"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
"Rich Grise" wrote in message
news
After about 10 years, it got a black spot that grew so fast that
the thing was useless in a few months.

This happens when moisture gets under the lamination. I'm not sure of the
exact failure mechanism (what _precisely_ does the water do the to EL
material -- react with it? or just support growth of, e.g., mold that
subsequently destroys the material?) I had a similar experience to yours,
although in my case it only took ~5 years. I went to the company's web
site
(http://www.limelite.com/) and found that the early models were known to
have such a problem but that supposedly it's been fixed.

---Joel

I think GE called their round nite lite a Panelescent. And they lasted
much longer than 2000 - 3000 hrs. I know we got 4 or 5 years out of a couple
of ours. And these were from the early sixties, you'd think they would have
better life now. One of the anesthesia ventilators we sell uses an EL
backlite for the LCD, and, as other posters have said, after about 2000
hours, the damn thing is so dim you can't make out the numbers anymore. Poor
design? Probably. Poor quality? Probably, but this is medical equipment!
regards,
Tom