Products You Never Knew Existed

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

"Filament" LED light bulb are the future, but here today. The price just needs to come down a little bit. These things are freaking awesome!

I bought one of these LED filament bulbs to try it out. Not cheap. $15.50, but free shipping.

It came in a plain unmarked box in a padded envelope. The bulb was in a protective plastic clam shell. No brand name that I can see.

Attachment 50537

Comparing the LED filament bulb side by side with an incandescent bulb.
Attachment 50538


And here it is in the fixture, with the dimmer at 100%. On the left is a 40 watt incandescent. In the middle is a 4 watt Filament LED, and on the right is a 60 watt incandescent. To my eye, in person, it looks as bright as the 60 watt bulb.
Attachment 50539


Here's a very underexposed close up of the LED light. You can sort of see in individual LEDs under the filament's coating.
Attachment 50540


And I noticed with the lamp shades on that the LED's 4 filaments effectively eliminate the shadows caused by the lampshade wire clamps that grab the bulb. Those shadows are visible on the incandescent lamp shade.



And finally, I took a video of the dimming.



The LED bulb is listed as 2600K, but it seems just a little bit whiter than the incandescent bulbs at 100% power. And as you dim the lights, the incandescents go yellow, but the LED keeps its color.

I like this bulb. It's expensive, but I ordered 4 more. It will take the Dining Room light from 220 total watts (with a mixture of 40 and 60 watt bulbs) and reduce it to 20 total watts. I don't know how long it will take for these to pay for themselves. I suppose I should have calculated that before ordering 4 more, but that would have involved tracking down a power bill and doing the calculations.

Originally Posted by glatt

These bulbs flicker a little bit. Apparently the larger filament LED bulbs have capacitors on the tiny circuit board in the base to smooth out the flickering, but these candelabra bulbs are so small, there isn't room in the base for capacitors. It doesn't bother me, but Mrs. Glatt has commented on it a few times. So these LED bulbs may be short lived in this house. We'll see how it plays out. But I won't be buying a new dimmer until I know the LEDs are here to stay.

Originally Posted by glatt

It's not even a year later, and 2.5 of the 5 LED bulbs I bought have failed. The 0.5 failure is that 2 of the 4 filaments of one bulb have stopped lighting up. I think there is a poor electrical connection somewhere in the bulb and it gets strained somehow over time and breaks. The filaments flicker a bit and then stop working altogether.

I can't recommend these bulbs any longer. At $12 per bulb, the price is simply too high to be replacing them after 10 months. The claim was 15,000 hours of operation and the real world results are 500 hours or so. I'd be ok with them if they were $1.

I'm obsessed with getting LED bulbs for my candelabra style dining room light. It uses 5 x 60 watt incandescent bulbs and it kills me to be consuming that much power.

The old LEDs I had were problematic. They were too expensive, they flickered like a very fast strobe light, and they got too hot and burned out after less than a year. The flickering was a result of the base being too small to fit a capacitor.

I just found a new bulb that appears to fix all of those problems. These new bulbs ahve the same filament technology, except they have a large metal heat sink above the base. The heat sink disperses the heat, so they should last longer, and the large heat sink is big enough to contain a capacitor that will even out the current and stop the flickering. The price is also much more reasonable at $3.80 per bulb.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

I'm obsessed with getting LED bulbs for my candelabra style dining room light. It uses 5 x 60 watt incandescent bulbs and it kills me to be consuming that much power.

The old LEDs I had were problematic. They were too expensive, they flickered like a very fast strobe light, and they got too hot and burned out after less than a year. The flickering was a result of the base being too small to fit a capacitor.

I just found a new bulb that appears to fix all of those problems. These new bulbs ahve the same filament technology, except they have a large metal heat sink above the base. The heat sink disperses the heat, so they should last longer, and the large heat sink is big enough to contain a capacitor that will even out the current and stop the flickering. The price is also much more reasonable at $3.80 per bulb.
Attachment 57980

OK. Fuck this filament LED technology in a candelabra bulb bullshit.

In the 6 months since I bought the latest round of LED bulbs that I thought would be good, 3 of the 6 have failed. The candelabra bulb is just too small to dissipate the heat.

So I have moved on to a third style of bulb. This is similar to the Cree that tw recommended. The new kind I am trying have been reviewed by thousands of Amazon customers and most give it great reviews. The few who complain all have the same story. Some bulbs failed after a short while, but the manufacturer was happy to replace them.

So that's who I am going with. They don't look like traditional bulbs, but with a shade over them you can't tell. The color is good. And return instructions are right in the box of bulbs for if/when they fail.


I've probably spent $100 over the last few years trying to save a few cents of electricity. I feel like a moron. But I am honest with you about it so you don't follow in my path. At least not until I succeed.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by glatt

And return instructions are right in the box of bulbs for if/when they fail.

That might be your sign right thar.

[Gravdigr]

Yeah, drink too many and you'll be speaking Klingon in the morning.

[Gravdigr]

Stanley Cup Oreos???