LED Light Bulbs in Rough Service Application?

[Wade Garrett]

Got a couple of high lumen output screw-in GE light bulbs that I'm thinking about installing in the power-head bulb sockets of a screw drive garage door opener.

Worth a try-- or death sentence for the bulbs?

[Scott Lurndal]

It will have no effect on the bulbs, whatsoever.

The bulbs, depending on quality, may have an adverse affect on the range or usability of the remote for the opener due to electronic interference from the bulb.

A simple google search for led bulbs garage door opener will provide you with a great deal of useful information.

[Frank]

Should not be a problem but I have older incandescents that I would use up first where usage time is short. It appears that sometimes switching them on and off frequently can wear them out. Happened a couple of times to me with CFL's in a bathroom.

[invalid unparseable]

Save your incandescents. Brand new incandescent bulbs in original packaging will be collectors' item a few decades from now.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Seems like some older ones had issues.

Can I use LED bulbs in liftmaster garage door opener? We recommend standard, not LED, light bulbs for garage door openers. LED light bulbs emit a signal that can interfere with the garage door opener remotes. Both Liftmaster and Genie are now manufacturing LED light bulbs that they recommend that will not emit a signal that interferes with the opener remotes.

[invalid unparseable]

Shouldn't the garage-door-opener companies make better remotes for their openers? LED will be the only bulbs available in the near future.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Garage door openers have been around years before LED bulbs. I guess they should have thought it through better back then. Really stupid of them not to look ahead

Electric garage door openers were built in 1926 by C.G. Johnson of Hartford City, Indiana, who not coincidentally had invented the segmented overhead garage door four years previously. The first remote-controlled electric garage door openers were built in 1931, by two different teams working independently.

[Jim Joyce]

Exactly what I was going to say. For me, incandescents and CFLs work fine and last a long time. LED bulbs work fine to provide light but kill the range of my remote.

[Dean Hoffman]

$$$$$$. ?????? Would it cost less over time?

[micky]

Absolutely.

I have Hearphones, which used to be made** by Bose. I don't use them when I'm alone or shopping but today I was at the doctors. They are amplifiers with bluetooth, and today walking in the little hall in the doctor's office, for about 10 feet there was static from some of the many machines, computers. Scratchy static.

**There are still similar things made by competitors. One of them lets you replay the last 5 or 10 seconds of what you just heard.

Very interstings, all three things. In just 9 more years, I'll be 100 years behind the times.

[micky]

Good to know. Is it because LED's make IR light also?

The longest I use a remote for is 8 feet in every case but one, 10 feet there.

Do I have to worry about LEDS?

I also use, all the time, a Powermid**, which receives the IR from the remote and transmits via radio waves to a receiver (that's connected to the DVDR.) Both ends are shaped like 3" pyraminds. Do LEDs interfere with radio? I would think not.

**One in the kitchen, one in the office, and one in the bathroom.

[Jim Joyce]

No, my understanding is that it's because LED bulbs have a driver circuit that puts noise on the 300MHZ band where modern garage door openers operate. Nothing to do with IR at all.

[micky]

That's good. Tnx.

[Scott Lurndal]

LED bulbs work fine for me, I still get 800 to 1000 feet of range on my remote.

No, is the electronics that convert 120v AC to 5 VDC for the LEDs, which are too close to the receiver in the door opener.

[Clare Snyder]

I am using them in my Genie garage door opener with no effect on the remote - been in use aver 2 yeara now with no issues. The CFLs they replacedm on the other hand - - - -

[Clare Snyder]

The GOOD newer LED drivers have better filteringthan the older cheap crap. I had cheap LEDs in ceiling fan lights - and with the lights on the remote control did NOT work

[bud--]

CFLs use version of a switch mode power supply - 120VAC to DC to high frequency AC through a tiny transformer to the CFL. Probably lots of harmonics. I am surprised they aren't a problem.

[Wade Garrett]

Hmmm...interesting responses!

It never occurred to me that the LED bulbs might be culprits. I was viewing them as potential victims.

Guess I'll just stick them up there- or maybe in a ceiling socket about six feet away from the power head- and see what happens...

[Clare Snyder]

In my experience many of them were. - a problem. Just like many LEDs were and some still are.

[TimR]

Antennaman on youtube says they also will interfere with OTA TV.