LED globe lifespan

We seem to have terrible luck with LED globes. It doesn't seem to matter whether they are cheapies, or high end brands, such as Philips. The one in our computer room kept switching itself off or flashing - we could turn it off at the switch and it would work again, until it got too frequent and terribly annoying. 18W globe, and not in a light fitting, only a batten holder. It was on most days, and about three or so years old. We finally got sick of it and changed the globe. This morning one of the kitchen ones simply stopped working, also in a batten holder. Again, nowhere close to the kind of life span that is advertised.

Stupidly we didn't keep a database of when we installed them. Are the advertised lifespans of ten years real, or just wishful thinking?

The electronics seem to fail well before the LED chip. They should be forced to advertise the MTBF of the whole lamp rather than the LED.

i have found phillips brand suck, fail really early in life. same with a few others ive tried.
i look after many hundreds of globes, replacing globes weekly pretty much around the place.
best ones i have found to date, never yet had one fail in the 18 months i have been using them are these AT9460 - Atom Lighting in both screw and bayonet type
i will not use anything other than these types while im not having any issues.
im a person who dates globes as well when i install to gauge life spans.

I hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread, but it reminded me of something. I've got some globes (bought cheaply from an auction site) that have an unusual base. I haven't a clue who'd normally use them or maybe I'm just not up with new trends. The box describes the base as GX24q-2.

Does anyone know what they're for or who would use them?

Attachment 526958

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Originally Posted by jack620

The electronics seem to fail well before the LED chip. They should be forced to advertise the MTBF of the whole lamp rather than the LED.

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I agree. flickering LEDs are signs of an electronics issue.

The 20 AEG LED tubes I bought for my shed in 2015 are all still working, except one which was close to my welding bench so I suspect it was an electronic problem cause by a welding pulse. The replacement has been in place for more than 3 years and seems to be coping OK, When I put the new one in I noticed it was definitely brighter than the old ones.

The 3, ~7,000 lumen LED ring lights bought a couple of years back are all still working but I notice one is flickering more than the other.

The 4, 2700 Lumen Phillips globes for my Macro stand are more than 5 years old and still working.

One of the 3 x 10,000 lumen panels I bought in 2021 and put in the welding Bay died, the other is fine.

The Luce Bella Bunnings globes I buy for the kitchen seem to last 2-3 years about same as the Phillips or Osrams.

Changed out all fluro tubes in the shed, about 25, and the few I had in the house for AEG tubes.
Removed the balast and starter and re-wired to the diagram provided. Active to one and and neutral to the other. Some were installed years ago and I have not had a failure yet. Excellent light.

Regards,

John

I inherited a lot of retrofit CLA brand LED bayonet and Edison screw bulbs when I bought the current property 6 years ago. I didn't like the yellow light colour so replaced with Mirabella, then Philips. All the Philips are the better quality ones, not the supermarket ones, though they are about the same price. The original ones got repurposed to friends or sheds, etc. I have about 60 active LED bulbs and only 1 failure in 6 years. I run off-grid solar with a Selectronics SP Pro inverter, which produces first grade electricity with no under or over voltages, frequency variations, surges, spikes or noise - much better than the mains stuff from the gird - so maybe that helps. If grid connected, a surge suppressor in the switchboard is mandatory IMHO.

Those are Compact Fluorescent Lamps which require a special fitting with a ballast. Might be hard to find a fitting for them these days. Maybe sell 'em on Fleabay or something.

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Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread, but it reminded me of something. I've got some globes (bought cheaply from an auction site) that have an unusual base. I haven't a clue who'd normally use them or maybe I'm just not up with new trends. The box describes the base as GX24q-2.

Does anyone know what they're for or who would use them?

Attachment 526958

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Can failures be attributed to our varying voltage supplies. We changed to 230 but that was in name only. Perhaps much electronic manufacturing is geared to 220 but another issue is that of dirty power when the off peak frequencies are sent though usually out of hours except for standby equipment. Just a guess.

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Originally Posted by phild001

We changed to 230 but that was in name only.

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My solar inverter disconnects from the grid when the line voltage hits 256V. I get a message nearly every day that it has dropped off line. That can’t be doing the electronics in my home any good.

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Originally Posted by jack620

My solar inverter disconnects from the grid when the line voltage hits 256V. I get a message nearly every day that it has dropped off line. That can’t be doing the electronics in my home any good.

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Complain to the power company / distributor. Above 253V is outside the standard I believe.

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Originally Posted by pippin88

Complain to the power company / distributor. Above 253V is outside the standard I believe.

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I have the same situation and the distributor cane out to look at it. The inspector said this is a problem they are having everywhere with everyone feeding power back into the grid during the day but they can’t wind the supply back because it would be under spec at night when there is maximum load and no solar.

Beardy is correct. They dropped the voltage at the transformer at the end of the street by 7V when I complained a few years ago. But they can’t drop it any more or it will go under the spec when the sun isn’t shining.

WA was 250 and now it's 240V. At Uni this played havoc with scientific gear that was rated at 220-230V so we had quite a few pieces of gear running off Variacs, nd home were regularly burning out incandescent globes.

From Wikipedia:

“Since 2000, the nominal voltage in most areas of Australia has been 230 V, except for Western Australia and Queensland which both remain at 240 V”

That’d be right. 🙄

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, the power distribution system will include inverters being installed as part of every new built house. Or maybe large capacity inverters at the end of every street. And their purpose: to convert the varying voltage of the power supply to DC and then transform that into reliable 240V AC. Then watch your power bills soar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jack620

From Wikipedia:

“Since 2000, the nominal voltage in most areas of Australia has been 230 V, except for Western Australia and Queensland which both remain at 240 V”

That’d be right. 🙄

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A WA power engineer told me that one reason they did this the lower V loss towards the end of long 240V lines and couldn't justify the cost if stepping up the V - transmitting that - and then stepping down again. Some of these small distant towns are being disconnected from the grin and getting their own renewable Power including community batteries.

15 years ago we had a 10 year old dishwasher (DW) that would not function at our place, but worked fine at the manufacturers service centre about 5 suburbs away. This had the service people stumped but eventually they put me into retired engineer who had experience with this sort of thing, and the first question he asked me is where do you live. Reason was they had problems with that model of DW when used in the country on the end of long low V transmission lines. Then we checked the V at our place (230-ish V) and at the service centre (240-ish V). When I interposed a Variac (adjustable Transformer) between the house supply and the DW and ran the Variac at 245V and it worked fine. The problem turned out to be in the epoxy embedded controller board that was no longer available so I ran the DW on the Variac but over time it needed a higher and high V to operate. When the DW needed ~260V I deemed it too dangerous to continue I decided to chuck the DW out.

We had ongoing issues with our inverter shutting down due to high voltage. Our problem was solved by installing a thicker cable between the house and the grid. The thicker cable has lower resistance, so the inverter doesn't have to increase the voltage as much to push it back onto the grid. We had 247V on the grid, but 255V at the inverter.

We haven't had a problem since.

I guess this won't help in areas where the grid is very near the maximum already, but just thought I'd mention it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jack620

From Wikipedia:

“Since 2000, the nominal voltage in most areas of Australia has been 230 V, except for Western Australia and Queensland which both remain at 240 V”

That’d be right. 🙄

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The nominal voltage in most areas of Australia had been set at 240 V in 1926. In 2000,

Standards Australia issued a system Standard AS60038, with 230 V as the nominal voltage with a +10% to –6% variation at the point of supply, i.e., 253 V to 216.2 V.

A new power quality standard, AS61000.3.100, was released in 2011 that details additional requirements.
The new standard stipulates a nominal 230 V, and the allowable voltage to the customer's point of supply is, as mentioned, +10% to –6%.
However, the preferred operating range is +6% to –2%. (244 V to 225 V).
(AS/NZS 3112 - Wikipedia )

ALL of these "specifications" include 240 V AC

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jack620

From Wikipedia:

“Since 2000, the nominal voltage in most areas of Australia has been 230 V, except for Western Australia and Queensland which both remain at 240 V”

That’d be right. 🙄

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that's because of no daylight saving. :q:D:rolleyes:

As "Fluorescent" lamps have been discussed on this "thread", this may be of interest:-
Switching off fluorescent lighting for good - Electrical connection

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

I hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread, but it reminded me of something. I've got some globes (bought cheaply from an auction site) that have an unusual base. I haven't a clue who'd normally use them or maybe I'm just not up with new trends. The box describes the base as GX24q-2.

Does anyone know what they're for or who would use them?


Attachment 526958

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Place where I work has many fittings which take the four pin compact fluros. Buildings were constructed or rebuilt in the period of 2007-2010. Just another different globe to try and keep a stock of.

Getting back to Cecile's original question : -

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cecile

We seem to have terrible luck with LED globes. It doesn't seem to matter whether they are cheapies, or high end brands, such as Philips. The one in our computer room kept switching itself off or flashing - we could turn it off at the switch and it would work again, until it got too frequent and terribly annoying. 18W globe, and not in a light fitting, only a batten holder. It was on most days, and about three or so years old. We finally got sick of it and changed the globe. This morning one of the kitchen ones simply stopped working, also in a batten holder. Again, nowhere close to the kind of life span that is advertised.

Stupidly we didn't keep a database of when we installed them. Are the advertised lifespans of ten years real, or just wishful thinking?

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I will refer to that which I posted on another site: -
LED bulbs dying prematurely in one light fixture | DIY Home Improvement Forum

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HEAT is usually the main problem with LED failure.

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Originally Posted by FrodoOne, post: 6975216, member: 372721

The problem is usually overheating of the "Driver" electronic components - due to lack of ventilation.
I suggest that you try using "filament" type LEDs, where such components are minimal and contained within the "base" which, together with the holder, acts as a "heat-sink".


Although many "filament" type LEDs are made to look "Olde Worldy", they are available with clear or frosted glass "bulbs", which strongly resemble the incandescent lamps which they can replace.

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Many posts since then have agreed with me.

Again, I contend that the construction of "Filament" type LED lamps is such that
most of the waste heat is produced in the "Filament LEDs" and
what little waste heat that is produced by the Driver components in the Base
is largely conducted away by the metal Base and the metal Socket within which it sits - thus reducing the "overheating" damage to the few "electronic components" involved.

The fitting concerned (in Post #1) appears to be of metal construction and this is likely to provide more "heat sinking" for the "Driver" components within the Bases.

The OP (Otis R) should, at least, try the use of appropriate "Filament Leds" !

Also, I suggest the viewing of
[MEDIA=youtube]Y1UOjhy5zmQ[/MEDIA]
to see an exposition of some of the "points" to which I have referred.

The viewing of this rather esoteric video, which relates to "Filament LEDs", may also be of interest.

[MEDIA=youtube]tbvVnOxb1AI[/MEDIA]

I reckon I've had ALDI LEDs since they started selling them, cheaply on Special Buy, $3?. Thinking about them, I don't recall ever having to replace one! I now have heaps of spares, BC and ES, warm and cool, and the way they're going it could be a lifetime supply!