On 15/11/2017 13:48, Brian Reay wrote:
On 15/11/2017 12:18, Clive Page wrote:

Nearly 3 years ago I bought several 13W LED bulbs from Messrs Ryness
lighting in Old Compton St in London.Â* They were expensive, £11-99
each, but I was reassured to see that they had a 3 year guarantee.

Last week one of the 3 started flickering: not a great loss of light
output, but very distracting to anyone using it and probably a sign
that it was about to fail.Â* I had, being so doubtful about LEDs, kept
the receipt and dug it out to find it was only 2 years 11 months and
three weeks since purchase.Â*Â* So I took it back and I managed to
persuade the manager of Ryness to replace it.Â* Even more amazingly,
the price of these has now gone up from nearly £12 to £18.Â* Maybe
that's because so many have failed and had to be replaced.Â*Â* I have to
assume that the claimed lifetime of 50,000 hours (a decade or two at
our typical usage) is just a wild extrapolation from their testing
programme and wouldn't rely on that at all.

Their demise can also be hastened by putting them in unsuitable fixtures
where heat builds up sufficiently to dry out the PSU capacitors. The
sealed glass globe type are particularly bad for them.

I'm unconvinced re LED lights in the domestic setting, not so much due
to the life (although it is good to see a seller honouring his warranty)
but more the light output.Â* We have them in our motorhome and, in the
confined space, they are OK. However, we tried them in the kitchen
(replacing some halogen bulbs - 2x40W halogen per fitting) and with LEDs
they were hopeless. I forget the rating of the LEDs but they were,
supposedly, equivalent to 40W bulbs. At a guess, they were more like 25W.

Odd. I would agree where CFL are concerned that equivalent light output
was vastly overstated, but all the LED bulbs I have ever bought have
produced something approximating their claimed equivalent brightness.
The first one I bought a nominal 60W equivalent was far too bright in a
small bathroom (the "60W" CFL was about right but failing due to age). A
40W equivalent LED bulb did the trick.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown