<story><title>What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?</title><url>https://hackaday.com/2019/02/05/what-happened-to-the-100000-hour-led-bulbs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tzs</author><text>I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart &amp;quot;Great Value&amp;quot; LEDs just under 3 years ago and they&amp;#x27;ve all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months.&lt;p&gt;The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something like that in cooperation with the local electric company that made the Walmart bulbs $0.17. By &amp;quot;automatic rebate&amp;quot;, I mean that the bulbs rang up on checkout at $0.17. No rebate forms to send in or anything like that.</text></item><item><author>setquk</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it&amp;#x27;s always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn&amp;#x27;t applied properly to the back of the LED board. The LEDs immediately in the gaps smoke out.&lt;p&gt;Alas this isn&amp;#x27;t a problem. If a lightbulb goes, Amazon send me a new one out now free of charge and tell me to throw the old one in the trash.&lt;p&gt;This is one manufacturer, prevalent on Amazon, the Long Life Lamp Company. Long Life my ass.&lt;p&gt;They have been replaced by Philips and Ikea LED bulbs now which the oldest are 5 years old now and still going strong.&lt;p&gt;Edit: one thing to note is the really cheap ones run pretty hot. They have 105 oC rated capacitors in them. If you look at the derating curves at the running temperature they are clearly designed to last just past a year.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsync</author><text>&amp;quot;Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Were those the original Cree bulbs with the heavy, finned metal heatsink around the base ?&lt;p&gt;I currently have a bag of about 14 of those that I bought (with great enthusiasm) and that burned out (or turned weird purple colors) within 2-3 years.&lt;p&gt;New style cree bulbs appear to have these issues solved.  In fact, I continue to buy them as they perform better than other (satco, fein) bulbs that I have.  In most cases I get satco&amp;#x2F;fein as long as they have the color temperature and output I want, but if I am having issues with a dimmer, etc., I get a cree bulb.</text></comment>
<story><title>What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?</title><url>https://hackaday.com/2019/02/05/what-happened-to-the-100000-hour-led-bulbs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tzs</author><text>I replaced around 25 bulbs in my house with cheap Walmart &amp;quot;Great Value&amp;quot; LEDs just under 3 years ago and they&amp;#x27;ve all been fine. Previously, I had replaced around 4 bulbs with Cree LEDs from Home Depot, and half of those were dead within a few months.&lt;p&gt;The Walmart bulbs without any special pricing were way cheaper than the Cree bulbs from Home Depot, but even better, there was some sort of automatic rebate or something like that in cooperation with the local electric company that made the Walmart bulbs $0.17. By &amp;quot;automatic rebate&amp;quot;, I mean that the bulbs rang up on checkout at $0.17. No rebate forms to send in or anything like that.</text></item><item><author>setquk</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taken every single LED bulb that has failed on me to pieces and it&amp;#x27;s always the same failure mode. The heatsink compound isn&amp;#x27;t applied properly to the back of the LED board. The LEDs immediately in the gaps smoke out.&lt;p&gt;Alas this isn&amp;#x27;t a problem. If a lightbulb goes, Amazon send me a new one out now free of charge and tell me to throw the old one in the trash.&lt;p&gt;This is one manufacturer, prevalent on Amazon, the Long Life Lamp Company. Long Life my ass.&lt;p&gt;They have been replaced by Philips and Ikea LED bulbs now which the oldest are 5 years old now and still going strong.&lt;p&gt;Edit: one thing to note is the really cheap ones run pretty hot. They have 105 oC rated capacitors in them. If you look at the derating curves at the running temperature they are clearly designed to last just past a year.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tempestn</author><text>Those early Home Depot Cree bulbs were definitely defective. We bought a ton of them and have since replaced nearly all under warranty... twice. The first round they replaced with identical ones, which also quickly failed. (Always the same; started with an intermittent flicker, which progressively got more severe and regular.) More recently we&amp;#x27;ve gotten a new design back, which seem better. Fortunately, after the first ones, it&amp;#x27;s been as simple as replying to the email thread and telling them how many more replacements I need!</text></comment>