Modular Led Bulb with User Replaceable Components - Anyone?

[tridy]

ok, it has been patented:

 

Application Number: US-201313802943-A

https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-9157624-B2

 

Quote

A modular LED light bulb is presented. The bulb comprises a bulb envelope and a removable screw base. A power supply within the bulb envelope connects to an electrolytic capacitor within the screw base. When the electrolytic capacitor in the screw base requires replacement, the screw base is detached from the bulb envelope, the depleted electrolytic capacitor is discarded, and a new electrolytic capacitor is connected to the power supply. The various embodiments increase the useful life of the LED light bulb. In another aspect, the screw base may be adapted to accept swappable modules to provide the light bulb with additional functionality. The swappable modules may provide the light bulb with wireless control and motion sensing.

 

has anyone seen it being produced? Maybe not modular but at least serviceable. I do not mind if I have to desolder an old and solder back a new component that is not microscopic. I do not even mind paying a premium for that.

 

Has anyone seen something like that?

 

[LAwLz]

Why would you want this? This seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. 

 

It adds complexity to a very simple device that is very cheap and already lasts a really long time. 

[tridy]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Why would you want this? This seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. 

 

It adds complexity to a very simple device that is very cheap and already lasts a really long time. 

 

Maybe it is just me.

 

From what I have experienced, unlike the box suggested 5-20 years, quite a few lamps (regardless of the price) last 3-6 years. Just like with many things, the producers of the lamps are not interested in making the lamps live longer, so I do not trust any producer that they are not repeating the "old" lamp conspiracy.

 

When I look at the recycle box for the lamps for our multi-block house, there are quite a few of them every week. We moved to the new apartment 7 years ago, and since then I have changed all of the 12 lamps (that I can count now), and those were not cheap ones.

 

It depends on how one defines a problem. For me, anything that can be repaired is better than recycling, so any waste is a problem. I have taken apart several lamps and with some, I was able to repair them, something like this. Most of the "dead" ones have the majority of LEDs still alive. The problem was that the cover of the bulb is not that easy to attach back. Nothing impossible but not as elegant as if it were designed for that. Still kind of rewarding, imho.

 

As about complexity and simplicity. I would trade a little complexity for "native" repairability, it is not that having easier access to the bulb's components and making the top detachable would make it into a super sophisticated and expensive device. I would pay 2x for that compared to the "usual" lamp.

[starsmine]

7 hours ago, tridy said:

 

Maybe it is just me.

 

From what I have experienced, unlike the box suggested 5-20 years, quite a few lamps (regardless of the price) last 3-6 years. Just like with many things, the producers of the lamps are not interested in making the lamps live longer, so I do not trust any producer that they are not repeating the "old" lamp conspiracy.

Yes, the old CONSUMEABLE lamps conspiracy.

You could make a 1 dollar bulb produce 1k lumins at 60W and last 1000 hours
OR you could make a 1 dollar bulb produce 1k Lumins at 80W and last 2500 Hours

Which one costs more?

(its the 80W bulb)
1*2.5 + 150*kw/h
vs
1 +  200*kw/h

at just 5 cents per kw/h the 1000 hour bulb is cheaper to run.
If, like a normal person, your electricity costs twice that, its even more of an obvious choice.

SUCH A CONSPIRACY. THEY JUST WANT YOU TO BUY MORE BULBS
Its also not the fact that lighting was the largest draw on Power stations(back then). It clearly wasn't that. Hell many Power companies would just... give you the efficient 1k hour light bulbs for FREE


Anyways, light bulbs are consumables, and the fact that modern LED bulbs will run for over a decade (assuming you are not cooking them) really makes the need to modularly change the led rather then the whole bulb enclosure kinda is to much. 

The lamp already is modular as in you just swap out the bulb when they go out for a dollar. 

LED bulbs that dont meet their rated hour rating are because of lack of heat dissipation. 

You shouldn't be tossign them out anyways, there is a recycle stream for them.

[seanondemand]

It is unfathomable to me that someone would spend an hour fixing a $4 light bulb. Is there a market of those people big enough to bother making a product for it?

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, tridy said:

From what I have experienced, unlike the box suggested 5-20 years, quite a few lamps (regardless of the price) last 3-6 years. Just like with many things, the producers of the lamps are not interested in making the lamps live longer, so I do not trust any producer that they are not repeating the "old" lamp conspiracy.

That video is utterly bogus.

 

 

Anyway, the story is a bit different with modern LED lamps (which could be made to last longer and be more efficient), but if you are buying somewhat half-decent LED light bulbs they will last many, many years. I've only had to replace 1 lightbulb out of the 14 in my apartment since moving in over 8 years ago, and that's with cheap IKEA lamps. I took a look at some lights I have and a lot of them list an expected lifetime of 25 000 hours. I am not sure if that's correct or not, but that would work out to around 8,5 years if used for 8 hours a day.

Considering the fact that those lights cost about 1 dollar each, having to buy replacement parts and spend the time to fix a broken light bulb seems like a very poor investment.

 

 

7 hours ago, tridy said:

When I look at the recycle box for the lamps for our multi-block house, there are quite a few of them every week. We moved to the new apartment 7 years ago, and since then I have changed all of the 12 lamps (that I can count now), and those were not cheap ones.

That sounds like an issue somewhere, and not with the lamps themselves. If your lamps are dying that frequently then something is probably up. Are you sure you're using LED lights? Are they running extraordinarily hot for some reason?

 

 

7 hours ago, tridy said:

It depends on how one defines a problem. For me, anything that can be repaired is better than recycling, so any waste is a problem. I have taken apart several lamps and with some, I was able to repair them, something like this. Most of the "dead" ones have the majority of LEDs still alive. The problem was that the cover of the bulb is not that easy to attach back. Nothing impossible but not as elegant as if it were designed for that. Still kind of rewarding, imho.

I agree that repairing something is better than replacing it, but you also have to factor in the economics of this.

LED lights should not need to be replaced for many years, and when they need to be replaced they are dirt cheap. Making a cheap and long-lasting product more complex and potentially shorter-lasting (since the modular design might introduce more weak points) is not the way to handle things. It becomes counterproductive. I think it's good that people are interested in repairing and reusing rather than replacing, but light bulbs are one of the last places we should look at in my opinion. It's such a non-issue already (apparently not in your apartment but in general) because they last years upon years and are so cheap to replace. The spare parts would need to be so incredibly cheap, and your time would need to be worthless for this to actually make economic sense to normal people.

When something doesn't make economic sense, takes time, has room for error, and requires people to learn things, when the alternative is "spend 1 dollar every 8 years or so" then the product is doomed to fail. Hence why you don't see modular lights in the store.

 

I am fairly sure that modular light "bulbs" are used in the world, but they are mostly for industrial applications. I wouldn't be surprised if some models of street lights for example are somewhat modular. But that's because those lighting fixtures are far larger and more expensive than the light bulbs used in homes.

 

 

7 hours ago, tridy said:

As about complexity and simplicity. I would trade a little complexity for "native" repairability, it is not that having easier access to the bulb's components and making the top detachable would make it into a super sophisticated and expensive device. I would pay 2x for that compared to the "usual" lamp.

I wouldn't pay 2x for that, and I doubt many people would.

I get the impression that you want to do this because you think it's fun to repair things. That's great, but as I said earlier LED lights should last many, many years. If it's your hobby to repair LED light bulbs then it's a pretty crappy hobby since you should only be able to do it once every 8 years or so.

 

 

I think your best bet is to figure out why your LED lights (if they are LED lights) are dying so frequently. That seems to be the real problem, not that the LED light bulbs aren't modular and easy to repair.

[tridy]

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

since the modular design might introduce more weak points

The electronics inside can stay pretty much as it is, it is that I want the top part to be removable. It will hardly make it weaker.

I do not think that the Framework notebook team will agree that modularity makes things weaker.

To me, it basically says that the glue holds something better than a screw, which I will disagree with. It has to be engineered, that is true, I think.

 

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It becomes counterproductive. I think it's good that people are interested in repairing and reusing rather than replacing, but light bulbs are one of the last places we should look at in my opinion. It's such a non-issue already (apparently not in your apartment but in general) because they last years upon years and are so cheap to replace. The spare parts would need to be so incredibly cheap, and your time would need to be worthless for this to actually make economic sense to normal people.

Do not mean to be rude here, but if I think this way, then doing something about global warming has no economic sense to normal people. Incredibly cheap drives our planet to death. Recycling has no economic sense. It does not make economic sense for me to have 8 different boxes for different types of materials to sort and recycle. It occupies too much space and is inconvenient. So it has to be regulated, in the same way as the possible enforcement of the replaceable batteries in phones. There should be no such thing as "the last place" or "any place" for such things.

 

Plastic bags are cheaper than paper but in some places, plastic bags were banned. Was that economic sense?

 

Look at how many "cheap" pens, pencils, and razors we have. They are cheap to buy but they are meaningless and irresponsible.

[LAwLz]

40 minutes ago, tridy said:

The electronics inside can stay pretty much as it is, it is that I want the top part to be removable. It will hardly make it weaker.

You mean the glass/plastic part? One of the big reasons why LED light bulbs break is because the electrolytic capacitors used in a lot of LED light bulbs can't handle heat very well, and the AC to DC converter inside the bulb generates quite a lot of heat.

The actual LED breaking is not that common from what I know. I don't have any statistics to back this up with, but I am drawing from general knowledge of electronics and lighting here. 

I don't see how just making the cover removable would help much with repairability. You would need to design almost everything to be modular in order to actually make it somewhat repairable, and since heat is usually the big issue, making things modular could result in worse fittings and thus higher resistance/heat. I am not sure if it would become a bigger issue or not, but the point is that it's an unnecessary risk and needlessly complex.

 

 

37 minutes ago, tridy said:

I do not think that the Framework notebook team will agree that modularity makes things weaker.

That's a terrible argument. Of course they won't, just like the Coca-Cola's team probably won't tell you that soda is bad for you. Just because a company won't tell you their product is bad doesn't mean it doesn't have drawbacks.

But a light bulb is not a laptop. Just because something works well for one type of product does not mean it works well for a different kind of product.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, tridy said:

Do not mean to be rude here, but if I think this way, then doing something about global warming has no economic sense to normal people. Incredibly cheap drives our planet to death. Recycling has no economic sense. It does not make economic sense for me to have 8 different boxes for different types of materials to sort and recycle. It occupies too much space and is inconvenient. So it has to be regulated, in the same way as the possible enforcement of the replaceable batteries in phones. There should be no such thing as "the last place" or "any place" for such things.

 

Plastic bags are cheaper than paper but in some places, plastic bags were banned. Was that economic sense?

 

Look at how many "cheap" pens, pencils, and razors we have. They are cheap to buy but they are meaningless and irresponsible.

You're comparing two wildly different things here.

You can't say "we separate plastics from paper for recycling, so therefore we should invest time and materials into making a tiny product that lasts 8+ years potentially more repairable in case it breaks in a certain way".

 

There are a lot of reasons why modular LED light bulbs aren't needed. There are drawbacks to it and the end result would be something that barely anyone would actually take advantage of. You don't make a product worse for 99% of people just because it would benefit the remaining 1%.

 

 

Let's say modular LED light bulbs became mandatory. Let's also say that it didn't have an impact on the longevity of the light bulbs at all.

We now have a light bulb that costs let's say 2 dollars instead of 1.

In 10 years time, these light bulbs might break. Now I have two options.

1) Spend time and effort into diagnosing what is wrong with each individual light bulb, order the replacement part (hoping that they are still being made). Then when the parts arrive I would have to spend even more time and effort into repairing the light bulb, and then plug it back in again, in the hopes that it works as well as it did before.

2) Spend 2 dollars and get a perfectly fine, new, and fresh light bulb.

 

I would not pick the first alternative even if it was an option.

 

Even if we assume that I would take the time and effort to repair it instead of buying a new one, there is a risk that the repaired light bulb doesn't work as well as it did when it was new, depending on what broke. I might end up with a partially working light bulb. 

 

It might also be a bad idea because modular light bulbs might require additional materials to build. Since we are talking about such a long-lasting and small product, even a tiny bit more material at manufacturing could completely erase any potential savings in the long run.

 

Another issue is that newer light bulbs might be better than the old ones. In 10 years' time, the LED light bulb I buy might be significantly better than the one I buy today because technology progresses. There is a point where it is better for the environment to replace old and inefficient things with more efficient replacements. So far it has happened with every single lighting technology we have had. I am not sure if that will happen with LED light bulbs, but it probably will.

Using a 60-watt light bulb instead of replacing it with a 2-watt LED light bulb because "I don't want to replace a working thing" is a bad mindset to have that probably causes more harm to the environment than just replacing it would.

 

 

All of those arguments are also amplified if we start looking at repairing light bulbs multiple times. Instead of looking at 10 years worth of improvements in lighting technology, we might need to look at 20 years of lighting improvements if we are planning on repairing them twice. Spare parts are probably less likely to be found in 20 years' time than in 10 years' time. Newer light bulbs might also become cheaper so the financial incentive might be even more reduced in the future.

 

 

 

 

If you really care about the environment then I strongly advise you to look into why so many LED lights are breaking at your home. 12 LED lights breaking in 7 years is not normal. It indicates an issue somewhere. Maybe the sockets are poor, causing an incomplete connection and thus generating too much heat. Maybe your dimmers weren't designed for LED lights (which means they send too much current). Maybe you got a bad batch of LED light bulbs. Maybe your electrical connections are sending too high voltage. The point is that instead of focusing on making things more repairable, maybe you should focus on figuring out why your things are breaking in the first place.

 

I admire your passion, but I think it is being misused and misdirected in this case. We do not need modular LED light bulbs. There is a high risk that it would cause more harm than good. Even if it wouldn't end up causing harm, I am very skeptical that it would cause any good either.

 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, tridy said:

Look at how many "cheap" pens, pencils, and razors we have. They are cheap to buy but they are meaningless and irresponsible.

Indeed, but people keep repeating the technologyconnections video, which misses the point of LED bulbs being cheaply made garbage made to fail so you will buy another one, but just ignore the part on LED bulbs having a bunch of electronics that are more harmful to throw away.

 

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

OR you could make a 1 dollar bulb produce 1k Lumins at 80W and last 2500 Hours

Or you could make a $2 bulb that is rated for 80W but actually uses 60W, and lasts 2500 hours.

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

Anyways, light bulbs are consumables, and the fact that modern LED bulbs will run for over a decade (assuming you are not cooking them) really makes the need to modularly change the led rather then the whole bulb enclosure kinda is to much. 

Sure light bulbs are consumables, but most modern LED bulbs don't last as long as they should, because manufacturers cheap out on the power supply so it runs hot, and drive the LEDs to their limit which makes them less efficient. The bulb cooks itself even though there is no reason for most LED bulbs to run as hot as they do, and the technologyconnections video was a weird take when the bulb cartel factually did design things to fail on purpose, their video also misses the point of LED bulbs being wasteful to just throw away because the power supply fails despite LED bulbs being marketed as being more environmentally friendly than a incandescent light bulb. There is a lot more work and precautions required to recycle an LED bulb compared to a metal filament light bulb.

[starsmine]

7 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Or you could make a $2 bulb that is rated for 80W but actually uses 60W, and lasts 2500 hours.

And will now give you 500 lumins instead of 1000 so you need two 60W bulbs to get the same amount of light. 
Damn 120W, you just made it even WORSE. 
And the color temp will be off as that filament wasn't rated for that wattage so wasn't tested for it.


also watching the video, I think you missed the point. It wasn’t about planned obsolescence with leds, just that light bulbs are bad example of planned obsolescence. He has video’s complaining about cheap leds as well, guy is a light nut, it just has absolutely nothing to do with the scope of the topic

[tridy]

45 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

There are a lot of reasons why modular LED light bulbs aren't needed. There are drawbacks to it and the end result would be something that barely anyone would actually take advantage of. You don't make a product worse for 99% of people just because it would benefit the remaining 1%.

I have to disagree with that. It would be much easier to take it apart and recycle the materials separately, like hard plastic from electronics, even if you do not plan to repair it.

 

I see your point as having no plastic bags in the stores benefits 0% of people because the paper bags are more expensive. People are egoistic and selfish and have to be enforced to do something, or have no choice.

 

50 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

2 hours ago, tridy said:

I do not think that the Framework notebook team will agree that modularity makes things weaker.

That's a terrible argument. Of course they won't, just like the Coca-Cola's team probably won't tell you that soda is bad for you. Just because a company won't tell you their product is bad doesn't mean it doesn't have drawbacks.

But a light bulb is not a laptop. Just because something works well for one type of product does not mean it works well for a different kind of product.

I do not think it is a fair comparison either. It is hard to think of arguments when trying to put a drawback on something that we agree is bad (drink, not the bottle).

 

But it is interesing that you mentioned that and I have an example just with the bottles. For the simple products, it can be as simple as this, considering I do not have a bottle opener.

 

 

and that is sort of what can be done for the bulbs. There might be even advantages to that since you could put opaque, transparent or even color "tops".

 

I do not think there are any drawbacks that will win over the benefits when talking about Framework. I agree that this is a different product and case  about upgradability than repairability. As you said, with the the simple one-purpose device like a bulb, it is hard to provide incentives for that. I do not believe this is the right cause I see why it would not work. Maybe it has to be the right and simple enough design.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

If you really care about the environment then I strongly advise you to look into why so many LED lights are breaking at your home. 12 LED lights breaking in 7 years is not normal. It indicates an issue somewhere. Maybe the sockets are poor, causing an incomplete connection and thus generating too much heat. Maybe your dimmers weren't designed for LED lights (which means they send too much current). Maybe you got a bad batch of LED light bulbs. Maybe your electrical connections are sending too high voltage. The point is that instead of focusing on making things more repairable, maybe you should focus on figuring out why your things are breaking in the first place.

I will go back to the greediness of the producers that they just want us to buy more lamps, even though I cannot prove or even test that.

I started doing it 2 years ago writing a date and store where I purchased that lamp. But mMy apartment was built 2017, and I do not have any problems with any home appliances or anything that I could notice, so I do not think that the current is the problem. It partly could be a batch issue.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I admire your passion, but I think it is being misused and misdirected in this case. We do not need modular LED light bulbs. There is a high risk that it would cause more harm than good. Even if it wouldn't end up causing harm, I am very skeptical that it would cause any good either.

 

How about not modular/repairable but at least separatable and recyclable? Like one could separate plastics from electronics and ... I see that you will say that no one will actually do it, even if there is a possibility for that. It has to be enforced or give fininancial interest of doing that.

 

Maybe a "bulb-recycling-machine" could unscrew it.

 

-----------

 

not fully related to the reuse/repair but to recycle. Some extra engineering, and hopefully not as many tops ending up in the trash instead of recycle. Maybe not the representative example but still interesting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

13 hours ago, tridy said:

From what I have experienced, unlike the box suggested 5-20 years, quite a few lamps (regardless of the price) last 3-6 years. Just like with many things, the producers of the lamps are not interested in making the lamps live longer, so I do not trust any producer that they are not repeating the "old" lamp conspiracy.

There's more to that story than "greedy companies conspired to cap the service life of light bulbs, bulbs from before lasted longer".

 

 

Carefully read the copy on the box. The "20 years of service life" the advertising promises is never a promise that the light will run 24/7 for 20 years continuously. It's a certain number of running hours, spread out over 20 years at a few hours per day. I've got a box of 450 lumen GE "Relax LED" bulbs here, it says "lasts 13* years", based on 3 hours use per day. That's about 15,000 hours rated run time, or about 625 days. I've had one of these bulbs running nearly continuously a lot longer than that. 

 

As for user-serviceable LED lights, I don't see the need. They're cheap and they last an order of magnitude longer than the incandescent bulbs of yesteryear. Besides, the glass bulb and metal base are the cheap parts, and replacing just the driver or just a failed LED stick won't reset it to factory original condition. It's only a matter of time before the component you didn't replace fails.

 

2 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Or you could make a $2 bulb that is rated for 80W but actually uses 60W, and lasts 2500 hours.

Halogen bulbs are there to placate people who are afraid of change, can't understand the difference between 3000k and 5000k, or hoarded incandescents when "the government took away muh light bulbs". A 75 watt equivalent halogen uses about 55 watts. A 75 watt equivalent LED uses about 10 watts. Even if the LED bulb costs $5, it will pay for itself in power savings over its life compared to running multiple Halogen bulbs for an equivalent amount of time.

 

38 minutes ago, tridy said:

I have to disagree with that. It would be much easier to take it apart and recycle the materials separately, like hard plastic from electronics, even if you do not plan to repair it.

If the entire LED bulb is processed for recycling at the end of its service life, it doesn't need to be taken apart and handled separately. It's getting pulverized, then the debris gets sorted. Disassembling the bulbs for recycling requires more effort.

[tridy]

59 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Besides, the glass bulb and metal base are the cheap parts, and replacing just the driver or just a failed LED stick won't reset it to factory original condition.

 

I think that quite often this is one of the LEDs that fails that kills the bulb. I am not concerned about "factory original", the "refurbished" will do :).

 

Just a crazy idea to have led modules like the replaceable cherry keys switches.

 

Is there a video showing the recycling process of LED lamps?

 

 

 

 

 

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, starsmine said:

The lamp already is modular as in you just swap out the bulb when they go out for a dollar. 

 

Not exactly? You're throwing out three things:

- The LED chips (there might still be working ones)

- The power supply (which probably still works)

- metal/glass/plastic used to "simulate" the Edison base and shape

 

It would make sense if there was a way to replace the LED chips alone (eg socketing them, or simply having the LED chip unit have a slot it slides into) then you would not be throwing away WiFi/Bluetooth radio+powersupply bases in more expensive bulbs.

 

That said, the only LED bulbs I've had fail were closest to the bathroom.

 

12 hours ago, starsmine said:

LED bulbs that dont meet their rated hour rating are because of lack of heat dissipation. 

 

Lack of heat dissipation and unstable humidity

 

12 hours ago, starsmine said:

You shouldn't be tossign them out anyways, there is a recycle stream for them.

Good luck convincing people to recycle anything without the stores selling them having a recycle box for them in store. You know what the stores that sell them do though? They throw them in the garbage compactor. That's what they've always done with recyclable materials. The staff is not paid enough to care, and if you bring a bulb back to a place that isn't a specialty place (eg Bestbuy) it's likely going into their general waste stream. 

 

At any rate, there is room for improvement, and most of that improvement has to come from the manufacturers deciding on a standard LED chip interface. As it is, the one bulb I replaced, the chip failed or exploded and took out part of the PCB. But the plastic had become so fragile that had I dropped it on the floor it probably would have shattered easily. Because there was a huge scorch mark on the plastic, even if I wanted to, it was too damaged to be reused.

 

Meanwhile the first LED bulb I bought when I moved in after the original incandescent burned out 12 years ago, is still working. This one is the GU10 one above the computer. It has likely has around 70,000 hours on it.

[tridy]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

If the entire LED bulb is processed for recycling at the end of its service life, it doesn't need to be taken apart and handled separately. It's getting pulverized, then the debris gets sorted. Disassembling the bulbs for recycling requires more effort.

Interesting, this I did not know. I got to get to the recycling factory like that. It is interesting to look at it. And I do mean that, and not in a sarcastic way.

 

Thanks for the "Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated" video link about the Phoebus cartel.

 

 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Indeed, but people keep repeating the technologyconnections video, which misses the point of LED bulbs being cheaply made garbage made to fail so you will buy another one, but just ignore the part on LED bulbs having a bunch of electronics that are more harmful to throw away.

Nobody has missed that.

The person who brought up incandescent lights was OP himself, so someone else and I responded to that specific argument. I even included this sentence to make it clear that it was a different situation with LED lights:

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Anyway, the story is a bit different with modern LED lamps (which could be made to last longer and be more efficient), but if you are buying somewhat half-decent LED light bulbs they will last many, many years.

Stop making strawman arguments.

The only one missing the point here is you. The point is that incandescent light bulbs were NOT a case of planned obsolescence. You might be able to make a case for planned obsolescence with LED light bulbs, but that is a completely different situation compared to incandescent light bulbs. They are not related at all. And if you do want to make a case for planned obsolescence with LED light bulbs then my counterargument is that they are doing a pretty shitty job with it, since LED light bulbs generally last so long. As I said, I've only had to replace a single one in my home. I don't have any statistics to actually prove how long LED light bulbs last, but the lack of data is in and of itself pretty telling in my opinion.

Incandescent light bulbs were easy to measure because they lasted such a short time (about 1000 hours).

LED lights on the other hand, last so long that nobody even seems interested in testing them. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Or you could make a $2 bulb that is rated for 80W but actually uses 60W, and lasts 2500 hours.

What does this even mean? Are you talking about LED lights or incandescent lights?

If you are talking about incandescent light bulbs, the 60-watt bulb would produce significantly less light and be less efficient than the 80-watt bulb.

But can we please get away from discussing seriously outdated lighting technology?

 

 

4 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Sure light bulbs are consumables, but most modern LED bulbs don't last as long as they should, because manufacturers cheap out on the power supply so it runs hot, and drive the LEDs to their limit which makes them less efficient. The bulb cooks itself even though there is no reason for most LED bulbs to run as hot as they do, and the technologyconnections video was a weird take when the bulb cartel factually did design things to fail on purpose, their video also misses the point of LED bulbs being wasteful to just throw away because the power supply fails despite LED bulbs being marketed as being more environmentally friendly than a incandescent light bulb. There is a lot more work and precautions required to recycle an LED bulb compared to a metal filament light bulb.

The Technology Connections video doesn't miss the point. You are missing the point.

1) The situation is completely different with incandescent vs LED lights. Stop trying to conflate the two.

2) Yes, the cartel did design light bulbs to fail after around 1000 hours. The entire point of the video is to explain WHY they did so because there were legitimate reasons for it. The light bulbs that lasted longer were objectively worse, and they couldn't make them longer lasting without making them worse. It wasn't a case of manufacturers cheating out and designing them poorly, nor was it a case of the manufacturers wanting things to break so that they could make more money. It was simply the fact that longer-lasting light bulbs were worse so they decided that 1000 hours was a good compromise. 

 

And yes, LED lights are absolutely more environmentally friendly than incandescent light bulbs. This is not up for debate. Just because it has some drawbacks does not mean we should ignore the massive benefits.

 

 

 

For those interested, if you want to get into a conspiracy theory that is actually more legitimate than the "incandescent light bulbs are made to fail!" one, look up the Philips Dubai LED light bulbs.

What happened was that a Sheikh in Dubai wanted better lamps, so Philips took their regular LED lamp, undervolted them, quadrupled the number of LED filaments, and then sold that. The end result is that each filament runs cooler and thus will in theory not break as quickly. It also uses less power.

My guess as to why it was Dubai that asked for this is because they can get stupidly hot weather, which negatively affects the life expectancy of LED lights. It was a necessity for them, and they got the money to feel like quadrupling the materials is worth it if it means twice the efficiency for example. Maybe twice the life expectancy as well, or maybe more. I doubt they will last quadruple as long however since components like the driver circuitry can still fail, and that kills the bulb as well.

 

And like I said earlier, do we even want to keep light bulbs around for that long? In 15 years' time, we probably have better lights than we got today, so it might be more environmentally friendly to replace them rather than repair them.

[tridy]

18 hours ago, LAwLz said:

For those interested, if you want to get into a conspiracy theory that is actually more legitimate than the "incandescent light bulbs are made to fail!" one, look up the Philips Dubai LED light bulbs.

What happened was that a Sheikh in Dubai wanted better lamps, so Philips took their regular LED lamp, undervolted them, quadrupled the number of LED filaments, and then sold that. The end result is that each filament runs cooler and thus will in theory not break as quickly. It also uses less power.

My guess as to why it was Dubai that asked for this is because they can get stupidly hot weather, which negatively affects the life expectancy of LED lights. It was a necessity for them, and they got the money to feel like quadrupling the materials is worth it if it means twice the efficiency for example. Maybe twice the life expectancy as well, or maybe more. I doubt they will last quadruple as long however since components like the driver circuitry can still fail, and that kills the bulb as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4

 

ok, so more LEDs, less power ... I would assume these bulbs do not run as bright as the ones that use more power. There is going to be a tradeoff, just like with the Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated where the balance between power, longevity, and brightness needed to be found. So, I really would like to see a comparison between these lamps. Adding 2x more LEDs and giving 3x less power got to be sacrificing the brightness. I do understand the problems with the hot weather, and maybe it is a reasonable scenario but "forget about physics"?

 

A video about the grading efficiency of the LED bulbs and different parameters.

    LED Bulbs Downgraded From A+ To F! - Energy Labelling

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWcfz1lfD-w

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, tridy said:

ok, so more LEDs, less power ... I would assume these bulbs do not run as bright as the ones that use more power.

They actually do run just as bright, at half the power.

 

 

1 hour ago, tridy said:

There is going to be a tradeoff, just like with the Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated where the balance between power, longevity, and brightness needed to be found.

It's not really the same as with incandescent lights.

With incandescent lights, you have a limited amount of light that the lamp can output before it uses up the filament. The brighter you make it, the faster it will burn out. The more dim you make it, the longer it will last. You can think of it like a candle. The bigger the flame (and more light), the faster the candle will burn out.

 

With LED lights, there is no material being used up. Instead, they act according to an efficiency curve. 

 

This is what the different lamps shown in the video look like (I added a "regular" version of the Dubai 3-watt lamp myself):

 

The filaments in most LED lights are basically slightly "overclocked", and what Philips did with the Dubai lamps was to "undervolt" them, causing them to get better efficiency. Each component does less work, but since they quadrupled the number of filaments it doesn't matter for the end result (amount of light).

There is a sweet spot for these LED filaments where they get the most light for the least amount of power. The Dubai lamp is closer to that sweet spot than regular LED lamps.

Please note that Dubai is really hot, and since heat is an issue for LED lights they are more sensitive than other countries. That might be one of the reasons why it was specifically Dubai that did this (and because Dubai is one of the few rich countries where a price can just go "Okay, our country should use exclusively Philips lamps now").

 

 

But I think the Dubai lamps are overengineered mostly for show. I kind of doubt Dubai cares about the power savings and the extra materials used are probably not that great for the environment either. 4 times the filaments for half the power usage, and like I said earlier it doesn't do much to help other components from breaking.

 

You can get closer to the sweet spot yourself by using a dimmer and then dialing it down a bit.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are brands that cram their bulbs full of filaments as well. I doubt Philips has a patent on the design since it's so simple. 

 

Another thing you can do if you want longer-lasting lights is to move away from light bulbs completely. The light bulb for factor is not that great for LED lighting to begin with, since it puts so many components into a small space. There are properly designed LED lights that are a single unit often have things like the power circuitry far away from the LED portion, thus removing the heat from the sensitive parts. Those types of lamps can also have better heatsinks because they aren't limited to the small area inside the socket. But please note that not all lamps that are a single piece (no-bulb) are properly designed, and since they are even less modular than lamps with light bulbs you probably need to replace the entire lamp if it breaks. That's a pain in the ass if you have let's say 4 lamps that looks the same, one breaks and then you can't buy the same type again.

 

 

But anyway, counterintuitive, the solution to light bulbs breaking isn't to make them more modular. The fix is to make lamps less modular, by ditching the light bulb socket completely and moving to all-in-one designs where we can move the power circuitry away from the LED elements and get more room to create better designs.

[tridy]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Another thing you can do if you want longer-lasting lights is to move away from light bulbs completely. The light bulb for factor is not that great for LED lighting to begin with, since it puts so many components into a small space. There are properly designed LED lights that are a single unit often have things like the power circuitry far away from the LED portion, thus removing the heat from the sensitive parts.

I see. Since we are not restricted as we were with the "old" bulbs, we can actually spread the LEDs across a larger area and have the electric components not as close to LEDs. I think it makes sense. That is what hot-climate areas should do as well then.

[Needfuldoer]

On 7/20/2023 at 8:17 AM, LAwLz said:

Another thing you can do if you want longer-lasting lights is to move away from light bulbs completely. The light bulb for factor is not that great for LED lighting to begin with, since it puts so many components into a small space. There are properly designed LED lights that are a single unit often have things like the power circuitry far away from the LED portion, thus removing the heat from the sensitive parts. Those types of lamps can also have better heatsinks because they aren't limited to the small area inside the socket. But please note that not all lamps that are a single piece (no-bulb) are properly designed, and since they are even less modular than lamps with light bulbs you probably need to replace the entire lamp if it breaks. That's a pain in the ass if you have let's say 4 lamps that looks the same, one breaks and then you can't buy the same type again.

There's a Technology Connections about this, too! 

 

If we really wanted to reduce bulb waste, we'd have to move away from powering light bulbs with AC line voltage entirely. Running LED bulbs off a central, low voltage DC source would eliminate the need for every bulb to have its own power supply, so the LEDs wouldn't have as much heat to contend with. It might even be more efficient, especially in installations that have local solar storage.

 

Problem is nobody has low voltage infrastructure in place, except maybe for track lights or landscaping accent lights. These DC circuits would need their own transformer, distribution wiring, switches, outlets, and bulb sockets. None of this can be shared with AC 120v circuits either (except maybe the switches), because if they were the same you know consumers who don't understand (or refuse to believe) the difference will mix and match them then get angry when things don't work or get fried.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Needfuldoer
ttypos

[starsmine]

28 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

There's a Technology Connections about this, too! 

 

If we really wanted to reduce bbulb waste, we'd have to move away from powering light bulbs with AC line voltage entirely. Running LED bulbs off a central, low voltage DC source would eliminate the need for every bulb to have its own power supply, so the LEDs wouldn't have as much heat to contend with. It might even be more efficient, especially in installations that have local solar storage.

 

Problem is nobody has low voltage infrastructure in place, except maybe for track lights or landscaping accent lights. These DC circuits would need their own transformer, distribution wiring, switches, outlets, and bulb sockets. None of this can be shared with AC 120v circuits either (except maybe the switches), because if they were the same you know consumers who don't understand (or refuse to believe) the difference will mix and match them then get angry when things don't work or get fried.

Florescent conversions

I have swapped quite a few fluorescent ballasts to low voltage for LED replacements. But that isnt that common for home use. 

[wanderingfool2]

For modular LED bulb's I don't think that's a great thing...a lot of the bulbs people currently buy anyways right now are light-bulb replacements...at which point servicing individual components in them has a major impact as they already have to fit into a form factor that reduces the lifespan (unless you use better quality caps and such).

 

What we need are more fixtures that are designed to provide DC voltages to bulbs...that way it is a lot more serviceable or just won't ever die....but with that said, we need a new specification (maybe a different bottom connect), that accounts for that...then overtime people will switch to that, which then would reduce the waste overall.

 

The bulbs that typically have large bases, like some of Philips ones usually are good though (but the downside is they don't look like a normal bulb anymore...instead you have a giant plastic bit)

 

 

On 7/19/2023 at 8:10 AM, LAwLz said:

And yes, LED lights are absolutely more environmentally friendly than incandescent light bulbs. This is not up for debate. Just because it has some drawbacks does not mean we should ignore the massive benefits.

Only in the sense of CO2 emissions.  Everything else of it pretty much gets buried by the incandescent bulb.

 

For starters, LED's can contain additional metals that aren't great...and the issue is there isn't too much literature out there that says what is used (aside from companies who seem to flock their mercury free claim...which is true but not a concern)

 

Then you have the general issues with LED over incandescent bulbs (shortening to IB)

CRI: IB = 100, LED = Most fall at or below 90 (and it can make a drastic difference in terms of colors, especially food)

Color temps on most LED's tend to be more white instead of yellow, which would have more impact on eyes

Also the general eye strain from the light that is emitted from it

 

Don't get me wrong, I purchase exclusively LED bulbs and won't change that up anytime...but aside from the energy savings, heat output, and impact resistance LED's don't have as much going for them...it's just the energy saving is what most focus on.

 

 

With that said, LED's do last longer, when they are built well...but that's the general issue with LED's you can't necessarily tell what is a good brand even.  I have a string of 10 LED globe lights made by philips...over the last 5 years I've replaced roughly 4 - 5 of them due to capacitors dying (or I assume that to be the issue)...what's worse is when you have a chandelier with 20+ bulbs, and a few of them flicker...but they flicker enough that you notice the light changing in the room but not consistent enough to figure out which bulb it is (and worse when you have 2 or 3 bulbs that are like that).  At one point it got to where I just replaced the entire set just to get rid of the flicker.

 

 

In an ideal scenario though what is described in the patent would come to fruition, it doesn't actually have to be in the form that was mentioned.  It seems like the patent is broad enough to cover essentially a capacitor that is like a lightbulb...so the housing for that wouldn't necessarily have to fit into the same structure as the lightbulb itself.  Maybe a panel on a fixture that you take off and replace.

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

With that said, LED's do last longer, when they are built well...but that's the general issue with LED's you can't necessarily tell what is a good brand even.  I have a string of 10 LED globe lights made by philips...over the last 5 years I've replaced roughly 4 - 5 of them due to capacitors dying (or I assume that to be the issue)...what's worse is when you have a chandelier with 20+ bulbs, and a few of them flicker...but they flicker enough that you notice the light changing in the room but not consistent enough to figure out which bulb it is (and worse when you have 2 or 3 bulbs that are like that).  At one point it got to where I just replaced the entire set just to get rid of the flicker.

 

 

One bulb I have is like 12 years. I don't know if it's as bright as it was when I first bought it (I honestly didn't expect them to last more than 5) The replacement for the Philips bulb is one of the "smartbulb" types that I bought simply because I wanted to see if it would last as long in the same fixture.

 

Here's the thing, and I think we can all agree on it. What needs to happen is a standard "Edison base" conversion to "Low Voltage" kit. Which can be as basic as how Edison base style fuses were banned in the 40's and replaced with tamper-proof different-size models for different circuits. All that needs to happen is have a filler-base that fills the entire Edison base, and then the power supply is spread over more of the typical bulb shape area to dissipate more heat, and then the LED chips just slide in RAM stick style or M.2 style into the power supply.

 

Like as an example the one nanoleaf LED Light strip I have right now has a power supply that is a standard 12V power brick plugged into manual controls that also has a wireless radio in it.

There's a 6-pin connector on the LED strip side which is apparently RGBWW and and the power supply is 15VDC. you can apparently run 8 meters of light strip off one power supply.

 

So using this logic, you have two options:

1. End-user upgrade, fits inside existing edison base fixture like a lightbulb

2. Electrical upgrade, replaces the existing fixture entirely. 120V Wall power/dimmer is replaced with an "always-on" dummy. Communication is wireless or Low-voltage wired back to a separate control panel.

 

If you are building a new build, without changes in building code, no developer is ever going to install low voltage wiring when cheaper stuff is still allowed to be used. This is why we keep seeing the cheapest 120V baseboard heaters instead of floor/ceiling radiant heating or heat pumps in houses.

 

It's fun to contemplate a world that cares about the longevity of construction, but really, developers in BC are tearing down wood homes that were built in the 80's to replace them with cheaper, somewhat bigger wood+gyprock homes and calling them luxury, despite having absolutely nothing justifying it. Nobody has cared since 2012 about building good housing, just cheap stuff that can be flipped to foreigners who have no intention of living in it. As a consequence, nobody actually cares about what the inside of the unit has as long as it has an occupancy permit.

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

For starters, LED's can contain additional metals that aren't great...and the issue is there isn't too much literature out there that says what is used (aside from companies who seem to flock their mercury free claim...which is true but not a concern)

The same can be said about incandescent lights. I won't really believe that claim is true unless you can provide solid evidence for it.

 

Also, this report includes a study that of the entire life-cycle of energy consumption including manufacturing and it shows that an LED light is way better even if it might, maybe, possibly, be slightly worse when manufacturing. If there is any legitimacy to that claim at all, it would be a case of tripping over dollars to pick up pennies. The biggest environmental impact of lighting is by far their power consumption, not manufacturing. That's why we should focus on the power consumption part to make them more environmentally friendly. It's okay to increase the environmental impact at the manufacturing stage, if it means the lifetime total environmental impact becomes about 40 times lower. This is kind of the same argument as "electric cars are bad for the environment because the batteries are harmful".

 

 

Even if the claim is true that LED lights are only better in terms of CO2 emissions (which I am very suspicious of since I can't find any evidence to support that claim), that's the important metric we should actually focus on.

Or as the study says: "The energy these three lamp types consume in the use phase constituted their dominant environmental impact". 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Then you have the general issues with LED over incandescent bulbs (shortening to IB)

CRI: IB = 100, LED = Most fall at or below 90 (and it can make a drastic difference in terms of colors, especially food)

Color temps on most LED's tend to be more white instead of yellow, which would have more impact on eyes

Also the general eye strain from the light that is emitted from it

This is not a real issue, because it's something that people choose. In Sweden for example, almost all our LED light bulbs have yellowish light by design and choice. If your LED light bulbs have more of a blue hue to them then that's something the LED manufacturer designed and you chose when you bought the light bulb. It's not something inherent to LED lights. If you want a more yellow-looking LED light, just buy that type of light bulb. 

 

 

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Don't get me wrong, I purchase exclusively LED bulbs and won't change that up anytime...but aside from the energy savings, heat output, and impact resistance LED's don't have as much going for them...it's just the energy saving is what most focus on.

Aside from energy savings, heat output, and impact resistance, what else is there for a light bulb to measure on? Sounds to me like they are better in pretty much every measurable way. Actually, I can think of more ways they are better.

*More flexible in what color they provide.

*Lasts way longer than incandescent light bulbs.

*Does not break faster from being rapidly turned on/off.

 

I really can't think of a single way incandescents are actually in a fundamental way better than LED lights. I don't buy the light temperature argument because as I said, that's by design on some models and not something that is inherent to LED lights. It's just that now we have the option to make light more blueish, so some people prefer it. Giving people the choice is not a bad thing, I think it's a good thing (even if it means they might make the "wrong" choice).

 

I feel like you're arguing for the sake of arguing here.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

 

I really can't think of a single way incandescents are actually in a fundamental way better than LED lights. I don't buy the light temperature argument because as I said, that's by design on some models and not something that is inherent to LED lights. It's just that now we have the option to make light more blueish, so some people prefer it. Giving people the choice is not a bad thing, I think it's a good thing (even if it means they might make the "wrong" choice).

 

I feel like you're arguing for the sake of arguing here.

The only place where an incandescent bulb is better than an LED bulb is the Easy-bake oven.

https://1027vgs.com/2023/03/13/the-easy-bake-oven-you-know-and-love-is-gone-forever-heres-why/

 

That's because it simply "cooked" using the waste heat of the bulb.

 

Most legit uses that remain are also the same use case, where they are used primarily for the heat, Sunlamp's for growing plants, heating reptile/bird enclosures, and sauna's. In which case, you can only use incandescent type lights because the heat/moisture will kill LED and CFL's, and even if the LED puts out heat, it's far too little.

 

At any rate, the thing about the philips bulb is that it's mostly metal (as a heatsink for the power supply.) Like half of it. So there are more recoverable "waste" materials going into the landfill if they're not recycled. There is actually less waste if you can separate the power and controller from the LED chips themselves. Edison-screw type bulbs (A19) are extremely inefficient designs for LED's.

 

But hey, once you replace one bulb, you might never have to replace it. At least, not have to stockpile bulbs like you would with Incandesents. Family usually had 10-20 spare bulbs at any one time, and usually there was one or so dead bulb somewhere in the house because most of our lamps were floor lamps (no ceiling fixtures) and sometimes we'd just move a lamp instead. The bulbs for these lamps (tri-lights) were originally more expensive and sometimes hard to get. But if the tri-light partially burned out we'd still use it until it was entirely burned out.