...and the other one bites the dust.

[vakkotaur]

One of the LED bulbs I bought in early August failed in late August. A few days ago the other LED bulb failed. Since I hadn't sent the one off for warranty replacement, I packed the both of them and the receipts and a letter and sent them off. We'll see how the warranty is and if the replacements are any better.

One failure is a fluke. Two are possibly a coincidence if a darned annoying one. These bulbs are supposed to last 30,000 hours or about 3.4 years of "on" time. They didn't last anywhere near that long. And there's no excuse that I can see for it. They were installed indoors, in a non-enclosed fixture, and were not on a dimmer. They were in a ceiling fan assembly, but LEDs of all lighting systems ought to be truly immune to any vibration from the fan. Yet even incandescents with their fragile filaments lasted longer.

To be fair to LEDs themselves, they are likely still just fine. The circuitry in the base of the bulb is what probably failed. I don't know just what all there is to it. There really should not be much at all to it. If the bulbs had been out of warranty (or were just much less expensive) I'd have taken at least one apart and looked.

Comments

[li885.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is a bummer. I was going to buy a couple of these for the savings over the long run. But from the sounds of things postal charges alone will kil those savings.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

My LED light experience is a disappointment, too. I got a set of 3 round LED lights from Lights of America. These are the 20-LED phosphor-coated variety that producer 1.5w of "warm white" per bulb. One went in the closet and was used occasionally, and the other two went in the fixture by the entrance.

The entrance light at my old place was turned on as long as I was in the room, so these two bulbs saw heavy use. The problem, then, is that the light output has dimmed considerably from when they were new. They can't even light a portion of the room anymore. I have to stick with the 9w CFLs I have in the ceiling fan currently.

The technology will improve, but I think it needs a few years to bake.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

That's the impression I get as well. These are/were a decided 'cold blue' light and not a warm white - and this the opinion of someone who liked fluorescent (when not flickering) since long before CFL was around - which was also a bit disappointing. These were also (Chinese made) bulbs from Lights of America.

The battery powered motion sensor LED things have been working fine, but they don't have to contend with 120VAC and have a much lower duty cycle.