliability have also been a net loss for me compared to if I had opted for incandescent bulbs instead.
Also a result, I stopped buying CFL bulbs a while ago due to how unreliable and potentially dangerous and costly they have proven to be. Instead, I stocked up on a bunch of cheaper incandescent bulbs before they were removed from store shelves. At the much slower rate of replacement for incandescent bulbs I've observed, my stock will hopefully last me for several more years. Hopefully by then, there is a reliable alternative on the market.
Statistically, if you buy 20 bulbs with a lifetime of X hours, you will have some bulbs that burn out before X hours. That doesn't mean the lifetime statement was wrong.
I wonder if moving to a new household standard away from the century-old Edison screw would get us better lighting solutions. It seems much of the Sturm und Drang around using CFLs and LEDs is simply all the extra electronics and engineering needed to get them to conform to the old standard. I'm sure many of the people who rail against CFLs are surrounded by good ol' tube florescent bulbs while at work, out shopping, etc. with nary a complaint, except perhaps some issues with light balance and aesthetics.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I recently tossed a set of 4 year old Bosch HE front-loading washers and dryers. The washer was full of mold and the dryer needed 2-3 cycles to adequately dry clothes.
I performed all the preventative steps periodically running a hot cycle, running bleach and cleaning agents through the machine, leaving the door open after every use, cleaning out the dryer vent twice per year...etc.
None of it mattered. The service tech says these problems are common to all HE machines. They simply do not use enough water at a high enough temperature to adequately flush the machine. They dryers are also garbage as the manufacturers are forced to use small burners and short cycle times to meet energy efficiency requirements.
My mom's 25 year old Kenmores washed and dried clothes without complaint for many years - now we are saving the planet by putting crappy appliances in a landfill every few years.
I finally opted for a non-HE washer and dryer (Speed Queen if anyone cares). They are old-school commercial-duty devices. No WiFi, no touch screens, no weather or twitter feed - simply clean clothes in half the time.
Yup they use more water and gas, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I was told that by 2016 or 2017 these units will no longer be made thanks to more efficiency regs. It's madness.
How does this relate to CFLs and LED bulbs - well - I like my LED bulbs - my CFLs were almost all garbage that lasted a year or two. Most CFLs that I bought didn't last anywhere near their rated 7 year life.
It would have been better to simply give people economic incentives to buy the more efficient bulbs instead of being forced to buy the bulbs.
I think a lot of people who have over the years tried to use more energy efficient bulbs found that their actual lifespan was all over the map. I'm sure this has led to a lot of people being turned off and going back to incandescents.
When they decided to phase out incandescents they should have made bulb makers date stamp the bulb with a "good until" date AND mandate that any bulb burned out before this date is eligible for a free, over-the-counter replacement.
This would have greatly improved consumer confidence and forced manufacturers to be either more realistic about lifespans or not skimp on components.
What I've found odd about CFLs is that they seem to fail strangely with no discernable pattern. I've gotten some to last in extreme places (outdoors, through subzero winters) and had several fail in places you think they wouldn't, indoor lamps with good ventilation.
In the past year I've been switching to LED's, so far so good. I haven't had any of them burn out and while you can notice some differences they are minimal. Of course a year isn't quite enough to really make a real determination, I think some napkin estimates I did a while back put it at 3-5 years before they became a "good" investment. I know I won't touch CFL bulbs with a 20' pole, I've had them burn out at a crazy rate (some less than a month). I think they've been revising some of the lifetime estimates for LED's down though. I know some of my large bulbs were rated at 44 years, but recently the packaging for the same exact bulbs (manufacturer, wattage, format) were cut in half to about 22 years. As long as they last over a decade it will be a no brainier choice, but CFLs claim to last at least 7 years and I can tell you with no reservations that is bull.
But there is no denying that these far more technologically sophisticated products offer tempting opportunities for the inclusion of purposefully engineered life-shortening defects.
Like, for example, a $1000 phone with a battery the user can't change...
Take a look at the lighting isle at any major store, there are a lot of pure LED sockets coming onto the market. The issue will of course be what format wins out and if it is widely adopted. I'm surprised that more homes aren't equipped with house wide 12/24 volt DC, that would go a LONG way towards decreasing the costs/efficiency issues with LED's and many home electronics.
That these new lightbulbs last only about one or two years maximum. I work in a large hall which deploys these bulbs en masse, and... After running for roughly 10 hours a day, they burn out up on switching the lights on. So, two years maximum. a lightbulb worth of 50 000 hours is one in a million.
about 16 out of 19 lasted for over 2 years since I wrote the date of purchase on them with a marker. Usage is standard on/off multiple times per day, on for a few hours at a time.
It's no way near 50,000 hours, but I can live with the expense.
Got a few LED bulbs awhile back and while they lasted for a while the thing that startled me was after about a week the plastic bulb coverings on them started dropping off. The first couple that dropped off scared the crap out of me.
Bulbs used to last a lot longer in the US until the early 1970s. Electric companies gave out free bulbs for burned out ones.
Then Phillips sued claiming something, and a judge ruled for competition, the practice was ended by men with guns, and bulbs got shitty.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It's part of current business models. Notice how many "products" you use that you don't just buy once but rather require you to pay a monthly fee and one that appears to be inexpensive but turns out to cost a crapload of money over the long term. And how many "products" do you pay for every month whether you use them or not. (I smell a Slashdot poll) We're rapidly falling into the gravity well of not actually owning anything. Now take a look at the TV ads for the Capital One Venture card that claims to have no blackout dates or limited seating and woohoo! double miles. What they don't tell you is that they give you a very low credit limit so that it takes two to four times as long to get one of these free flights. There is ALWAYS a catch somewhere. The consumer rarely, if ever, gets everything they were promised.
I, myself, have started writing the install date with a Sharpie on every bulb I put in so I have some real-world idea of lifespan. "Oh, it'll last 5000 hours...under normal use." What the hell is normal use? "Normal" is not a standardized unit of measure despite the implied definition. Light bulb manufacturing is ultimately a business not a love affair. If they made a bulb that lasted for 10 years "under normal use" and charged the same as an older technology that only lasted a year, that company would find itself out of business. This is also why Wonka's everlasting gob stopper will lose money, too. All joking aside, this is also why home solar panels are more of a scam than anything at this point. Lots of people don't know that they have a limited lifespan and gradually lose their efficiency yet the companies snow people into thinking that they're going to make money by selling energy back to the power company. Maybe. After losing money for 3/4 of the panels' lifespan.
It's mostly smoke and mirrors. Oh, and you need to pay an environmental impact fee for the smoke and are required by law to recycle the mirrors at your expense.
I did the math on our porch light (it's pretty easy easy math) and it saves me money to put in a CFL and just leave it on 24/7 over buying incandescents and turning them off during the day. And the bulbs last forever -- a couple of years each -- what is that about 16,000 hours? My security floodlights outside are CFL floods on a photocell switch ($10 from Home Depot, marked suitable for CFLs). Those bulbs also are lasting a couple of years each. But this is all water under the bridge because the LEDs are obsoleting the CFLs.
One would hope that the author isn't too stupid to figure out that this has nothing to do with CFL or LED lighting and can be applied to any and every product ever manufactured, from horse buggy wheels to CPUs. Singling out LED and CFL lighting only reveals somebody's paranoid tendencies and anti-environmental philosophy.
I have no scientific data to back it up, but I strongly suspect both CFL and LED's premature burnout problem arises from using cheap,low-grade capacitors(Both needs capacitors for power conversion circuit). And I think LED last longer than CFL just because LED draws less current from that same cheap,low-grade capacitor so that it's less damaging to that crap.
One Sylvania 100w equivalent, nice bulb, had it in a heavily used area, in a ceiling fan, it died after about 1 year (not fully dead but when it warms up it starts flicking out). It's supposed to have a 5 year warranty, but I didn't save the receipt, so nobody will honor it.
This is crazy. Just because the service tech told you something doesn't make it true.
I have an HE washer/dryer that predates yours. I got it them 10 years ago and they're still going strong. It was the Maytag Neptune, which was the first HE washer on the US market. There was a flaw in the door latch on the first year or two model but I was lucky to avoid that, mine is from just after that.
The washer works fine, although it is nice if you leave the door open for a day once in a while to dry it out in there otherwise, since the door is sealed, any moisture left in the drum after a cycle just sits there until next time you use it. It doesn't have anything to do with hot water, hot water only stays hot for a short time and hot water doesn't kill mildew anyway, if it did you wouldn't need to scrub or bleach the grout in your shower! Later models from Samsung and LG don't have this problem.
The dryer doesn't even have cycle times. It just runs until the clothes are dry. It does this using a dryness sensor, the same type which has been around since 1980 or so. If you do run it on a timed cycle, you can adjust the time it runs in one minute increments. So I have no idea what your tech was telling you about mandating short cycle times or burners that aren't hot enough.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
CFL bulbs that have lasted more than 7 years and are in nightly use. I have had some fail in less than a year, but the oldest ones that I have are still bright and none of that batch have failed.
I don't trust companies, governments, trade groups, or *ANY* groups or associations of >1 person.
Phoebus is a fair arguement for retroactive abortion.
- X/Y -
"Whether or not these pricier bulbs will actually last that long is still an open question, and not one that the average consumer is likely to investigate."
It would seem our crowd are not average consumers. or maybe we are just folks that care about how much money we are spending?
I myself would LOVE to use more LED lights, but some manufacturers drive the LEDS too hard, trying for more light. Either the LEDS or their supporting circuitry fails after a short time. Many CFLs don't have aesthetically pleasing light, plus many of them don't last very long. I am NOT going to pay $20 for a light bulb - that makes no sense on several levels.
I replaced all incandescent bulbs with CFL's and LED's. The CFL's are junk and don't last more than about 2 years. A couple of them got so hot they started to smoke, one of them making a loud noise just before it burn't out. The LED's so far haven't failed yet.
I assume you refer to these low-voltage lamps. I wonder why Capcom hasn't sued these guys over dilution.
Power dips can be as destructive as surges and that cheap surge protector does nothing for those. If it is valuable a line-interactive UPS is the way to go. Learned my lesson after burning out the power supplies to two TVs and a couple of desktop computers. The TV repair guy suggested the UPS and life is good.
The warranty for GE CFLs guarantees that the bulb will last a certain number of years at a given duty cycle. I keep the receipts for all GE CFLs that I buy (writing identifiers on the bulbs themselves), and I always make a warranty claim when a bulb doesn't last as advertised.
A few have burned out before their rated lifespan, but most have performed as advertised. For the bulbs that did burn out prematurely, GE has always honored my warranty claims quickly.
Wow, that's radical.
We have enough floodlights in my house that I used to have to get on the ladder at least once every two weeks, often more. "Daddy, another bulb is out!" Put LEDs in last year -- flood lights, chandaliers, whole nine yards -- and haven't had to change *ONE*. It's enough bulbs that I consider it to be statistically significant. I happen to also have a background that's brushed the manufacture of lasers; we used to experience "infant mortality:" generally speaking, when stuff dies, it either dies at the end of the curve (no duh), or at the beginning of the curve. I'm far enough in that while they may not last 20+ years, they are likely to last more than enough time for me to be plenty happy. And that's the real win.
I got a 3 pack of LED lights to play with about a year ago from Feit. No problems with those, although it's still too early to tell how I'll fare. The light is a little more directional than the CFLs but I like the color temp better.
You can get directional or non-directional LED bulbs. I like the fact that you can get directional LEDs: for applications like overhead can lights, this nearly doubles the effective brightness. But most of the LED lamps you buy take deliberate measures to be non-directional, to make them screw-in replacements for incandescents
Color temperature is something you can pick. I like the "daylight" color personally--5000K-- but my wife prefers the warmer color temperatures, down in the 2700K range.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I've been living in my current apartment for over 6 years now, I put CFL bulbs in both of the 2 lamps that I use, neither have ever burned out or shown any sign of deteriorating operation. On the other hand, the only bulbs that have burned out are 2 incandescent bulbs. All of the other lightbulbs in the apartment were recently replaced with CFL's by the apartment management company. I like the slow start up time of one of the bulbs, makes it easy on the eyes when turning the lamp on at night. I can easily tell the difference in performance between newer models of bulbs and many of the older ones I have used. I first started using CFL's back around 2001/2002, they have greatly improved since then.
Those CFL's come from the same factory that made the fluid links for the Tardis.
"Rough Service" incandescents, designed for outdoor hard to reach places in harsh conditions, where CFLs are not appropriate and LEDs have not yet made inroads, are still available, cost about $2 apiece, have a rated lifespan of 10,000 hours, and are not affected by the ban on incandescents. Just sayin'...
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There is one big issue with LED fixtures - heat sinking. Incandescent lightbulbs emit waste energy as infrared radiation. LEDs need to conduct their heat away.
Now, what kills LEDs is heat. An LED kept at room temperature will outlast an average human. An LED at elevated temperature will die very, very quickly.
We need to make the customers aware of the issue, so that they can recognize the bad LED lamps before they buy them.
Granted, the PSU may be able to run cooler when separate, but what would the chances be you could easily get replacement PSUs for that lamp you bought 10 years ago?
If an influential market regulator standardizes the connector and electrical characteristics for residential low-voltage LED lamps, then finding a replacement power supply will be no harder than finding a replacement 1 amp 5 volt power supply with a USB A receptacle. There's a reason that Europe encouraged cell phone manufacturers to stick with USB micro-B on every phone that isn't Apple.
the important thing is how many people of a particular type that it takes to change one.
Markus Krajewski points out something that has been known for a long time in restricted circles or inqusitive intersted in energy efficiency entusiasts. As amazing as this "news" can be, it would be highly interesting, for the inquisivitve and interested in these energy efficiency matters person, to investigate the qutestion about the efficiency of the standard electrical motor and rotorry electrical motor with pulsating current and recovery of BEMF (Back EMF) or IK ( Inductive Kick ) as some people name it. There are many other examples around that are simply astonishing to note, ones one understand the levels of energy inefficiency our machinary indulges. Just for a kick start, simply 90% of the energy used the the refrigerator in a household can be saved, if only people change the habit of storring their food from upright refrigerator to a horizontal based refrigerator (such are not sold but easily converted to refrigeratros via a terperature controller, from a what is commonly known as chest freezer). In upright refigerator ones, opened the colld air mimidately starts going downstream OUT, while in a chest (horizontal) freezer converted to refrigerator the cold air, has nowhere to go so it stays whithin the walls of the refrigerator. As a refrigerator is usually about 20-25% of house hold energy usage, on everage 20% percent of the houseold energy can be immediately saved just by chaning symply our habbits and demanding (or simply creating our) energy efficiency.
The Phoebus cartel set up in 1924 has been accused of preventing technological advances that would have produced longer-lasting light bulbs.[72] The document Light Bulb Conspiracy[73] claimed that the Phoebus cartel deliberately limited the expected lifetime of a light bulb to 1000 hours. However, 1000 hours was a reasonable optimum life expectancy for most bulbs.[74] A longer lifetime can be obtained only at the expense of efficiency: more electricity is wasted as heat and less light is obtained.[74]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
I don't mind the excess heat from my incandescent bulbs. It saves on power for the baseboard heaters.
i really dont think 11 cents for 60 watt cf or 6 for $1 at walmart is a lot of money. I am buying 60 watt equiv led from walmart for $2.88
Stronger regulations on the few mega corps that make the bulbs won't be possible in today's corrupt system; however, that would be the solution. Simply requiring a date be stamped on them would almost eliminate the receipt problem. The corps have no incentive to provide any means of accountability for themselves (duh.) Naturally, such a regulation would be the end of the world... just as was argued about food labels (and continues today with GMO, import/processed food etc.)
People don't remember past a year if you keep them busy and distracted (I heard this from a big political consultant;) they won't remember how long they had the thing when it lasts a few years-- and would need their own system to track their bulbs and receipts to even begin to do anything about it. The only thing we have now is that people see the brand name on the dead bulb and get a negative feeling towards that brand (possibly if they have a slight recollection of how old it is... and if they are not in an optimistic mood at the time; where they spin the issue themselves. For example if it lasts longer than expectation and marketing pushes the right impressions, most people will feel good about it even though it only ran half as long as it should and ended up costing them more money instead of saving it.)
Conspiracy is at the heart of planned obsolescence!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
50k hours you say? And you would like me to adopt this new tech? Make that the warranty term for free replacement and I'll pony up to the bar. Otherwise... beat $0.59 incandescents on cost per thousand hours. Go right ahead and include the cost of electricity in your calculations.
At least there was a good reason for the 1000h limit on incandescent light bulb run time. Long run times => low temperature => low efficiency. For example, a 220V light bulb driven at 110V could last for centuries but it would be about 10 time less efficient in terms of lumens per watt.
CFLs and LEDs commonly fail for reasons unrelated to technical limitations. Blown components, overheating, ... with proper design and correctly dimensioned components, it wouldn't happen.
I'm a huge LED fanboy. I've been buying only LEDs for the last 3-4 years. The early ones especially have not held up. I believe I only have 1 still functioning out of the 4 I bought in my first full room conversion. The newer ones - GE model 100w equivalent I typically get from Sam's Club - have been a lot better. I've only had 1 fail so far out of the 10 I have put into service. In any case, it's not a far fetched claim that a significant percentage of these lights last no where close to as long as they claim they will. A battle hardened customer service call should be able to replace those that fail early.
When they started doing Energy Star ratings for LEDs, they tried really hard to avoid the CFL fiasco; see http://www.gizmag.com/energy-s... As a result, Energy Star rated LED bulbs are pretty reliable. I have about 60 (!) in my house, bought over the last 9 months. None of the Energy Star bulbs has failed yet. Two non-energy-star LED bulbs that were several years old (from vendors not around anymore?) did fail.
I'm now slowly converting the bulbs in the house I rent out to LEDs, with the tenant's cooperation. The only two bulbs she has liked so far are the Cree 40W TW http://www.creebulb.com/Produc... (for bathrooms only - it hums too much for living room) and the Phillips 40W A15 ( http://www.homedepot.com/p/Phi... ) for everywhere else. Her dimmers are old, and most LED bulbs flicker with them; I should get her newer dimmers. Haven't had that problem much at my house.
I'm quite happy with the LEDs so far, and am writing up my experiences at http://kegel.com/energy/lights... Your mileage may vary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That cartel lasted all of seven years, and that's despite patent protection, legal threats, and fairly primitive manufacturing and logistics operations. It ended not through government regulation but through market competition.Today, you'd see the Chinese clones appear within a few months at most.
Note that when it comes to lifetime of LED lamps, that's a product attribute that's really pretty difficult to ascertain beforehand, and that has nothing to do with cartels or conspiracies. However, in the 21st century, we have some pretty good options. Checking online reviews (e.g., Amazon) seems to work pretty well and alert people to major problems (many component failures occur with distributions that let you determine lifetime and reliability by operating large numbers of lamps for shorter periods).
I would suggest switching back to candles or whale oil lanterns just to be on the safe side. Whales are now a renewable resource and in the bible it says God liked the fumes of burnt offerings.
There is no way that they are poor quality (fiet electric?) or improperly installed (recessed or outdoor fixture) or that you could possibly be confirming your own bias. This is the will of God, my friend. He simply doesn't like CFLs.
Had a CFL on a motion sensor light over a set of stairs inside. Incandescant bulbs last for years in that same fixture. The CFLs I've tried lasted about a month each. I'm assuming its the constant ON-OFF cycles that cause them to fail early
Because they are lightbulbs, not video games.
That's why I specifically mentioned trademark dilution, which protects famous trademarks beyond their respective fields of use. Case in point: If someone were to make a "Coca-Cola" low-voltage LED lamp, then Coca-Cola could show likelihood of confusion despite soft drinks and lighting being separate fields of use.
Also, the Capcom franchise is "Mega Man" not "Megaman".
Spacing isn't always clear in the logo, especially in games since X4 whose logo is just the Japanese logo with "ROCK" replaced with "MEGA". This includes the entire Battle Network and Zero series, as well as the title screen of Mega Man 9.
> instead of being forced to buy the bulbs
Legislation understanding fail: the law which supposedly "banned" incandescent bulbs only established efficiency regulations for them. (Don't believe it? Look it up? I'll wait ... You're back? Good.) Some companies decided to manufacture incandescents which meet these standards; others did not. You can easily find incandescent bulbs at the local "big box" hardware/DIY store.
already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes are reached.
When I am shelling out a big up front cost, I am going to be pissed if one of these things burns out in a year or two. Sure it is probably covered under warranty, but then I have to make sure I keep the receipt, which receipt goes with which bulb, etc. I use CFLs because I won't mind as much if one burns out early because the cost for them is relatively low.
Just like having a water filter and/or softener at the entrance of a house's service, LED bullbs (and other electronics) might live up to their projected lifetimes if they were fed with filtered, rock-solid power, free of spikes and sags.
Wow, people really care about light bulbs.
More than a hundred years of development, and I can never get more than a few shaves off a disposable.
CFLs have ballasts that are very susceptible to electrical transients. [PDF] Typically, the cheaper the bulb the cheaper the ballast electronics are. This makes them vulnerable to "dirty power" and will shorten their lifetime considerably. The more expensive bulbs have better ballasts, but without surge protection they are also prone to early ballast failure. I have CFLs in my apartment and the wiring in this place is more than 40 years old and power generation in the town I live in is pretty spike prone and browns out almost weekly. I lose a bulb about every three to five years (on average, some longer) from the bad wiring in the place (shorting switches, just bad wires, etc.) and most likely from the dirty power. Just yesterday I lost the one in the overhead hallway light when I turned it on via the wall switch. That bulb was about five years old and a mid-range priced one from GE.
LED "bulbs" have AC-DC power converters in them that are also susceptible to power transients, but not as much so as CFL ballasts as the converters tend to have moderate surge suppression circuits built into them making them a little more robust. I do have a few of those around that I am experimenting with to see if they last any longer in my environment. Jury is still out.
The gist is, if your bulbs are dying early the problem may not (just) be the bulb itself but the quality of AC power being supplied to it, quality that may be affected by the wiring in your dwelling, the equipment between the dwelling and the generator, natural or external to the power system causes (CME, lightning, downed tree, car accident, damn squirrel!) and/or the power generation process itself. Remember they test these things and do quality assurance on them in a lab, with clean power and very controlled conditions. YMMV I should also note that incandescent bulbs failed at a much higher rate, replacing the same bulbs every two to three years and sometimes sooner depending on use case. The CFLs and LED bulbs are also prone to failure due to heat buildup so the ones I have in closed fixtures, e.g., overhead fixtures, do fail more often than the ones I have in open ones, e.g., table lamps.
The total value of the bulb over its operational life when compared to an incandescent is wrapped in the price.
For the morons in the audience that means it is priced so high that economically speaking, there is zero advantage left to using it.
It is the cost equivalent of staying with the current lightbulb.
That means that all of the value of the improvement is taken by the vendor.
And of course moron politicians who understand neither economics nor mathematics mandate the use of these into law.
If it returns no value to the consumer, and you force them to buy it anyway, this is called a tax.
Instead of being bright enough to put tax money into government coffers, he dumb politician is putting the money into the coffers of the company with which he has the greatest stock options.
Plutocracy, not democracy.
I tested many different LED since about 10 years ago. My observation is that the lifetime have mostly increased over time, but almost every failure was related to the power supply components.
I observed a single LED component failure on a recent lamp where investigation with a microscope showed a defective wire bonding in the chip where it go trough a semi rigid diffusing material (that chip still work up to a certain temperature and then the the bounding fail until it cool down). For all others failures, the AC to DC converter was in cause. I was not able to investigate all details of them, but I suspect that chemical stability of some components like capacitor might increase stress up to a failure of the capacitor itself or of the power transistor (most of the time integrated into the switching regulator chip). To fit the site of a standard light bulb, those components are very small and are exposed to high temperature for long time. This is almost the worst possible situation for a high power electronic component. I am not so surprised that there are the cause of many failure.
In my test it's clear that the LED that use a separate power supply basically never fail (is used correctly). External power supply can use more big components and it's most of the time possible to avoid exposing them to high temperature. So my hint is to use distribute a low voltage DC current instead of high voltage AC current to power LED. In this category, LED strips are very valuable, as long as the quality of the soldering is good. I have see some LED strips with soldering failure out of the box or after a few month of use.
Good quality LED strip with external power supply is actually the best value in my test. I gradually replace everything with that.
I am still looking for a reasonable 1000-1200 lumen led bulb.
I have bad eyesight, slashdotter with glasses. I need more light to read by.
hmmm.... I've got 20 or so LED bulbs in my house, installed over the last 2-3 years and have not lost one. Most are Phillips, purchases when on sale. The most I ever paid for one was about $15 and the latest ones cost $5.
I've gotten better results with LED than either CFL or incandescent.
This was exactly my experience as well. My mother in-law has some of the initial run Phillips CFLs. Her hippy roommate installed them in the kitchen in 1994, and they are still going, but they were like $50 a pop back then. They take longer to "warm up" than the new bulbs do, but they provide solid light at a tiny wattage.
Most the the cheap-o CFLs have worked well for me. But the small socket super compact CFL and LED bulbs for my ceiling fan lights have been horrible. The line noise and vibration coming off the motor just destroys the el-cheapo caps and diodes. Same deal, individual LEDs are fine, but I've seen bad caps on the CFLs and scorches on the LED circuitry.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
But, of course, everybody wants to buy the cheapest ones, not ones tested to long lifetime.
People buy the cheapest because they don't trust the 'rating' on the package. They know it will die 'early' anyway so they might as well be cheated out of $5 rather than $10.
Yep. That's a vicious circle, of course, a feedback look that results in a "race to the bottom."
As I said, what is needed is a good (and trustworthy) rating agency to test and qualify the bulbs.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I once read a study of the economics of the light bulb industry ("lamps" in the jargon of the trade).
Light bulbs were made by "ribbon machines," which had enormous economies of scale. They were very expensive to built, but once you had a ribbon machine, it could turn out light bulbs at high volume very cheaply. One ribbon machine could handle the needs of the entire U.S. This made it inefficient for competitors to challenge them, so light bulbs were a "natural monopoly." GE had the monopoly in the U.S., although I recall they had a small competitor.
Another reason is that light bulbs were fragile, and didn't travel well. They required a distribution system that could handle them without breaking them. So it would have been hard for one country's light bulb manufacturers to invade another country's market.
The Soviets loved economies of scale, so this came naturally to them. They built one ribbon machine in Hungary, as I recall, and this produced enough light bulbs for the entire Soviet bloc. I remember seeing cheap Hungarian bulbs in discount stores, but they never took off.
I was surprised in that article to read that small manufacturers would produce bulbs in Japan. I wonder what their production facilities looked like. They couldn't compete with the ribbon machine, so they must have been very inefficient.
I've been waiting 30 years to find an audience nerdy enough that they might be interested in this story.
CFLs often require compatible motion sensors. Watch your CFL before the motion sensor turns it on. If you detect flickering, you probably need a CFL-compatible motion sensor.
Had to dig, but my review is also on Facebook. Due to the use of a nick here, I am not provideing a link. It is an old post from a couple years ago with photos.
The truth shall set you free!
I don't think many consumers realize that a lot of thought goes into the lifespan of a product. Not only to satisfy the customer, but also to get repeat buyers. Otherwise, nobody would build much of anything without a longevity cost factor built in. This is why LED's are more expensive, and only having them become more popular will be a factor in reducing price. Mass production is a good thing! Products that eventually wear out is also a good thing. We seem obsessed with eliminating jobs and replacing them with robots, machines, computers. But its those jobs that maintains the very existence of humans. We work, we make money we spend money. Yes, its great to make products that use less energy. That's a given, what is not so great is making products with such a significantly life that it may well make the companies making them a real challenge and may also affect the price of those products. My own personal preference is still the incandescent bulb. But I have replaced some with a Halogen bulb which has a good light temperature and a longer life span. I was not impressed with CFL's in the least considering I purchased 8 Phillips CFL's and after 6 months 3 of them had already failed and after a year all had failed. These were on constant and from taking several of them apart. They all seem to have failed from their circuits over heating. So much for longevity.
I can remember 20+ years ago my Mother buying a case of CFLs from a vendor at the state fair. They were marketed as "Forever Bulbs" that would last 10 years, but the company would replace them for free "forever". The bulbs generally lasted 6-8 months and the company took 8-12 weeks to replace a bulb after being provided requisite proof of proper use and paying S&H to ship the old bulbs back.
About 6 years ago I switched my home over to CFLs. Two years ago I found a great deal on LEDs and bought a bunch. I've no idea on how well the LEDs work as the CFLs are still going strong. If I can get two more to fail, however (I bought a few extra for spares) then I can start the switch over to my LEDs. Here's dreaming big!
I haven't made the shift to LED lighting (I dislike LED lighting), but my experience with CFLs is htat not a single one I've used has lasted anywhere near the lifespan that is claimed on the package. Actual lifespans vary widely, but generally, they seem to last about half as long as is claimed.
I recall reading something that the rated lifetimes of CFLs assume that the bulbs are on for at least 15 minutes at a time and that shorter on/off cycles seriously degrade the life of the bulbs as you have experienced.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
When this happened, bulb manufacturing could more or less be run monetarily and regionally by Phillips. Now though, you'd need a massive conspiracy that involves at least the US, Europe and Asia, and I don't think China would play ball.
X
I had a whole box of CFL's go rouge on me! One blew up, sending burning mercury everywhere...another called up my boss at work and got me fired and the last one raped my mother.
I have about two dozen LED bulbs in my house. Most are SMD 5050 corn cob style, straight from China. Some are ~ five years old. One row on one bulb is out. I could easily fix it with a soldering iron and multimeter as the interior of the bulb is accessible. They are never hot - barely warm to the touch.
The previous generation bulbs in my house were CFLs. Many burned out due to ballast and heat issues. All were little mercury hazzards waiting to be cleaned up.
If you are considering the purchase of LED bulbs, mix white light types with natural light to get the best lighting. Otherwise your rooms will be too blue or too yellow.
My particular appliances, while steel on the outside, are almost entirely plastic on the inside. The large drum you can't see in most washers is plastic.
The guys that took my machines away didn't even want them for scrap. They said the little recyclables they contain are not worth the hassle.
My new machines, however, are porcelain coated steel.
Evidently enough people had similar complaints across many brands - enough to warrant a potential class action lawsuit:
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
The court decided against hearing the case, but there were over 23,000 complaints for one manufacturer. That tells me there is something wrong with the design of many HE machines.
The thing about CFLs is that you should never turn on a hot fluorescent bulb. That is a good way to reduce its life. So as a rule of thumb, if you just turned it off, don't turn it on for 15 minutes. This can be hugely inconvenient (nobody wants to wait 15 minutes to turn a light on!) So fluorescents are a particularly bad choice for bathrooms. I have fluorescents in all our bathrooms and I have to change them every couple of years. Huge pain. I'm in the process of retrofitting the fixtures with LED bulbs (must remove the ballast, install different mounts and and make sure there is some air flow). I have some fluorescents around the house in more appropriate locations and with careful use, I haven't had any of them burn out (4 years or so). I put them in lights that aren't turned off frequently, such as above the kitchen sink, reading lamps and outdoor lights. As others have noted, LEDs will likely fail due to failing capacitors. But you can turn them on and off all day, and they'll turn on instantly, reproducing the incandescent experience.
For appliances, you are probably over-generalizing. I have a 4-year-old HE washer/dryer, and no signs of mold (our washer has a steam cycle which we use occasionally). My parents have a 6-year-old HE washer, and no signs of mold (they hang-dry their laundry so no dryer). My wife's parents have an even older washer/dryer and also no signs of mold. You could have had a bum unit, and service techs represent a selection bias. Or any other explanation. Europeans have been using efficient appliances for a long time, and they don't break there either...
but this would mean it's efficiency would drop. If you make the filament thicker it won't get as hot and it'll last longer, however since it'll be cooler even more of it's radiation will be in the infrared and therefore lost for it's purpose. So if a manufacturer was to make longer lasting light blubs, they would be considerably dimmer and redder at the same power consumption.
The reason why LED lights give out quicker than advertised is because they are more heat sensitive. If you have a light fixture designed for light bulbs, chances are they are not well designed to keep them cool. However if your LED lights get to hot for extended periods of time, they will eventually break. Plus particularly with low quality ones, you have the problem of bad external components. However those failures are typically trivial to fix.
Note that the power surge is also what tends to fry incandescents.
They won't turn that light off, and like the longest burning bulb, it's not switched on/off.
So - Byron the Lightbulb was a true story. Thanks, Pynchon.
And now we have "smart" bulbs - they could be monitored by, or just check in with, the cartel periodically. Byron was just the beginning...
The above linked Wikipedia article is interesting and sourced, but still seems highly speculative. As if often the case, reading the talk page is even more illuminating.
Firstly, most CFL and LED bulbs fail "early" because their bias circuits are shoddy and poorly design. CFLs require high voltage which degrades components that are substandard. LEDs require high quality current regulation to operate reliably over all temperature ranges. Scrimp on these and you get early failures. It's mostly due to cutting corners that you have short lifetimes.
Second, there is far more competition for these technologies than there were for incandescents. Specifically Chinese competition, who little chance of coordinating and holding a monopoly bloc. Not because they aren't able but because making money and cut-throat competition trumps such blocs. Just look at how much "contracted" manufactured production gets diverted to counterfeit supply chains now!!
First of all an incandescent that lasts longer than a thousand hours runs a higher resistance, lower temperature light output amd wastes electricity to gain its longer life. secondly, early CFLs failed as they used a port system to preheat the mercury to allow the tube to ionize and start the plasma. This was much improved so that today they do last a long time..a very long time. LEDs of the latest generation require much lower temperature needs for the eliminated electronics damaging heat and thus dropping the initial price of these devices. Philips has LEDs that are lightweight, compatible with most fixtures and the price I s a small fraction of the original LEDS. The light is beautiful. I tested them running the light for fifty hours and they barely get warm. On the downside, I purchased a multiple LED worklight made by SnapOn and it failed after fifty hours of use.. I will report back in 25 years as to if they last as long as they ought.
Strange as it may sound, there appears to be hardly any investigation going on in the actual difference between incandescant and cfl and led, energy-wise. There is one danish investigation that hints at a very large energy consumption of cfl BEFORE it arrives at your household. It happens in producing countries and in transport ( CFL is much heavier so transport requires lost more energy) and in chemical waste after use. While we enjoy lower power consumption, the actual life of cfl involves so much added energy that it almost totally equals out the power reduction of the light emission. I find it strange there's so little attention on this fenomenon.
15%? Are you fucking serious? OMG go to hell.
This is the oldest story in human existence, and one that needs to be retold over and over, that if a business man can create a captive market or a planned failure rate of a product and hide those facts, he will base his business model on added cost to his customers. This is based on axioms of economics that point to the use of non-transparency to selfish advantage. No only will business people serve to add inefficiency and cost to keep the margin up, but they will also fight very hard to defend the business model against creative destruction seeking complicity of government if needed.
The answer to these abuses has always been disclosure and the flow of information about the ruse, which the linkage of business interests and politics attempts to suppress.
The humble razor blade can be made to last much longer than it does in any commercial product. It is laziness, convenience, and flooding the market with cheap product and telling lies to consumers that allows this. It amazed me how fast electric cars have appeared on the market once the peak of Oil was passed, and that there was a largely forgotten history of electric cars a century ago, and this was one reason the alternative to the internal combustion engine was so quickly re-introduced, now if only we could make it possible to create electricity without breaking carbon bonds and store electricity in efficient batteries. That would make a big difference and it would undercut cartels in energy.
I can remember reading in an encyclopedia back in the early 60's, about engineers at GE needing to build in a failure mechanism because they lasted too long. Unfortunately have forgotten which encyclopedia and they've long since gone.. Stuck out in my memory however..
In terms of longevity, they don't make 'em like they used to... Case in point is a lightbulb in a Livermore, CA firehouse that has been in service continually since 1901, and which can be viewed via the following web cam: http://www.centennialbulb.org/... This improved incandescent lamp, invented by Adolphe A. Chaillet, was made by the Shelby Electric Company. It is a handblown bulb with carbon filament. The bulb was designed to burn at 60 watts, and currently shines at 4 watts. It was left burning continuously in firehouse as a nightlight over the fire trucks.
I've used LED lighting on a boat extensively, and my findings were that they are very voltage sensitive, any over voltage causes them to give off more light, but die quickly. This is on 12v systems so the LED's don't have mini transformers in them. There are some fairly pricey units that are used for mast-head lights. You don't want to have to replace these frequently for obvious reasons. The justification for the expense that each LED has a different voltage sensitivity at the time of manufacture and a number of LED's are matched after testing to produce the correct overall rating for the group. The cheap units can blow up fairly quickly, as I can attest after swinging around 60ft up in the air replacing them. I expect the good manufacturers test the chips more accurately before throwing the fittings together, and the cheap ones are subject to some degree of luck.
Some do, some don't. One light I purchased was still burning 5 years later when I moved out of the house (I burned it basically around 10 hours a day every day for that time). Another one burned out after a couple of years but it was a cheaper variant.
Recommendation, see if you can find a socket splitter. Since the Feit 40 watt bulbs are 500 lumens @ 8 watts. If you can find a socket splitter you can put "two" 40 watt Feit and hit 1,000 lumens and be at a meager 16 watts.
Or if your fixture will fit it, these are a 100 watt replacement at 1,000 lumens, for a whopping 17 watts.
http://www.costco.com/Feit-BR4...