LED lighting failures

[signal15]

Anyone else have this problem?

I have a bunch of PAR38 Ecosmart bulbs from Home Despot. They are the 24W models. I have a bank of 4 of them that have been in place for the past 6 months with no problems, and now 3 of them have failed in the last week. One flickers, one flashed like a strobe about once per second, and the last one went "ZAP!" and stopped working completely.

What's odd is that my bulbs that I bought last week operate (on the ceramic part) at 160-170F. The ones that are failing are the same model bulbs in the exact same fixture with the exact same trim, and they are operating at ~230F.

LSG is having me send back the failed bulbs so they can analyze them and figure out what went wrong.

 

[Desert_AIP]

No thermal paste between the LED die and the heat sink?
Separation of the die from the heat sink?

Do you operate these dimmed, ramp up/down or snap on/off?
Small vibration induced from dimming may have shook them loose if they were not properly constructed for dimming.

I have some screw in LEDs that say dimmable on the box but flash and blink during the transition from level to level.
They oeprate fine at a steady level.

 

[signal15]

They are snap on/off.

 

[sparkyman]

I just bought 3 led par 20 bulbs that are dimmable I installed 1 and it worked fine as soon as I put the other two in on the same switch none will dim just on and off.
I think that the Hai dimming switch can't see enough load.

 

[fwd03]

That does not sound right. If one works, but 3 do not, don't you think 3 put up a bigger load than one?

 

[Westcojack]

Did you have a single LED bulb installed with 2 incandescants or with 2 empty sockets?

 

[tmbrown97]

Sparkyman posted in another thread that it was one LED alongside two incandescents. It was when he removed all the incandescents and went all LED that he lost dimming. Sounds to me like not enough of a load for the switch to operate correctly.

 

[Digger]

I have 3 of the ecosmart 10.5 watt high hat retrofit bulbs in my kitchen on an SA UPB Dimmer and they work great. I also have 3 of the Ecosmart 40 Watt Equivalent bulbs in my daughters ceiling fan on an SA UPB Dimmer and they work great as well (well they dim to about 20% and shut off).

 

[tmbrown97]

I mentioned in another thread that I've been using about 50 of these bulbs since April and they work pretty well (for LED). They have excellent dimming range. Another member bought some to test and had some failures but so far I've been happy with them - and they're all on Simply Automated UPB dimmers. You can get the bulbs from Lowes for about $13.

I don't know if it helps, but I have all lights in the house programmed to only go on to 80% (leftover from when they were all incandescent) - so they're being driven a little less.

 

[signal15]

I've had a total of 6 of the Ecosmart bulbs fail on me so far. Anywhere from dying with a "ZAP!" sound, to intermittently not turning on even when they are cold. I called LSG (the manufacturer) and they told me they would send me a shipping label to return them and do testing, but I emailed the guy that was supposed to do it and he never got back to me. I returned them all to Home Depot after much complaining (since I bought most of them over 90 days ago).

It's too bad, they really do put out some nice light. All of the ones that died were PAR38's, in either the 18W or 24W variety. None of my PAR30's have had problems.

Anyone have any better suggestions? I think I'm done with the Ecosmart bulbs. The weird thing is that LSG's Definity bulbs say that they are rated for totally enclosed locations in their spec sheets. I don't think the Ecosmart versions are, but mine are just in can lights, not completely enclosed. I haven't had problems with other brands either.

Temp measurements at the hottest part of the base are around 230F.

 

[gatchel]

I have 3 of the 90 watt replacement PAR38's that have been in since they were available locally, I'm guessing around a year ago, maybe slightly less. I just installed 3 of the 125 watt PAR 38 replacements about a month ago. So far I haven't had any failures. I do notice that when a fixture turns on there is sometimes a very small but noticeable delay between the 3 bulbs turning on. That really it.

They are installed outside in a contemporary housing like this:

http://www.amazon.co...t/dp/B002PY6YFO

 

[signal15]

It has to be heat related. However, 230F doesn't seem excessive for a light bulb. That was at the hottest spot I could find, which was the ceramic portion of the base right next to the metal threads. Both of my Macbook power supplies reach 165F on the outside of the white plastic housing.

Interestingly enough, the Ecosmart bulbs are painted, and the Definity bulbs on LSG's site have a much different heatsink design with no paint. As far as I can tell, the guts of these are identical.

 

[fwd03]

210F is about 100C. 230F is almost 110C. Most semiconductor device would not work reliably over 70C. Over 80C will shorten their life, like those overclock CPUs. Most LED specs say not running over 50C.

I brought a 20W LED, when powered with 13.5V, it produces light close to 150W light bulb. I have to use a huge PC heatsink to cool it and a little fan blowing on it all the time. The fan uses 0.09A at 13.5V. The LED supposedly can take 15V and produce more lumens than a 200W bulb when using full 20W. My power supply and fan is not dimmable.

 

[gatchel]

210F is about 100C. 230F is almost 110C. Most semiconductor device would not work reliably over 70C. Over 80C will shorten their life, like those overclock CPUs. Most LED specs say not running over 50C.

I brought a 20W LED, when powered with 13.5V, it produces light close to 150W light bulb. I have to use a huge PC heatsink to cool it and a little fan blowing on it all the time. The fan uses 0.09A at 13.5V. The LED supposedly can take 15V and produce more lumens than a 200W bulb when using full 20W. My power supply and fan is not dimmable.

Could you post a link ? Is this a discreet LED package or a bulb? I am interested. Sorry for hijacking temporarily.

 

[fwd03]

LED is like this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/330605817475

They sell driver boards for 110V AC, but I just use an old 12V switch power supply, adjusted its output voltage to max, that happends to be 13.5V. I could try to take a picture, but don't know if camera can take the strong light. I watched the LED for less than 1/2 second, it almost blind my eyes for 5 hours.