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Anyone else finding LED bulbs are not reaching their life expectancy?

Oh, and what did you do to the base on those floods to get the tilt?
 
txav8r said:
Oh, and what did you do to the base on those floods to get the tilt?
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I used the high-tech method known as "bending it by hand" lol :D

So much better than hassling with water getting in those ancient Edison sockets every year. My only gripe is the "white" color is cold (blueish) white instead of warm (yellowish). I can pick "yellow", but that is too much yellow. I want a yellowish white, but this controller only allows 16 specific colors and not the infinite color mixing that my boat RGB's do.
 
Yeah, that is the downside of the "white" in RGB combinations. The newest strip lighting is using a chip for white on the strip and the RGB chip separately, then you need a 4 channel controller, not just a 3. Not sure if they are making those waterproof floods in both yet or not.
 
steined said:
Where did you get those! I've been looking for RGB spots like that!
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Amazon, of course!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G4ZZFSM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Note that they have 10W, 20W, and 30W in the Ultra-thin style. If you only wanted white, then the 10W is a good replacement for 100w incandescent. But with RGB, the "10W" unit is really 3W Red + 3W Green + 3W Blue. So its s really only 9W with all three colors on (to get white). If you pick only 1 color, then its only 3W.

That why I went with the "20W" model. In reality its 6w Red + 6W Green + 6W Blue = 18W for "white". I have 12 floods on the front of the house, so its plenty. But if I had fewer floods, then I' would go with the "30W" model which is 10W of each color. It is also physically much larger, so that could be an issue.
 
Just to reply to the original... We bought our house 3 years ago, ALL of which is in-ceiling canister lights except for a couple of ceiling fans. I replaced all of them with Philips LED floods from Lowes and haven't had a single failure on any of them. Best light investment ever, IMO. Also have a half a dozen "chandelier" LED bulbs outside for our front door lights which have held up just as well. Landscape lighting is going to tacked soon... bought several incandescent sets, but then bought replacement LED bulbs for them.
 
smthng said:
Best light investment ever, IMO.
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I'm trying to understand the "investment" part.

My beef with these new bulbs is the cost. They are about 10x the cost of incandescent. I don't see the price/performance value is quite there yet. Price needs to come down more before I could say its a good investment.
 
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A br30 3 pack at Costco is in the 17 dollar range. That's a great price.
 
maboat said:
And they have a 9-pack of br30 incandescents for $9.88. You could replace it every year for 9 years at the same cost of 1 LED Br30
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But the utility cost of running a 75w lamp vs a 9W lamp? I have never made a energy saving change that I have lost money on, even with the cost of these damn things and less reliability today than we will have tomorrow. I currently have two hybrid vehicles and Geothermal HVAC. I say that, because I paid more for some of that than standard stuff...and it saved me money in the long run.
 
@maboat that is sort of why I posted this thread. I didn't mind paying extra to switch to LED but my assumption was that:
  1. I'd not have to replace the bulbs ever again (while I owned the house)
  2. I'd save some money on electricity (not the primary goal but nice)
So my #1 reason above is now beginning to piss me off as these bulbs are dying FASTER than incandescent bulbs!

I must say that Homedepot has been amazing in their response to my email to them! They CALLED me at home within an hour of my email! I'm very impressed with that!
 
Yes @txav8r they use less energy but energy cost is cheap. The energy savings is fractions of pennies. It takes a LONG time to recoup the high initial cost (many $$$) with energy savings ( fractional pennies).

I'm not saying LED are crap. I'm saying for me the price is overinflated based on the energy savings. Or they should warranty them for their advertised lifetime. I look forward to going all LED someday, but today I don't see an advantage from a price/performance aspect. And as @Julian points out, their expected lifetime is a bit dubious so far
 
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Well...I read this thread earlier today and I decided to buy some of the br-30 led spots.
I am amazed at how bright and how white they are! !!! I will definitely will be investing in more of these. Great thread thanks for all the info!
 
I think we now have 18 LED bulbs in the house, starting from about 2 years back, the latest were purchased a month ago. So far no LED bulb failures.

We have three ceiling can spot lights, I forget the wattage.
Ten 60W equivalent Cree in ceiling fans.
Two 40W bed lamps.
Three table lamps with 60W equivalent.

The Cree bulbs proved to buzz in the ceiling fans with a dimmer. Some worse than others. I hand selected 4 60W Cree bulbs for the ceiling fan over our kitchen dinner table which we use the most. The other 6 buzz a little but they are in the dining room which we use much less often.
 
@jdonalds I have about 6 LEDs of various sizes on dimmer circuits... all are Philips, none of them buzz. I'm not saying that there's a difference, but it might be worth trying out a set of Philips bulbs on one of your buzzing circuits to see if that helps.

@maboat LEDs by themselves may not be a big deal, but for us it's all part of package. I have a pool pump that runs at least 8 hours a day, I leave lights on, our house has two full size central A/C units which I run (Florida summers) and yet I pay about $250 a month in electricity. Yeah, it cost a fair chunk for me to get there, but I have friends paying at least twice that in the summer. That adds up pretty quick.
 
While we are on the subject of LED's... does anyone have any experience with underwater landscape LED's? My homemade fountain has three halogens that are 6 years old and one just burned out. I definitely want a warm white look that matches what I have with the halogens. Same with the spots and the ground lights... need to reduce my electrical load...

EOH20080816-003457e1.jpg
 
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