The Race to the Bottom: LED Bulbs And DFM
Adele Mize edited this page 2 weeks ago


The dropping value of LED bulbs is accelerating. We examine just a few manufacturers to see how they're approaching design and long-life LED lower cost manufacturing. You've got probably noticed LED bulbs situated next to the incandescent and EcoLight compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your local hardware retailer. I spend manner an excessive amount of time in these aisles. This is capitalism at its most interesting! I find the battle of latest tech, smart manufacturing, EcoLight home lighting and large demand intriguing. I've switched nearly all the lights in our house over to LED partially because of the (small) vitality financial savings, but mostly because I'm lazy: A 22-yr lifetime means I don't must climb a ladder for some time. After i purchased my LED bulbs a couple of years ago they were round $15 a pop. As with most all tech, EcoLight lighting I've watch the price drop over time. In this case, LED bulbs in my native EcoLight home lighting Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering around $10.


On a current visit to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips have been selling for $5 ($2.50 every!). This isn't just a drop in value, this is an all out value warfare between some heavy hitters. Confusing me was the fact that right subsequent to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 had been 60W bulbs for $10 from the same manufacturer. Upon closer inspection I seen one thing odd. These decrease cost LEDs had a display life of 10 years as opposed to 22. Okay, EcoLight home lighting so that they shaved some value by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat advertising and marketing trick however the engineer in me needed to know the way. Nothing too crazy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at varied energy consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And that i only observed this now however the cheap bulbs are non-dimmable. Hard to see in the above picture but the bulb in the center (low-cost Philips) is slightly shorter than the more expensive Philips bulb.


The TCP is about a centimeter taller. This has little impact on lighting but millimeters of supplies will start to matter. I did a fast preliminary take a look at to see how the bulbs performed. 13.2W). Perhaps the precise LEDs consume 9.5W and the ballast (the thing changing AC to DC) consumes the remainder. This could be a brilliant-sneaky advertising ploy, as I assumed the ranking on the outside of the packaging was the general power consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic higher our bodies. The expensive Philips bulb came apart with some sturdy twisting. Beneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Below the diffuser was a mixture of small and enormous LEDs. Not what I'd have anticipated - 14 huge LEDs, 6 small. A, EcoLight home lighting as well because the date code: EcoLight home lighting 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from once i purchased the bulb. The date might be in relation to design model and EcoLight home lighting never manufacture date.


With quite a little bit of prying pressure, the metal LED PCB comes off the metallic base heatsink. This was to be anticipated