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#1
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FYI: "Lights of America" LED bulbs -- Costco refunding purchase price
DA had written this in response to
http://www.thestuccocompany.com/main...ch-403425-.htm : Percival P. Cassidy wrote: We got a letter from Costco today inviting us to return the "Lights of America" LED bulbs we had purchased because they do not live up to the claimed life of 20K hours. Four different SKUs are listed. Sam's Club has sold some of these as well, but no communication so far from them. Perce They are *SO* bad that I have to repair one or two literally every week. As I'm writing this, two out of four are dark, I just did not have time to work on them yet. Irony: they are lighting my electronics workbench and so I just bring them down without even getting up from the chair and reach for a replacement white LED and 3 minutes later it's going back up and works until another one of the original LEDs gives out. Thankfully (in terms of repair, not use of course), they are *SO* bad that even glue that holds the socket prongs body to the transparent cover crumbles (!) right after you drive a knife into the crack between the two parts and give it a slightest twist. I have a little rig devised specifically to test the LEDs in the LOA fixture but sometimes you can just see a dark spot inside the LED that indicates a burnout. There are 24 LEDs in each light and I estimate that after 18 months of use/repair cycle there will finally be no original LEDs left. I don't know if it will increase time between failures too much though because the whole idea of powering a string of serially connected LEDs from 120V seems faulty to me - each (good) LED does have a 40,000 hours lifespan or so but having 24 of them in series, you'll have to stack the MTBF up (calculating MTBF properly is not my cup of tea) and for the whole fixture it will be a small fraction of what the single LED would last. My next LED light will definitely be a 12V parallel - connected LED type. Anyways, sorry for the long rant, these lights have been an eyesore for the past year for me, I can't wait to use the earliest opportunity to get rid of them. If you are not able to easily repair them yourself, there is no question about it - return them ASAP. byt the way, Wallmart still sells them ... --------------- \//. |
#2
Posted to alt.home.repair
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FYI: "Lights of America" LED bulbs -- Costco refunding purchaseprice
DA wrote:
We got a letter from Costco today inviting us to return the "Lights of America" LED bulbs we had purchased because they do not live up to the claimed life of 20K hours. Four different SKUs are listed. Sam's Club has sold some of these as well, but no communication so far from them. They are *SO* bad that I have to repair one or two literally every week. As I'm writing this, two out of four are dark, I just did not have time to work on them yet. Irony: they are lighting my electronics workbench and so I just bring them down without even getting up from the chair and reach for a replacement white LED and 3 minutes later it's going back up and works until another one of the original LEDs gives out. Thankfully (in terms of repair, not use of course), they are *SO* bad that even glue that holds the socket prongs body to the transparent cover crumbles (!) right after you drive a knife into the crack between the two parts and give it a slightest twist. I have a little rig devised specifically to test the LEDs in the LOA fixture but sometimes you can just see a dark spot inside the LED that indicates a burnout. There are 24 LEDs in each light and I estimate that after 18 months of use/repair cycle there will finally be no original LEDs left. I don't know if it will increase time between failures too much though because the whole idea of powering a string of serially connected LEDs from 120V seems faulty to me - each (good) LED does have a 40,000 hours lifespan or so but having 24 of them in series, you'll have to stack the MTBF up (calculating MTBF properly is not my cup of tea) and for the whole fixture it will be a small fraction of what the single LED would last. My next LED light will definitely be a 12V parallel - connected LED type. Anyways, sorry for the long rant, these lights have been an eyesore for the past year for me, I can't wait to use the earliest opportunity to get rid of them. If you are not able to easily repair them yourself, there is no question about it - return them ASAP. byt the way, Wallmart still sells them ... We haven't had any as long as a year yet, but so far the only one giving trouble is one of three R30 bulbs that normally are on for several hours every day. These are bulbs with a regular ES base; we use them in our track-light setup. Perce |
#3
Posted to alt.home.repair
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FYI: "Lights of America" LED bulbs -- Costco refunding purchase price
In s.com, DA wrote
in part: There are 24 LEDs in each light and I estimate that after 18 months of use/repair cycle there will finally be no original LEDs left. I don't know if it will increase time between failures too much though because the whole idea of powering a string of serially connected LEDs from 120V seems faulty to me - each (good) LED does have a 40,000 hours lifespan or so but having 24 of them in series, you'll have to stack the MTBF up (calculating MTBF properly is not my cup of tea) and for the whole fixture it will be a small fraction of what the single LED would last. My next LED light will definitely be a 12V parallel - connected LED type. Most LED failures do not affect their conductivity. The usual reason for an LED to be considered "failed" is for it to have faded excessively from number of operating hours (or combination of number of operating hours and temperature). I am aware of LEDs failing open, but that is usually either from severe abuse or from the LEDs being cheap rubbish, with thermal cycling (generally with repeated very large change in temperature) being in a distant third place. - Don Klipstein ) |
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