this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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The most amazing thing to me - I’ve been using leds for 10+ years, and I think I’ve had to replace one or two of them. It is a wonder that prices can come down with demand dwindling so much.
Man, I remember as a kid we had a box of bulbs for when inevitably one burnt out each month or so. Now, I have a drawer with a bunch of led bulbs I'll never use because they don't burn out!
Seriously, I have whichever ones were remaining in the boxes when we finished populating all our fixtures. Haven’t replaced one ever.
I remember when I was a kid, it seemed like we had to change the light bulbs every other month. Now I'm annoyed because these things last so long I don't keep any spares and I have to leave my house to buy one when it expires!
I can't remember ever having to replace a dead LED bulb. And only a few CFLs. But I remember replacing incandescents all the time when I was a kid.
In my old apartment I lived in for 6 years I must have had a faulty kitchen light that did something to the bulbs because I changed LEDs in that like more than once a year, but none of the other lights I changed. Granted I also turned on that light way more than the overhead bedroom light so idk. But I definitely killed quite a few LEDs.
Pretty much the worst wear and tear on most electronics comes from power cycling.
This... Doesn't seem right? Dimmable LEDs are switched hundreds of times a second as would the resistors and other components in series with them. Computers turn on and off transistors (mosfets) millions of times per second. Dude flipping a switch a few times isn't close to that.
Heat is the worst enemy of most electronics. Many LEDs are put in places where heat is not dissipated well which can shorten life span.
Excessive heat perhaps, and yeah, bulbs with bad thermal design, or bulbs installed in tight enclosures do die a lot faster.
It's also temperature changes that cause problems. A current that flickers 50-60 times a second is not going to fluctuate it's temperature. Turn it on or off every 10 minutes and the components will shrink or expand each time, and the components will eventually start to fail.
Yeah that occurred to me like in the middle of the thought process and I just rolled with it. 😅 That apartment kitchen was so dark I turned the lights on a lot.
My LED burn outs were almost certainly defective, not normal wear.
Had my current place for four years now, one of my first tasks was to replace all the bulbs with LEDs. Exactly two have burnt out; amusingly, neither were among the most heavily used bulbs; one I suspect took water damage, since it was in the bathroom.
I had to replace an LED bulb a few months ago and I remember being annoyed because they did only lasted five years.
As energy and maintenance go down, the popularity of lighting goes up—so maybe the decrease in sales of replacement bulbs has been offset by an increase in the total number of bulbs in use.