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Saturday 3 February 2018

LED bulb failures


Had another LED light bulb fail yesterday. Of eight GU10 bulbs installed in the kitchen just over three years ago, four have failed. Supposedly rated at 30,000 hours average life as I recall, but our experience suggests they achieve nowhere near that.

I suspect quality control is not as tight as it would have to be to get anywhere near an average life of 30,000 hours, but then the cost would have to be even higher. I'll end up buying another multipack, treating them as disposables rather than marvels of green technology. Are there any marvels of green technology? Maybe Prince Charles knows.

Coincidentally - yesterday I replaced an incandescent bulb in our electric fire which was at least ten years old when it failed.

9 comments:

Sam Vega said...

"Supposedly rated at 30,000 hours average life as I recall, but our experience suggests they achieve nowhere near that."

Come on, AKH! With a science background you should know all about averages. Three more will go in the next couple of days, but the last one will still be going strong in 2094. That company has probably got as many lawyers as technicians working for it.

Sackerson said...

I used to get incandescent about things but these days I just stay LED.

Woodsy42 said...

Yep! Same thing here but it's not all of them. My GU10s were bought in batches from different places and some have lasted. Of the bad ones not many have failed outright, rather they have done random annoying flickers, often when quite new. I found some packs of GU10s in Aldi a while ago and none of those have yet given any trouble.

wiggiatlarge said...

Whether halogen CLF or LED they all die long before their "guarantee" is anywhere near approached.
Different makes bigger prices still no difference, the only difference of course is that the CFL and LED bulbs are a lot more expensive.
As for averages the ones in the rooms little used do last longer, they are rarely on, in heavy load every day use they all have a limited life.
The reason they get away with the ridiculous claims for longevity is that no one sends them back.
One of the items that hastens failure is power cuts and we get plenty of them here.

Anonymous said...

A late adopter with LED bulbs, so far OK. But Mrs R does not like the colour and the dimmable ones dim not to a warm red but to a cold ghostly white, so they went into the box in the cupboard under the stairs.

Have you actually saved money overall?

Demetrius said...

Still a lot cheaper than hiring servants to stand around with flaming rush torches.

wiggiatlarge said...

Just a small addition, as Roger says the colour of LED and the light cut off area is against them though they have improved and the price is finally dropping, none the less ours are in a box somewhere.

One type of bulb does seem to last with me halogen tubes in a couple of sets of wall lights, I have only replaced two in about forty years and they have done a lot of hours, why the difference ?

Scrobs. said...

I heat my shed with two 150 watt bulbs, hung in strategic places!

Marvellous soft light, heat, and at least thirty years old...

I don't give a light for these new ones - harsh, unwelcoming and blasted expensive too.

A K Haart said...

Sam - you may be right. Within batch variability seems to be enormous so there may be a process of weeding out the failures until only durable bulbs are left.

Sackers - surely not incandescent.

Woodsy - yes, quality seems very variable. I might try Aldi.

Wiggia - you are right, who would send them back? I certainly won't bother although some of the feedback I've read suggests there are people who do.

Roger - I'm sure we've saved money overall, no complaints about that. It's the grossly exaggerated lifetime claims which niggle.

Demetrius - yes those flaming rush torches are expensive. The smoke is a problem too, makes the servants cough and that can be quite annoying.

Wiggia 2 - do you mean the fluorescent tubes? They seem to go on forever but I don't know why.

Scrobs - decades ago we used to add a bit of heat to our unheated bathroom by using a big bulb. Didn't really work but took the chill off.