LED Bulb dying

[Paintedcow]

I thought LED bulbs were supposed to last for many years. I put on in my barn about 2 years ago. It's on all the time as a safety light. It only uses about 5 watts so I'm not concerned about energy usage. (25W equivlent).

All of a sudden it has gotten real dim, and it flickers. I'm wondering what caused that? I know it cant be fixed and needs to be replaced, but I did not think the LED bulbs were supposed to fail for many years.

When I shut it off, it stays lit for a few seconds after the switch is OFF, so I imagine there is a capacitor in it, but obviously that cap is working..... But it's less than half as bright as it used to be, and flickers.

[songbird]

check the wiring too...

songbird

[Taxed and Spent]

try it in a different socket.

[Vince Foster]

By your own account, the bulb lasted about 17,000 hours. You cheapasscow, WTF do you want?

STFU and go buy another one.

[Ed Pawlowski]

17,000 is probably a bit on the low end but in tolerance for MTBF. I don't see any specific warrantied hours, but 20,000 to 50,000 seems to be expected.

[Checkmate, DoW #1]

The living should envy the dead.

[Don Wiss]

All those years is based on three hours per day. Since you are running it

24/7, then you divide all those years by eight. So that gives you 2.5 to 3 years.

There is no payback on LED bulbs rarely used. I have been in my house for

20 years. It is a large house with many lights (in closets and all). There are a few bulbs still working from the prior owner. And many that I have only replaced once.

Don.

(e-mail link at home page bottom).

[Vince Foster]

Manufacturers lie. Re bulb life, divide their optimistic bullshit number by 2 and you'll be closer to reality...but you already knew that.

[Frank]

My house, over 40 years old, came with krypton super bulbs and a few of them sparsely used are still working.

Just started using led's but discovered cfl's in bathrooms last no longer than incandescent. Think it is due to short periodic use. Your bulb should have lasted a long time but I have found led flashlights that did not last long. Bulb component may be fine but there are transformers for dc led bulbs and cfl's and components there in may fail. Flashlights most likely the switch. While yours burned constantly in an unheated barn where temperatures could vary over 100 deg F over a year the bulb and components were subjected to that stress which may have limited its lifetime.

[Andy]

Moisture in bathrooms also lessens the life of cfl's.

Andy

[Don Wiss]

Reminds me of the X-10 modules I was buying in 1988. They used cheap electrolytic capacitors which soon failed. The modules then chattered.

Don.

(e-mail link at home page bottom).

[T]

Hi Ed,

That is not what MBTF means. If the bulb had, say 1000 hour MBTF, it would mean that you put 1000 bulbs in a test bench and ran them for an hour. Only one failed. MBTF does not tell you anything about the second and so forth hours. (I did MBTF analysis for the military.)

A good gauge of how long something will last is the warranty. They taught us in college to set it at 90% of useful lifespan. Course, some manufacturers are just lazy and set it at a year.

-T

[T]

1+ on Songbird advice.

Try a known good bulb in the same socket. If the symptom repeats, call an electrician IMMEDIATELY.

You also try the suspect bulb somewhere else with a known good socket (the socket's current resident works properly).

If not, replace the bulb and be careful of cheap bulbs.

[clare]

It's not the wiring - its cheapassed chinese electronics rearing it's ugly head again. Proper circuit design and assembly yields LED lights that last for years. Cheapassed engineering and sloppy assembly yields LED lights that can last as little as 100 hours. If the engineering is OK and only the assembly is slipshod, you may get about

1 in 10 (as I did on a large installation) lasting 3 or more years

On some the electronics just fail, in others the electronics cause the LED to fail, and on others the LED fails because it is not properly heat-sinked.

SOME chinese products have decent quality control, but it is definitely a case of caviat your emptor - or something like that.

[clare]

50,000 hours should not be out of reach for a properly designed and constructed LED lighting device. However, you don't generally get one of those for 2 bucks. You only get what you pay for - and even there a fair measure of good luck is required!!!

[clare]

In the late 80s there was a glut of counterfeit electrolyte that got into even "quality" capacitors that almost forced several large respected electronic companies into bankruptsy.

[clare]

And others figure (correctly in most cases) a customer will not spend $8 to send the defective unit back to china to get a $2 part replaced under warranty.

It was bad enough when a "lifetime warranteed" memory module for my laptop failed and one way shipping to return it to the "manufacturer" in California cost me $18, it took over 3 weeks to get it replaced, and I could buy another "lifetime guaranteed" module locally for $22..

I returned it "just on principal" and couldn't wate for it to be returned so bought one locally anyway. Now I have an obvsolete brand new memory module sitting in stock that I'll likely never use, that effectively cost me $40.

[T]

3C: Cheap Chinese Crap. Sad to say, but Americans can't get enough of it.

[songbird]

[e-mail] wrote: ...songbird asked...

ok,

just that i had a direct wired LED light fail, but it was actually the wiring that went instead, which i didn't check until after i'd returned the unit and put the replacement in and it still didn't work.

songbird

[clare]

But it didn't fail in the way the OP's failed Leds going dim and flickering are a bad LED. Going right out can be wiring. Strobing is also a bad LED - usually a low voltage one (12 volt instead of 120)