LED lights questions and answers

Wow... that teardown of the Phiips LED bulb certainly shows how $40 for it is cheap! Good golly, if this were 1981 that would be a $2,000 computer in there! I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of buying a light bulb & having the clerk ask "Would you like the extended warranty on that?"

We have a bunch of LED traffic lights and street lights. A friend of mine is the public works director of Bangor (the big city). The only things I've heard him say are "On occasion the LED traffic lights will have segments that do not light, but a day or so later they come back on & are OK", and, "The streetlights were bought with federal money. They have a 10 year life and a 17 year payback". Honest!

And when you figure that the cost of electricity is most likely going to go up long term, and that some areas are far higher than $0.11 per KWH, the savings in favor of the LED bulbs really add up. Only 10 of these LED light bulbs replacing 10 standard incandescent bulbs should save you about $1,000 (at $0.11 per KWH) to $2,000 (at $0.22 per KWH) over their lifetimes. I haven't counted, but I'm willing to guess that my house has 30 or more light bulbs in it. That's a potential $3,000 in savings at the current electrical rate around here, and greater than that as the electrical rate goes up.

The only serious problem is committing $1,200 now (the cost of 30 LED bulbs) in order to save $3,000 (which is above and beyond the cost of the bulbs, since the electrical savings are in the range of $4,200, or likely well more than that if rates continue to go up) down the road about 5-10 years or so. But if they are found to last far less than 25,000 hours under real life conditions, the potential savings could vanish or even go negative. Don't knock over that lamp!

That might explain the new streetlights in China, in National Goegraphic there was a story on China's green movement & they had their street lights with solar panels for power, so it would just be straight DC. Good unless your in an area that could get snow but the southern states would be OK.

Yanche wrote:Here's a link with "tear downs" of LED lamps.
http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/405 ... art_II.php

A few years back I sent the computer from my son's car to be rebuilt. Now, I'm going to have to send my light bulbs out to be rebuilt....

rberq wrote:

Yanche wrote:Here's a link with "tear downs" of LED lamps.
http://www.edn.com/blog/PowerSource/405 ... art_II.php

A few years back I sent the computer from my son's car to be rebuilt. Now, I'm going to have to send my light bulbs out to be rebuilt....

Don't laugh it may happen to be common practice for light bulbs too. At least for the modules within the LED fixtures of the future. Much like in the HVAC industry where you can buy re-built aquastats and other common controls.

Freddy, I'll send you one!

PM me your address.