I’m in a nasty frame of mind right now, and this is what my 'tism brain decided to laser focus on for several hours. I’m mad that my light bulbs cost 10x more than they used to, and don’t last any longer, and my power bill is higher than ever.
Yeah yeah, I know, it’s probably just capitalism shitting it up on purpose for profit. And bulb science is probably solid, I guess. I’m just pissed off that I just barely managed to scrape through this pay period with $2.78 left in the bank before I default on my mortgage.
Anyway, any lightbulb science comrades got any info?
I’ve never replaced an led bulb and I’ve had them 10+ years.
Dirty power can burn them out, as can bad heat dissipation
Let me copy and paste the top search result from Google:
“Dirty power” is a term used to describe electricity that deviates from this standard due to spikes, surges, and dips. The term also applies to electricity that’s been tainted by an outside influence, such as a stray wireless signal. Feb 13, 2023
Some older wiring and devices can interact poorly and cause fluctuating voltages. The more stable the voltage, the less wear on the components and vice versa.
If you were to lower the voltage would it still cause extra wear? Like is it the fluctuation itself that causes the wear or is the the ‘higher than expected voltage’ during peaks of the fluctuating?
Or some fell off the back of the truck chinese knock off crap leds.
As to electricity, even if you left all the non led lights on in your house all month, it’s still only a small portion of the usage compared to the water heater, hvac, dishwasher, and laundry stuff. Along with all them watts in your TV and coursing through a gaming desktop.
There are a few reasons it could be happening so I’ll start with some the most common
If your switches are dimmer switches and you’re not using dimmer bulbs they burn out faster
If your light fixtures are sealed you need to get bulbs that are compatible with sealed fixtures
Make sure you’re getting quality bulbs as lower quality bulbs will die faster
If your area has less than stable power your bulbs will burn out faster, though higher quality dimmer compatible bulbs will handle the less stable power better (you don’t need a dimmer compatible light fixture to use dimmer bulbs)
I use GE Reveal HD+ bulbs in my fixtures (basic apartment sealed domes) and they just keep on keeping on and they’re really color accurate.
I started with store brand LED bulbs and they just kept burning out and the color accuracy would be best described as vague at best. Not to mention they’d burn out pretty much every year when the storms would roll in and my power would get flaky.
Heat is the main killer of LED bulbs. The Hook Up on YouTube did a comparison of several different bulbs and his investigation showed that filament style LED bulbs like the Phillips Ultra Definition ($3.50 per bulb) have a lower peak temp by like 80 degrees Fahrenheit than the standard style (12-24 LEDs in a ring). I recommend trying those out and seeing if you have better luck.
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I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
They get too hot and the 0.07$ capacitor they put in it dries out and dies. You want the 0.09$ capacitor which lasts 1000 times longer, but usually they only put those in the 45$ led bulbs.
You can do like me, when they die, take them apart and replace the capacitor with a super deluxe 0.11$ one !
Holy shit I never thought about what’s inside an LED bulb past the LEDs themselves.
It’s an AC to DC step down voltage regulator and then a multi channel constant current regulator to drive the led and the current setting is changed by a microcontroller which usually has a Bluetooth or ZigBee or ism/315/433/915 MHz or infrared transceiver for communication with your phone / remote
Either an electrical problem that’s burning them out or shitty bulbs.
If you have a dimmer switch, you have to get dimmer compatible bulbs.
shitty bulbs.
+1 on that as a potential issue. Don’t recall the brand, but I had bought a pack of light bulbs where the whole pack was having issues, to the point I called an electrician to check. When the electrician came and saw the brand he told me “those are garbage” and that he had seen plenty of people having issues with that brand.
I threw those away, bought some other brand. The exact same places where I was having to replace light bulbs often no longer had any issues.
