Cheap Chinese LEDs - an update

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Of the first two 7W dimmable PAR 38s, one has just failed, after ten months of being on every evening for hours on end. Still, that's a 50% failure rate. Not much chance of a refund there. Of the three others I bought from fasttech, two failed within a fortnight - a 66% failure rate. They refunded, though.

On balance, it just ain't worth the hassle - from now on LED Hut are getting my business for dimmables and I'll continue to pick up the odd couple from Aldi when they appear. None of them (LEDH and Aldi) have failed yet and LEDH offer 5yrs guarantee on some, while Aldi do a standard 1yr on theirs.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Aldi have had a job load in the shop for weeks, getting cheaper and cheaper. Trouble is, there was a rather high proportion of SBC bases, which no one has used for decades, so they're stuck with loads of them.

[Andy Burns]

I've just got five of their 4.5W COB daylight dimmable GU10s, and a new MK LED-specific dimmer, but the combination hates each other, the lamps flicker and buzz when on the dimmer, won't reach full brightness (fine on a plain switch).

The dimmer is going to go back to Amazon, instead I'll fit a dual gang switch and rewire the light fitting to allow either 2, 3 or all 5 of the lamps to be switched on.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I noticed the same in my local Aldi. They eventually disappeared at around half-price when the penny dropped with locals that adapters were available.

[PeterC]

When I got my last one from Aldi, there were loads of ES and SES, some SBC and 2 BC, one broken (it would still have worked as the envelope is, I assume, mainly a diffuser).

Now, if Ikea had the sense to sell BC-to-ES/SES adaptors...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I'm using one of these...

Which had an issue of the occasional flicker if there was still an incandescent in the load. When all-LED, no problem. Varilight said to send it back, but I haven't bothered as it's been trouble-free since.

[Andy Burns]

I looked at those as well as the MK LED-specific one, as even five LEDs together were below the minimum power of the MK non-LED dimmers, the flickering is worse the more bulbs are added to the fitting, with all five the dimmer seems to go into overload protection.

[Brian Gaff]

So the cheap ones, it would be interesting to know what in fact failed on them. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Which reminds me, why do we keep re inventing lamp holders? To me you only need three types, the ES and bc and a low profile one for low voltage bulbs where the psu is in the lamp. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Its more an oscillation from what people tell me. Brian

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 13 December 2013 11:21 Brian Gaff wrote in uk.d-i-y:

You forgot the multitude of size variants on both BC and ES.

Because bulb[1] holders are a standard and you can never have enough standards!

[1] Yes I said "bulb". Now go and have an aneurism, pedants ;->

[DerbyBorn]

"Brian Gaff" wrote in news:l8eqjn$e2e$ [e-mail]:

It is to occupy the time of the people who seem to spend ages pondering at the bulb / lamp display in places like Homebase and B&Q, They they go and look confused with the battery display.

It really amazes me that people go to buy replacements and only when they see the range they wonder what it is that they need.

[Dave W]

How dare you! I've just been doing this in Wilkinsons to work out how much the bulb would cost for a desk lamp they were selling. There were one or two options, none of which were exactly what the label on the lamp asked for.

Anyway these days there are so many new types of lamp that can be used as a replacement for the original filament type; it's not amazing at all that people spend so much time puzzling.

[DerbyBorn]

I didn't see you! Mainly it is people pondering over GU10 or MR16 that seems to bewilder people.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from. - Andrew S. Tanenbaum