Anyone else finding LED bulbs are not reaching their life expectancy?

[Julian]

OK....I've had 2 expensive LED bulbs die in the last year when these things are supposed to last 10 years! One of them (an Ecosmart bulb sold by Homedepot) seems to have no warranty support at all. I've sent a message to Homedepot, and we'll see what they say....

Am I alone in my crappy LED experience - one dead in 24 hours, one dead in 6 months...???

 

[Wayloncle]

I have several household LED bulbs and switched my entire camper over to LEDs a while back and I haven't had any go out yet. The camper ones were "cheap" China ones.

 

[Pointblank]

Have upgraded over 100 bulbs over the past 2 years and have had about 10 bulbs fail to date (both Cree and Philips...mostly the latter). Not an exceptionally high failure rate but higher than I expected. It's been completely worth it though, IMHO. Love the light quality of 2700k-3000k LEDs compared to CFLs and especially them being instant-on.

Luckily I kept the packages for enough and simply returned to Home Depot for store credit.

 

[Julian]

I am surprised to say that Homedepot has already called me. Their first suggestion is for me to find the Credit Card # (I had to cancel it as it was compromised) and take that in with my ID so they can look up the charge. We'll see....

@Pointblank 10 bulbs failing is way higher than it should be given these things are supposed to last 10 years....

I even have the packaging for the bulb in question and they couldn't find any record of it, despite it having Home Depot's name on the packaging.

 

[Pointblank]

Definitely higher than it should be. 2 or 3 of the Crees were bad right out of the box out of maybe 40. These were when they were first introduced; they've since undergone several iterations. The price of being an early adopter, I guess.

If you have the SKU and it's still a current model, can you just return it for store credit and buy a new one? I had the same issue with a compromised card...makes it a real pain. I hate the hassle of returning stuff to the extent that I keep Lowes and Home Depot return piles in the garage and do it maybe twice a year. They see me coming no doubt and it hasbit me in the rear a few times....is what it is, lol.

 

[txav8r]

I have converted all of my house to LED and I have changed out the landscape lights completely a second time. The flood bulbs in put in were Lights of America and failed miserably chip by chip. I had two replaced under warranty (1 yr) and those were $19.95 each at Sams club. I bought the EcoSmart @Julian as well for interior bulbs and I have had two fail. The BR30 and BR38 lights were discontinued and replaced with similar, called an EFC-BR30-65WE-W27-120 and an EFC-BR40-90WE-W27-120. As a matter of fact, I had that conversation with Home Depot today! They are sending two replacements and they have a 5 year warranty as did the previous bulbs. The under cabinet lights I installed from HD, were 847658001061 , 3 light pucks in black. I am having flickering problems with them and I bought them 7/16/14. I spoke today with the tech department and while I feel the story is correct, it is sad. The lights are 3W each for a total of 9W on a single power supply/plug. The power supply is a .7 amp supply. Minimal at best, for $44.97 each...I had to have 6 of the kits. Now I have two sets flickering. I know the fix I think...I extended the wiring to get to the switched outlet in each of the kits. I did upgrade the extension wiring from the 24GA that was in the kits from where I cut them, to 18GA runs, so that I wouldn't have a resistance drop. But even still, I think I am going to have to replace 3 kits each with a single larger power supply to handle it. I too am frustrated that I pay so much for state of the art lighting and have high failure rates. Even one bulb at these prices is too much. I have bought a great deal of "china" LED and had pretty good luck with it, however, our artwork illumination is GU10 9W bulbs in track lighting, and that is my highest failure rates. I have replaced 3 bulbs out of the total of 8. Thankfully, I paid about $7 each for those from China vs the $29 each at a lighting store. The light is incredibly bright and perfect illumination of the art without heat. But the life of these is very questionable IMO. I can find ebay buys on groups of 10 for less than $3.50 per bulb, and that makes it somewhat palatable. Interesting thread and glad to see it!

 

[steined]

I've got 8 Costco br30 led in the kitchen that have been working flawlessly for a year. They dim on my standard dimmer but not super low and are still white instead of warm glow. That's my only complaint. They light up nearly instantly. Maybe half a second.

I had 2 br30 replaced in spot lights in my 20ft high great room 2 years ago. They were expensive Sylvania leds. They take about a second to turn on and are high kelvin lights. Not a huge fan.

I have 2 60 Watt Costco leds in the front porch lights. They are epic. I had been going through a set of cfl every 6 months. I have had these leds on dawn to disk every day for over a year. Highly recommended!

I also installed 2 sets of motion lights from Costco (2000 lumen per head I think.) they take a little longer to trigger than your typical halogen lights but have been great.

Just saw Costco came out with the feit electric 100 Watt omnidirectional a bulbs too. I'll replace fixture lights with these and eventually the rest of my can lights with those br30s from Costco.

So far so good.

 

[txav8r]

100w LED, that is a huge amount of light, where would you use that? My uplights outside on my house are only 10w and so bright you can't look directly at them. 100w sounds like a street lamp! I was going to show what I had for uplighting...they are waterproof (not for underwater however), and solve the issue of sprinklers causing failures. These are available in wattage up to 50W I think, maybe more...they put out serious flood lighting.

 

[steined]

100w LED, that is a huge amount of light, where would you use that?

100W Equivalent

 

[txav8r]

Ok...gotcha! I have 90w equivalent in those can lights that I am changing one, the EcoSmart versions that I posted above. They put out a huge amount of light. One of my complaints or at least dislikes, is the length of the bulb. They protrude and that means that they are visible more than a standard halogen flood bulb. And those LEDs are so bright, you really only want the light they emit visible, not the bulb...they are blinding! My halogens used to sit so high up in the cans, that they would not be seen when looking out across the room. Now, they hang so low in the cans, that they can be seen.

 

[txav8r]

These lights, 11 total, hang from a sloped ceiling in the great room and kitchen/breakfast area. They are custom, but not expensive, as we designed and made the fixtures due to the cost of custom pendant lights. They are nothing more than an outdoor flood base on a 4" octagon ceiling box on the ceiling, EMT connector, conduit, EMT connector, copper weathered trashcan, Lamp base, bulb. The previous halogens were buried deep up in the can, these LED's hang too far down. I can change all the trashcans for something bigger, but what a PIA.

 

[Zarrella]

Wow Mel!! Trash cans hanging from the ceiling.....I know there is a joke there somewhere!

 

[txav8r]

They actually look great and solved a big dilemma. Any lighting store was going to charge around $75 for the cheapest pendant light. The slope of the ceiling pretty much made all but a couple custom lights, and the charge jumped to almost triple the amount for almost all of them. So those 11 lights, were going to cost us $1875. It cost me $17 each to make them. And honestly, they look way better than the custom lights. Total cost for an experienced "modded"...$187!!! But if I want a larger can to set the bulb deeper, that mod to my mod will probably set me back another $17 per light today...just for the cans. Now that is taking $187 out of my boat mod money!

 

[Julian]

Love the ingenuity in those lights @txav8r ! Amazing how much they ask for custom lights! Have you looked at smaller LED spots? The one in particular that I'm trying to get replaced was a smaller spot by Ecosmart.

I was thinking the other night about why they don't make a wide angle LED spot light bulb. Essentially build it in a full 90, 180 or even 270 degree arc. Maybe they already do this....but if not....there's a great idea....

 

[txav8r]

I think the beam spread on the 75w and 90w equivalents are 120 degrees, but some of that info is only available through the manufacturer. And that is tough with HD, because they kind of run interference for the manufacturers they use, and getting the manufacturer directly to find out such stuff is tough. I did this back a ways when I wanted to change over to LED. The newer style, which are said to be direct replacement, may or may not be the same beam spread on the bulbs that replaced the previous ones.

@Julian , yes, I have looked at them. And they are now coming out with lighting that is equivalent wattage in smaller packages, but I think the beam spread is tighter and not suitable for ceiling lighting in my situation. I have the GU10 spots that I have had some failure with, but love the lights, and being ebay from china, they are cheap! So the failure isn't horrible. The illumination is incredible and leaves the colors natural in the art. I love the economy of using cheap Hampton Bay tracks combined with high quality but cheap illumination!

 

[Julian]

I was actually talking about high output outdoor spots (standard base)....should have clarified that. I have nice BR30 LED outdoor spots, but their spread is the same as the old incandesent bulb. They should be able to make something much better and fit it into the same base!

 

[maboat]

I was going to show what I had for uplighting...they are waterproof (not for underwater however), and solve the issue of sprinklers causing failures. These are available in wattage up to 50W I think, maybe more...they put out serious flood lighting.
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Great minds think alike

Liz likes to change colors for the holidays so I got RGB ones of course

 

[txav8r]

I didn't have any luck with the outdoor spots holding up to water spray. That is why I pulled them out and used the waterproof fixtures above. They have better light diffusion and spread than any bulb I had tried previously...at 10w apiece. But application is an individual thing, even the standard base would not "wash" the wall in light, and I had to add PVC extensions to the flood base fixtures to extend the posts out far enough to get the tilt onto the walls. So on the new waterproof flood fixtures, I used rod used to thread a lamp from base to fixture, it is a hollow all thread rod. That worked perfectly to extend those fixtures and maintain the waterproof integrity...although I sealed the $#!+ out of them with marine grade silicone!

 

[txav8r]

Dang @maboat , I bet those 20w'ers flood the walls great! Don't you love the resistance to water and condensation with those lights?...I do! I should have done the RGB ones...are they on a controller?

 

[txav8r]

What does your edge lighting consist of? Reminds me of @-klb- ...he is a lighting engineer even if by hobby...he has done a bunch of annual display stuff. I know you like his approach to problem solving, as do I!