LED bulbs

[recoveringbuilder]

Most of my lights take the g9 led bulbs, some came with bulbs others I’ve had to buy, they’re not cheap! I bemoaned to the electrician the cost of them but he assured me that they would last for years!

 I have 9 outside lights that use them and out of the 9 4 have already given up the ghost and inside one light that takes 5 has two already out that’s in the space of 5 months, seems they’re going to be expensive to keep up with!

[nod]

You sound like my wife 

I converted everything to Led at the last house £4.50 each 

I told yes but they last Zillions of hours Wrong Same exsperinance As you 

We have 120 downlights on our new home 

The electrician recommended CPC 

saying he hasn’t had any problems in five years of using the 

Buying by the box Tgey work out about 80 p each All ok after six months including 6 outside 

[PeterW]

Outside light bulbs are notorious for failing quickly due to the heat/cold cycles and they get moisture in the electronics somehow ..!

 

I put a decent Phillips filament LED in one at my mums about 2 years ago though and it’s still going strong. Was about £6 from memory. 

 

Inside I use L-Tac GU-10 and they have been fine.  

[Jeremy Harris]

There are major reliability problems with some LED lamps and fittings, mainly because they are often not designed to allow the LED lamps to run cool.  Worst offenders seem to be those lamps that run directly from the mains supply, as they often have a tiny AC-DC converter internally that is squeezed into a tiny space and consequently runs hot.  All our lights in the house are LEDs and none have ever failed, but they are all low voltage LEDs, even the 8 or 9 outside lights, and so none have the problem caused by having a small AC-DC converter squeezed into the lamp itself.  The downside is that all the lights have separately mounted power supplies, but at least this arrangement seems to ensure reasonable reliability.

[joe90]

As per @JSHarris above, this is my understanding of the problem with LEDs, but I understand there can be a problem with some stand alone AC-DC converters giving radio interference, problem is finding good ones. Perhaps this forum could list good ones from personal experience, or list the bad ones to avoid.

[ProDave]

It is not just LED's, ordinary lamps are often rubbish.  The amount of times people call me because "the lamps keep blowing" they seem to think there is some kind of an electrical fault with a light fitting that can cause the lamps to blow.  Most of the time I just check all the connections are tight, more to humour them than any expectation of finding a fault.

 

So far none of our cheap GU10 LED lamps have failed.  These have mostly been the ones that came with the cheap Screwfix downlighters which I highlighted the link to at the time, something like £2.99 for the fire rated downlight with LED lamp.  I am sure they were priced wrong.

[recoveringbuilder]

Ah but normal light bulbs were 4 for a pound in the £shop!

 I actually still have some normal light bulbs that were bought over 3 years ago and were in some of my table lamps in our last but one house, they were taken out the lamps when we moved almost 3 years ago to the cottage and because we had no need for the lamps in such a small house they had been wrapped in newspaper and boxed up all that time, when I recently unpacked the boxes and found them they went back into the lamps and are working fine ?

[SiBee]

I work with LEDs. They are sensitive little buggers. Yes it’s normally the driver that will fail but some of the claims about LEDs are to be taken with a bit of salt.

They should be a better option for outdoor use though as they are less susceptible to cold temps.

 

[Ed Davies]

I've been in this rented house for 30 months now having replaced all the old halogens and incandescents with LEDs in the first few months of being here. I don't think I've had any failures. The only “problem” I've had is that I replaced one of the halogen E14 (SES) spots in the kitchen when it blew in the first few weeks I was here with a LED one which was much too narrow beam. Shortly after, I replaced all the kitchen bulbs with wider angle LEDs which have been fine. Not given the lighting any thought since.

[newhome]

When we put the downlighters in here a good few years ago LEDs were eye wateringly expensive and weren’t as good as they are now. The cheaper ones (still mega bucks at the time) seemed to take ages to get bright enough, so you could go to have a pee and the bathroom would still be relatively dark by the time you had finished. Despite this the OH still wanted them but the regs the house was built under said that we didn’t need LEDs so I overruled him and all the internal downlighters started off with halogen lamps fitted. Over the years as the halogen ones have blown I have replaced them with LEDs. I would say they’ve been pretty reliable. I tend to keep a couple of boxes of 10 here, bought when they are on offer, and a box of 10 has always been under a tenner. I haven’t bothered replacing all the halogens in one go as there are loads of them and I actually don’t keep any of the downlighters on for very long. I have a set of 5 outside and they’ve been in for about 7 years and have never failed. 

[readiescards]

Some of our LEDs have failed or started flashing. Probably 5% 

 

Crompton have been very good at replacing them under-warrenty 

[billt]

1 hour ago, newhome said:

The cheaper ones (still mega bucks at the time) seemed to take ages to get bright enough, so you could go to have a pee and the bathroom would still be relatively dark by the time you had finished.

 

You might be thinking of CFLs. The unusual form factor ones were expensive and very slow to start (and dim anyway). Slow start isn't a natural feature of LEDs.

 

Most of our lights are LED now and we've had a fair number of failures; mainly early ones and mainly ones with unsuitable forms like GU10. Can't think of a failure with externally powered ones. I'd say G9 is an unsuitable form for LED conversion, very likely to overheat.

[SiBee]

Another consideration if you are retro fitting is the rating. Look at the lumen out put and beam angle, not just the wattage. 

I tend to stay with branded and avoid the cheaper stuff.

Our purchasing manager in work is a notorious Scrooge and proudly told me he had bought loads of led lamps from alibaba for his home for pennies. A week later he asked me to have a look at his kitchen lighting as the lights wouldn’t turn off. Turns out that when operated by the intermediate switch, a small voltage remained (possibly induced -big house, long run) which was enough to power a dim light from the led. Swapped out for branded (still cheap ones) and normal operation restored. 

[newhome]

18 minutes ago, billt said:

 

You might be thinking of CFLs. The unusual form factor ones were expensive and very slow to start (and dim anyway). Slow start isn't a natural feature of LEDs.

 

 

Ah yes you may be right. I remember having CFLs years ago and indeed they took a long time to get bright. Maybe the much older LEDs were dimmer still? Not sure, I just remember not liking the cost at the time. £10 each springs to mind and more for dimmable ones, and there must be 120+ downlighters here so it seemed better to wait for them to reduce in price which clearly they have significantly. 

[recoveringbuilder]

33 minutes ago, billt said:

 

You might be thinking of CFLs. The unusual form factor ones were expensive and very slow to start (and dim anyway). Slow start isn't a natural feature of LEDs.

 

Most of our lights are LED now and we've had a fair number of failures; mainly early ones and mainly ones with unsuitable forms like GU10. Can't think of a failure with externally powered ones. I'd say G9 is an unsuitable form for LED conversion, very likely to overheat.

Most of the light fittings I bought (and these were not cheap fittings) take G9 bulbs so I suppose there’s not a lot I can do about that but I have noticed when up cleaning them that the bulbs are hot 

[ProDave]

You can get LED G9 lamps now, we have one light fitting with them

[Jeremy Harris]

I agree wholeheartedly with @billt, having done a fair few "autopsies" on failed LEDs a while ago.  Without exception, every single failure I found was of the integrated LED driver, rather than the LED itself; and all those I looked at showed clear signs of overheating.  The smaller form factor lamp types were never intended to be used for LEDs, as most were designed to use halogen lamps, and halogens like to run hot.  LEDs will fail prematurely if allowed to run hot, so they need to be used in a lamp and fitting that enables any heat generated to dissipate easily.

 

This is being addressed by LED manufacturers, though, and recently high voltage COB (chip on board) LEDs, and "filament" LEDs (just linear COB arrays really) have come on to the market that don't need low voltage drive (they use lots of tiny LED chips in series to get the total voltage up).  As a consequence, they only have a pretty simple mains rectifier and current limiting circuit in the base (often just a single capacitor or resistor) and they should run a bit cooler and be more reliable than older types.  There are some COB G9 LEDs around, they look like these, rather than the ones where you can see the individual LED chips: https://www.ledhut.co.uk/spot-lights/g9-bulbs/energizer-2w-g9-led-capsule-shape-3000k-twin-pack.html

[recoveringbuilder]

28 minutes ago, ProDave said:

You can get LED G9 lamps now, we have one light fitting with them

 

28 minutes ago, ProDave said:

You can get LED G9 lamps now, we have one light fitting with them

Yes that’s what I have but not lasting well at all

[recoveringbuilder]

Thanks @JSHarrisI’m going to order some of these and see how they go!

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

Thanks @JSHarrisI’m going to order some of these and see how they go!

 

Be interested to hear how well you get on with them.  My limited experience so far has been that the couple of high voltage COB type LEDs I've bought have run cooler, but they are still relatively new, and have only been around for a year or two, AFAIK.

[Ed Davies]

On 16/03/2019 at 09:51, joe90 said:

As per @JSHarris above, this is my understanding of the problem with LEDs, but I understand there can be a problem with some stand alone AC-DC converters giving radio interference, problem is finding good ones.

 

If someone does have problems with interference from these converters (or quite a lot of electronics) then the fix might be to put a ferrite bead on the output cable close to the device. Arbitrarily picked eBay example:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-20Pcs-Clip-on-Ferrite-Bead-Choke-Coil-Clamp-Rfi-Emi-Cable-Clip-Noise-Fil-UKTC/332895172548?var=&hash=item4d821937c4&enc=AQADAAADAFjVrDbVsZ8oH%2F8PNHtt9VX4%2Fw7FZcmMuqsX8uaFEduViZQycFraZcN76hYOMV0FKBoPtXZxqBRjSkEkD6MUe9BfsUKY4Kbn5iLQg%2B3WHNgn3%2BxsxAeKbeuJwoqXoOIy%2Bpb8Ym1Ue6e7BGeALFDg5tYvq10UEucTJ1yfzjuRqAKpdfwMUkWfnd9ofOgOQk16Em%2Fp6Sh%2B1gsETbAAWTvqmhPazTGTXcLvdw%2BEkT599aT33E4WPHjIzl5TpTgGNXyieIjQwYOfOKYiwAxAnO2VOXmVGJpoRB1oTfsFI%2F8kkm3akHImc8ezezQa9ME9EBvbjP4hNRfL9GRYUg05gFh6sbGzdBCBJjWKFwPgTmlxH4xRRQ8KCB9Cs%2FURDcwBpxh4SrVGwLiBOrf4qzsJMFZ9p%2B84Skt0nbj4DpFBSv0aME0t7ng6Ofszc1FBdCLnbYnHTMuEWl5HXqrDmungy8BK2b7sPxLjHI26nEuebAtu8%2Fw6gKBEz1uA%2B%2F9g5Zfdvm6IE44SX8WvihNsjkHTQ4R7T%2BBnzlFUfU73d4DqmktaYRuxdNz0Fg%2Fog3mMyL%2FwHDs1FL7nAC2VSiz1b2zusGkqD76O6%2FEBIn4tijDpcgWjVHXqhHYlYYFpOhM1ASg0RO%2BM%2BXSQsPMup%2BAz5RNyoFVLLvVZv7QKBF91w08Y5qJgo%2BayF5N2FmQrqgct99OfFkgSuf1%2BfA4P5vdO2f04hBRxJIkLf%2BDdJ6UTRSox54Qtlvk3lKnkpZN9RP31e7eVvqoXlG%2FkNWmwCSvUBKspZndFLk1KxqghQ%2F%2FT6IPpZYQn0V2xSVnbU3NpbS4b0ggjW%2FZTYWPa7d7dY9WC5%2B0l1tAobIZOKpHk%2Bvneu%2FfBPh1eVFgjjTjnJ3nxj8CtqJn01f2navGmbpvlbFuoQI6wFUNje2%2BCRCBgFPCs5Iy8vJRf2TzLeNlnTaIR3My0rUc0IMpGlGtUummcWv0loaRBljt7Z1Wqu8rG7Rb2cdJCmHdPmrVzIfI3RP4D4rdrdxmIBRWbPw%3D%3D&checksum=332895172548920a8db2711548ec9e7b5ea93bf44984

 

Umm, that's a URL? Sorry.

 

I didn't pick the first eBay listing because it showed the cable just running straight through the bead. From what I've been told that's close to useless, you need to wrap the cable round at least once and preferably a few times.

 

I suspect the difference between “good ones” and others will be whether they have a choke of this sort on the output fitted internally.

[Jeremy Harris]

I took one of these constant current drivers apart to see how good the RF screening was and to check as to whether there was any conducted RF suppression.  Draw your own conclusions from these photos:

 

 

 

First point to note is that the case carries the double box symbol that indicates that it's double insulated.  However, it has two single insulated mains conductors coming out of the case, so it clearly isn't compliant with the Class II regs.  That tends to cast suspicion on the other approval marks, in my view, so I suspect that, like many such devices, the CE mark is fake (to carry that mark the unit should comply with the LV Directive and the EMC Directive, and it doesn't seem to comply with either).

 

There's a tiny suppression capacitor on the "DC" output (which looks nothing like DC, it's a high frequency pulse train at a hundred kHz or so, with barely rounded edges).

 

There are no suppression components on the incoming AC side, so RF can easily be conducted via the incoming wires, too, which may then act as an antenna.

 

There's no form of screening to prevent or reduce radiated RF emitted by the circuit from passing through the case.

[joe90]

So @JSHarris can you recommend a good source of these things that suppress properly (and meet regs!).

[Jeremy Harris]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

So @JSHarris can you recommend a good source of these things that suppress properly (and meet regs!).

 

Sadly I can't, as it seems to be a very variable and fluctuating market, so there's no easy way to tell if something that was sold a month ago and that was OK would be the same as ostensibly the same item, sold by the same supplier later.  I bought several apparently different makes of LED driver and found that around 70% of them were probably fakes, in terms of not actually complying with the marked approval.

[Temp]

On 16/03/2019 at 09:10, Christine Walker said:

Most of my lights take the g9 led bulbs, some came with bulbs others I’ve had to buy, they’re not cheap! I bemoaned to the electrician the cost of them but he assured me that they would last for years!

 I have 9 outside lights that use them and out of the 9 4 have already given up the ghost and inside one light that takes 5 has two already out that’s in the space of 5 months, seems they’re going to be expensive to keep up with!

 

Perhaps get a bunch of cheap ones from China. They probably come from there anyway.