The hidden, extremely costly LED lighting maintenance

[Electric-Light]

LEDs should not be placed into commercial application without specification item "lamp shall not blink upon failure, and failed lamp shall not repeatedly flash upon power up"

Commonality between LEDs and CFLs: They're both prone to misapplication, because, most of them specifically disapprove enclosed fixtures and enclosed fixtures are far more common than enclosed rated lamps.

The outcome is the same. Reduced lamp life.


Commonality between LEDs and some induction: While failing HPS sodium can be annoying, it's tolerable. The most common cause of outage for LED and induction is ballast failure. Unfortunately, not all LED ballast engineers did not incorporate non-blinking fault mode. They can act erratic and blink or strobe for a long time without killing itself within a few days like CFL. They can exhibit temperature dependent failure such as working normally, but blinking at a turn signal pace after a few hours of burning at ambient over 75F. Without specifying a non-blink requirement, failing LED ballast can blink extremely annoying and demand an immediate service call.

 

[ActionDave]

..... Without specifying a non-blink requirement, failing LED ballast can blink extremely annoying and demand an immediate service call.

I love service calls.

 

[jumper]

Is there a question or are we just getting lectured?:?

 

[ramsy]

I think its a good lecture, or opportunity to learn from others mistakes.

If LED retrofits are part of your business, warranty issues happen if temperature limits are not carefully considered.

 

[zbang]

LEDs should not be placed into commercial application without specification item "lamp shall not blink upon failure, and failed lamp shall not repeatedly flash upon power up"

Only if you insist on that spec for all lamp types.

(We know you don't like LEDs, there's no need to keep pressing the point.)

 

[Electric-Light]

Only if you insist on that spec for all lamp types.

(We know you don't like LEDs, there's no need to keep pressing the point.)

When new solution causes a problem in the field that was not a problem with traditional solutions, adding requirements to everything can complicate things and add up cost. Earlier implementation of electronic ballasts had a problem not being able to tolerate ordinary surge.. and now there are specs in the manufacturing of electronic ballasts pertaining to surge tolerance.

It would be an unnecessary burden to add these requirements to magnetic HID ballasts or transformers.

Induction CFL and LED excited solid state fluorescent street lights are the technologies used today that often fail with highly distracting flashing or blinking having a short constant, for an extended period of time due to ballast failure. A malfunctioning traditional technology can cycle, but the time constant is in the order of minutes.

It takes a several to several tens of times of voltage to engage to start a discharge lamp and the voltage plummets to normal level. There's a huge gap in drop-in and drop-out voltage.

LED lamp elements also stays non-conductive and suddenly starts letting current when you hit the threshold voltage, but LEDs have almost no such gap in drop-in and drop-out and it's common for failing LED ballast to oscillate somewhere between disco light and turn signal rates. The amount of complaints depends on psychological nuisance factor of the rate and rhythm.

You can drive your car with one headlight out until you get a chance to fix it. However, if one of the light is flashing like a police car light, you can't drive around like that even for a short period. This could happen if you experience a headlight LED ballast failure if the ballast is not specifically inhibited from failing like this. Failure is a failure that requires a repair, but the impact of failure is dramatically different.

LED money savings claim absolutely ignore the cost of priority service to deal with blinkers that could have been put aside for routine maintenance. This one call can wipe out many years of savings. Further cost increase is that many LED fixtures are not repairable, so a dead wall pack isn't a re-lamp or a repair. It becomes a permit required fixture change out.

 

[Besoeker]

When new solution causes a problem in the field that was not a problem with traditional solutions, adding requirements to everything can complicate things and add up cost. Earlier implementation of electronic ballasts had a problem not being able to tolerate ordinary surge.. and now there are specs in the manufacturing of electronic ballasts pertaining to surge tolerance.

Hmmm..........

FWIW, and I have made this point before, we have been using LED indicator lamps on drives and controls panels for decades.
Typically like this:

The justification wasn't on energy savings. It was reliability. In 25 years I know of not one single failure.

 

[Electric-Light]

Hmmm..........
FWIW, and I have made this point before

Yes, you have and it's irrelevant. It's like attesting to the reliability of a cooling fan at the back of a computer that seldom experience motor drive failure in a discussion about a 100 hp system in an industrial plant. Those LEDs are driven at very low power and ballasted passively with a single resistor. Line voltage LED indicator consumes over 95% of milliwatts of power used in the ballast resistor but the total power is so little that it does not have heat dissipation concerns. The power density of lamps you keep talking about is essentially zero.

Build an A19 bulb using 3 LEDs/juntions in series with a series resistor ballast thermally bonded to the metal body and set the resistor so the whole thing only consumes one watt, and you will enjoy similar durability as the indicator lamps you keep talking about but you have a ballast loss of about 25% operated from a native 12v DC source. This is how 12v rope LEDs are setup. Realistically, ballasting loss is 35-40% since utility to 12v DC power supply is only 80-85% efficient.

Since common usage demands a drop-in replacement, comparable output, low flicker and have a better than CFL lm/W, the lamp will inevitably rely on transistorized LED ballast which is the weak link that blows up and cause disagreeable behavior as it fails.


Concerning LED light bulbs, they're often inappropriately used to replace CFLs which are also inappropriately installed in a fixture designed for 40 or 60W A19 lamp. This happens, because enclosed rated lamps are rare. It is because there's a significant technical challenge to building a lamp that can maintain the rated output in this environment and survive the rated life because it is a technical challenge to build an effective electronic ballast (effective means maintain flicker level comparable to incandescent lamp) that can survive this environment to be able to have desirable rated life span. You should have some skepticism on 800 lm LED that says suitable for use in enclosed fixtures as well as being dimmable. Some of them internally use the second 0-10v like input on the ballast tied to a temperature sensor and dim the lamp and support enclosed fixture by dimming the lamp. This meets realistic specs for motion activated security lights when full output for the first five minutes means full output for intended purpose but its not ok for dusk-to-dawn use.

You have 8-12w (depending on design age and model) going into the size of a baseball for a 60W equivalent, 800 lm lamp. Thermal loading into the body is higher for LEDs than CFL as CFLs can shed quite a bit more of energy as infrared than LED.
Enclose it within a fixture. The more heat that has to be rejected by conduction means the hotter the lamp body gets.

 

[Besoeker]

Yes, you have and it's irrelevant. It's like attesting to the reliability of a cooling fan at the back of a computer that seldom experience motor drive failure in a discussion about a 100 hp system in an industrial plant. Those LEDs are driven at very low power and ballasted passively with a single resistor. Line voltage LED indicator consumes over 95% of milliwatts of power used in the ballast resistor but the total power is so little that it does not have heat dissipation concerns. The power density of lamps you keep talking about is essentially zero.

Most of the lights in our house are LED. Including the kitchen spotlights.
Admittedly, we have been here just a bit over ten years and not a single LED failure. Maybe we just got lucky.

 

[tom baker]

Is there a question or are we just getting lectured?:?

I agree what the point, as my experience is very positive.
Before we (a city) converted to LED signal heads, I would typically get a call at 2:00 am for a lamp out, call a second person, roll a bucket truck to replace a lamp. With LEDs in place now for 15 - 20 years I may get one call a year to replace a lamp.
Plus we don't have to do annual lamp changes that take weeks of working nights.
Energy savings are considerable, take an 8 phase intersection, 4 thru movements and 4 left turns with 165 watt inc lamps, do the math when you convert to a 20 watt head.
The LED signal displays are very reliable few failures and have at least a 5 year warranty.

 

[ptonsparky]

LEDs should not be placed into commercial application without specification item "lamp shall not blink upon failure, and failed lamp shall not repeatedly flash upon power up"

Commonality between LEDs and CFLs: They're both prone to misapplication, because, most of them specifically disapprove enclosed fixtures and enclosed fixtures are far more common than enclosed rated lamps.

The outcome is the same. Reduced lamp life.


Commonality between LEDs and some induction: While failing HPS sodium can be annoying, it's tolerable. The most common cause of outage for LED and induction is ballast failure. Unfortunately, not all LED ballast engineers did not incorporate non-blinking fault mode. They can act erratic and blink or strobe for a long time without killing itself within a few days like CFL. They can exhibit temperature dependent failure such as working normally, but blinking at a turn signal pace after a few hours of burning at ambient over 75F. Without specifying a non-blink requirement, failing LED ballast can blink extremely annoying and demand an immediate service call.

We installed an LED farm light a few years ago. 5 year warranty, failed @ 3. Replaced it last year. Last night I get a message that the replacement is blinking and this morning he called again to describe the rate. Any guesses? Temps have been high.

Suppose there is a connection somewhere?

 

[Electric-Light]

Most of the lights in our house are LED. Including the kitchen spotlights.
Admittedly, we have been here just a bit over ten years and not a single LED failure. Maybe we just got lucky.

Ok, but what physical size, real lumen output and wattage are they?

Output drivre is one of the most common failure point on loud speakre amplifires, but I've never seen the output drivre fail on portable personal radio so I'm telling you again, things do not scale without significant differences.

Extremely important details that are often overlooked:
Incandescent lamp output does not scale linearly with wattage in common household range of light bulbs because of real world constraints. For the same reason, 120v incandescent lamps are roughly 20% more efficient than 240v lamps. Lower wattage 240v bulbs and decorative lamps have always given LED marketers a huge favor in developing sales pitch

You can see that there's more to it than translating the language when transferring LED sales pitch from European or Asian catalogues to US catalog.

LEDs are much flatter and they can provide double digit lumens per watt down to the milliwatt range.

Looking at a 40W ordinary white light bulb (called A55 in that catalogue because its in millimetre), the difference is quite a bit.
460 lm for 120v vs 385 lm for 240v
American 60W bulb at 800 lm has more than double the output of a British 40W bulb.

British 25W Candelabra only puts out 180 lm which is less than 1/4 of US 60W standard bulb.


An LED bulb compared to a 25W European bulb wouldn't be a challenge even with LED technology from a decade ago. There were many that didn't get anything close in real lumens and used fiddled up claim to bump up the advertised brightness by using 6500K(LED flashlight color) LEDs and boosting it by night vision factor. So a 2.5W, 6500K 75lm made of inversely parallel wired LEDs passively ballasted with a series resistor lamp might have been touted as 25W equivalent.

An LED lamp in the foot print of an ordinary light bulb that puts out legacy 60W American bulb equivalent of sustained 800 lm that can be used in enclosed fixture and provide 8,000 + hrs life in the field remains a challenge even in late 2017. A down light is considered semi enclosed. A fixture that you can not stick your finger onto the actual bulb is considered "totally enclosed".

 

[Besoeker]

Ok, but what physical size, real lumen output and wattage are they?

Output drivre is one of the most common failure point on loud speakre amplifires, but I've never seen the output drivre fail on portable personal radio so I'm telling you again, things do not scale without significant differences.

I can only tell you what my experience with LEDs has been over the past 30 years.
Yours may differ.

 

[Electric-Light]

I can only tell you what my experience with LEDs has been over the past 30 years.
Yours may differ.

Dodging every single important questions.

 

[Besoeker]

Dodging every single important questions.

We have 1650 lumens in our kitchen from 3 GU10 LEDs and zero failures.
What else do you want to know?

 

[Electric-Light]

We have 1650 lumens in our kitchen from 3 GU10 LEDs and zero failures.
What else do you want to know?

Are those the ones you had since 2007 ish? You didn't say the wattage.

 

[Besoeker]

Are those the ones you had since 2007 ish? You didn't say the wattage.

180W total.
Bright kitchen.

 

[Electric-Light]

180W total.
Bright kitchen.

I don't see why that matters.

I would like you to share the details, like approximate year of mfg, wattage, brand and model of the three GU10s whose combined name plate output adds up to 1650 lm. Is that a bit more clear ?

 

[Fulthrotl]

I don't see why that matters.

I would like you to share the details, like approximate year of mfg, wattage, brand and model of the three GU10s whose combined name plate output adds up to 1650 lm. Is that a bit more clear ?

he'd like that, mr. B... hop to it!

while you are at it, we'd like to see receipts for those
lights as well. wanna make sure no hanky panky is
afoot.

do you have video of those lights burning, so we can
all verify every single minute of illumination, please?

when i put 5 dozen can lights in my house a few years
back, they were supposed to last forever. some burned
out, and started strobing.

and they were premium LED's. 'bout $75 per element
at the time.

i was beside myself. i went over to the shop, and took
a new LED element out of the dozen spares i bought when
they came out with version 2, and replaced it.

then i threw the old one away.

and the best part? i really didn't give that much of a chit.
nothing lasts forever.......

except his burning hatred of LED lamps.

get back to us with those reciepts, now. we are dying to know.

 

[Electric-Light]

<moved to spam, LEED AP, CALCTP-AT, and general nuisance bin>
then i threw the old one away.

:happysad: what would compel someone to give combined lumen of three specific lamps but provide the wattage for something as abstract as the whole room anyhow?

We installed an LED farm light a few years ago. 5 year warranty, failed @ 3. Replaced it last year. Last night I get a message that the replacement is blinking and this morning he called again to describe the rate. Any guesses? Temps have been high.

Suppose there is a connection somewhere?

Nothing can be made fault proof but there is definitely a strong preference for the inevitable failure to happen in a certain way. It's nothing but poor LED ballast design when it goes into blinking spazz or beacon mode upon failure. There should be some sort of passive protection to prevent this. At the very minimum, it wouldn't continue for more than a day or two never resume after a power cycle. This is something that can be resolved by specification requirement prohibiting this failure mode.

I've seen faulty induction CFL system with a bad ballast blinking smooth and steady like "12:00" on an alarm clock after a power outage. I've seen LEDs do all kinds of things like abrupt short missed beats, abrupt short flashes or flashing like a fire alarm and these could have a number of bad consequences like leading an aircraft to clip a tree top, or a fire department getting called to a facility by passersby thinking a fire alarm is activated.

This will turn into a simple annoying dark spot to annoying a whole bunch of people and possibly becoming the cause of a nuisance violation and costing thousands of dollars to access and repair the problem. That could have been the reason LED fixtures were installed in the first place and this kind of thing becomes an enemy against the very cause.

I can't be sorry for you if you chose the product yourself and applied it in a way that invokes :happyno: :blink: but if you're using it within something that is reasonably within the advertised applications, I think its on the manufacturer or the rep for recommending a product not cut out to the elements or can not tolerate reasonable unwise choice like leaving it on all day on a hot summer day regardless of what the manual says. Blinking fail is a reason to not install the same model. I'd put in a different brand or a model and definite write them a letter asking reimbursement for what you spent on this problem even though they might not have legal obligations to pay. Depending on how it gets handled, they'll be a good brand for you or you write it off as a loss and put the brand of LED light on chit list.


This kind of failure is probably tolerable for DIY market product that can be dealt with by a simple ladder, but not for products sold for professional installation. Many places have different permit requirements for self install vs professional install. If your locality requires a permit for professional install, the cost of that LED can reach the cost of bringing a aerial lift 3 times and pulling a permit 3 different times in addition to the labor. "five year warranty" can be excellent, or about as useless as "send us back the fuel pump at your own expense and we'll send you a new one within six weeks".