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.""

Comments

"the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today"

[Anonymous Coward]

the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today because it reduced competition in the light bulb industry

I see what you did there!

Re:"the Phoebus cartel still casts a shadow today"

[Anonymous Coward]

Joking aside, I'd argue that it did the opposite. By removing the durability as one aspect of differentiability, the cartel commoditized the light bulb. Not being able to compete on quality or features generally leaves the manufacturers no choice but to compete on price. Another aspect of the bulb lifetime is that it's easy to make a bulb last longer: You just dim it a little. But by doing that, you reduce the already bad efficiency. For a bulb which consumes many times its item cost in electricity, increasing the lifetime by lowering the efficiency drives up the total cost. That's unless there's a significant cost associated with changing the light bulb, then longer lasting bulbs can make economic sense, and - surprise - you can buy longer lasting (slightly dimmer) bulbs, but the regular bulbs still last 1000 hours.

Regarding the durability of CFLs and LED bulbs: These types of light sources have embedded electronics that age faster at high temperatures, unlike incandescent light bulbs. To get the rated lifetime out of these modern lights, use them in well ventilated fixtures which keep the heat away from the socket. In my experience, the lifetime of CFLs follows the usual bathtub curve: Some duds die in the first weeks or months, almost none die between a year and well beyond the rated lifetime, and then at some point the failure rate goes up again. None of the LEDs in this house have failed so far (after close to three years since installation), so I have no reason to expect that they won't last the rated lifetime. All CFLs and LEDs have by far recovered the investment cost in saved electricity.

I'm sold on LED bulbs...

[PortHaven]

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.)

To be really efficient

[rossdee]

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.

Completely converted house to LED, 3 have died.

[bigattichouse]

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.

This idiocy again

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[gewalker]

I was unscrewing one of the twisty CFL's that died after probably 1000 hours use. It basically exploded in my face, about the top 15% of the bulb was small shards though the rest was intact. Yes, we got screwed by the government forcing them on us before they were ready for prime time, just like the water saving toilets that don't flush unless you cycle them a few times.

LEDs

[Geoffrey.landis]

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.

Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[Technician]

I write the date on all my bulbs. Failed bulbs are never replaced with the same brand. The theory goes that short life bulbs will be circulated out of service and long life bulbs will remain.

Note to manufactures, to get on my bad boy list, have high premature deaths. To get on my recommended list, be the last man standing in my testing.

Failures fall in two modes. Lumen maintenance and failure. Most LED's dim over their lifetime. I bought a 3 pack of lower wattage "candelaubra lamps and used them in bathrooms as nightlights. I noticed they were quite dim after about 7 months. Used the 3rd bulb as a comparison as I used only two at the time. I photographed the result with a digital camera on manual settings so all exposures were taken with the same setting and posted the result online. You don't want your short life bulbs mentioned by name in a poor review.

My general observations are older bulbs had higher failure rates than the current line as the technology improved. LED's are an absolute must in locations with occasional use such as bathrooms, but often leave much to be desired where they are on 24/7 or 8-12 hours a day. A CFL in a seldom switched location will often have better lumen maintenance than an LED.

Note on the package on LED's, they are most often rated for only 3 Hours a day. For now use them in hallways, the garrage,storage areas, and bathrooms, I am having some great performance on some newer bulbs in the living room, but it is too early to call, but it is looking promising.

Re: I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[RabidReindeer]

Every led I've purchased (I only buy energy star , because they are actually testing them for light quality ,unlike with CFLs ,so that may make a difference ) , has said it was dimmable , to the point I thought it was intrinsic in the technology .

They're also the only bulbs that have any real life in my old house . My porch light lasts 2-3 weeks incandesant . I'm 4 months on the led I put in it , on convenience alone it's worth the price .

You sound like a neighborhood in a town not far from me.

Apparently the houses close to the power substation routinely got something like 20% overvoltage. The lights burned bright, but they burned out fast.

In theory, LED bulbs would actually be a better bet, since they're current-driven, not voltage-driven and the voltage is stepped down. So as long as the LED voltage was less than what it took to fry the LEDs, they might burn a bit brighter, but that's about all.

No, LEDs aren't inherently dimmable, since, like I said, they're current-driven and running on reduced voltages internally. Furthermore, a lot of dimmers are not rheostatic, but instead work by modulating the "pulse width" (for lack of the proper term) of the A/C waveform. An incandescent bulb has thermal mass, so that results in dimmer light (and color change thanks to lower temperature). A flourescent light will generally not be amused, and an LED light is only likely to work if it has some sort of way to convert the pulse width to relative current level (such as via capacitors).

I have some dimmable LED lights and they work great, but it was unusual seeing the same lamp color as the light dimmed. And the light curve for the LEDs doesn't match what resistive lamps do, so there is noticable non-linearity in the brightness relative to the dimmer setting.

The Government also ruined my washer and dryer

[zerofoo]

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.

Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[bigwheel]

I've read that the Energy Star people admit they screwed up with CFL, but are determined to not make the same mistake with LED

In order to get the Energy Star label, a CFL bulb has to meet certain efficiency requirements. But the rating says nothing about longevity. In theory, fluorescent bulbs should last a long time. But the built-in electronics are the usual source of failure. This is particularly the case with ceiling lights and other bulbs where the electronics are on the top, and often in an area where they do not get much cooling. So, the cheap - or more importantly *Crappy* - bulbs can carry the same certification as the good ones. So, CFL got a bad name, which is also fail for the Energy Star folks.

With LED bulbs, the Energy Star people wanted to make sure that they don't make the same mistake. So, in order to get the label, a bulb has to meet the efficiency standards, plus demonstrate that they can handle the run-length requirements. And there are many different requirements, depending on the type of bulb and its intended usage. In order to get the Energy Star label, they are tested for something like 9 months.

So, the moral of the story is that if you buy an LED that carries the Energy Star label, it should not fail prematurely. But the down-side is that LED technology continues to improve, with the most recent chips putting out something like 250 Lumens/Watt. An agile manufacturer might be able to quickly get this technology to market with an excellent new bulb. But it cannot carry the Energy Star label until it has been through rigorous testing, which takes nearly a year.

Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[Waffle Iron]

I was looking at LED replacement bulbs at the hardware store the other day ($20 each). I am suspect as to their efficiency.

Get a Kill-A-Watt meter and test the power consumption of LEDs youself. All the ones I've checked have used just about exactly what it says on the package.

They have large heat sinks on the which get very hot. That is wasted energy.

They have heat sinks because the LEDs need to stay very cool to work properly. Incandecent bulbs don't use heat sinks because they need to heat up to thousands of degrees just to get a small fraction of the photons they emit into the visible range. Now which do you think is wasting more energy?

There is no way to pack an efficient transformer into such a small space.

I doubt that any CFL or LED on the market is using a plain 60Hz transformer. They're using switching power supplies, which can be very efficient. That's becuase they crank the frequency up to a range where a small transformer *is* efficient.

Houses need wired seperately with a lower voltage appropriate for powering LED lights.

You'd still need a switching power supply to match the low voltage to the exact needs and wiring pattern of the particular LEDs. That's why most every PC have a separate power supply on the motherboard just inches away from the main power supply to convert 5VDC to whatever the processor needs.

Not to mention the power loss of low-voltage wires. If you put 100W of LED lights (about 6 bulbs) in a room at the end of a 50-foot run at 5V, you'd be pulling 20 amps. If you used 14AWG wire, at 0.25 ohms for the 100 foot round trip, you'd have a 5V voltage drop just from the resistance of the wire. You would also be violating code, which would require you to install a dedicated 12AWG circuit just to power 100W. That's obviously completely unworkable.

In summary, all of your uninformed "gut feel" opinions on these technical issues are unsurprisingly wrong.

Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last

[CastrTroy]

In my city, they started campaigning for people to save water. The result? People saved so much water that they ended up having to raise the rates because they weren't making enough to run the water system. The system basically has a fixed cost to run, regardless of how much water goes through it.In the end, we cut our water usage in half (averaged over the city), but we now pay twice as much for our water.