Ecosmart LED Daylight Non-Dimmable

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growler

growler

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OK I just replaced a bunch of lamps at a house with the Ecosmart LED lamps, 60W
day light, 10K hour life (so they say). Everything should work out fine because they didn't have any dimmers (rental property). The lamps say they are non-dimmable.

Yesterday I was installing dimmers and the owner of the house had the same lamps and I told him they probably wouldn't work because his dimmer was only for incandesent and halogen. They seen to dimm just fine.

The old Home Depot store does have dimmable lamps but they only have a 1K life span.

Anyone else tried these lamps (non-dimmable type) with dimmers and do they burn out the dimmers or something ?
 
It might just be the manuf's way of saying don't come to me with your dimmer problems.
 
170116-1259 EST

You have no idea what will happen with a particular bulb and dimmer combination. Look at lists of supposedly compatible bulbs and dimmers by the various manufacturers, and try ones that are supposed to be compatible. They may or may not work well.

I can take recent CREE bulbs and have them dim well with a Variac (essentially a constant sine wave of different voltages), a phase shift dimmer (Lutron CL type, appears to be a very good two wire dimmer, some phase shifted fraction of a sine wave), a three wire phase shifted dimmer (for most loads the Lutron CL and a three wire dimmer had comparable results).

A GE dimmable CFL I have dims limitedly with a phase shift dimmer, but is near constant light output with an adjustable sine wave down to about 95 V, then quits. Some of the so called dimmable LEDs don't dim well with either a sine wave or phase shift dimmer.

Also some LEDs are major sources of radio frequency interference. One low cost Feit bulb produced a lot of RF energy around 1 MHz, middle of the AM band. However, some Feit bulbs have shown better reliability than some Cree bulbs.

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growler said:
OK I just replaced a bunch of lamps at a house with the Ecosmart LED lamps, 60W
day light, 10K hour life (so they say). Everything should work out fine because they didn't have any dimmers (rental property). The lamps say they are non-dimmable.

Yesterday I was installing dimmers and the owner of the house had the same lamps and I told him they probably wouldn't work because his dimmer was only for incandesent and halogen. They seen to dimm just fine.

The old Home Depot store does have dimmable lamps but they only have a 1K life span.

Anyone else tried these lamps (non-dimmable type) with dimmers and do they burn out the dimmers or something ?
Click to expand...

Maybe they are the same lamps, 10k life without a dimmer, but only a 1k life using one. Same bulb, different packaging?
 
K8MHZ said:
Maybe they are the same lamps, 10k life without a dimmer, but only a 1k life using one. Same bulb, different packaging?
Click to expand...

I kind of doubt that because these lamps are really cheap (1K life) about the same as incandescent. I'm glad the have them for temp use during construction but I wouldn't normally install a short life lamp for a customer. Plus the energy use is much different.
 
gar said:
You have no idea what will happen with a particular bulb and dimmer combination.
.
Click to expand...

I didn't furnish the lamps and we were only useing it for test purposes. But they are going to be useing LED lamps so I guess it's wait and see.

Things are certainly more complicated these days.

I want to go back to incandescent lamps, I want to club seals and harpoon whales, eat red meat , smoke and drink and have unprotected sex. We didn't live long but had more fun. Screw the environment.
 
growler said:
OK I just replaced a bunch of lamps at a house with the Ecosmart LED lamps, 60W
day light, 10K hour life (so they say). Everything should work out fine because they didn't have any dimmers (rental property). The lamps say they are non-dimmable.

Yesterday I was installing dimmers and the owner of the house had the same lamps and I told him they probably wouldn't work because his dimmer was only for incandesent and halogen. They seen to dimm just fine.

The old Home Depot store does have dimmable lamps but they only have a 1K life span.

Anyone else tried these lamps (non-dimmable type) with dimmers and do they burn out the dimmers or something ?
Click to expand...

Did you confirm by the marking on the actual lamps in question and the marking "non-dimmable" as well as the product code?
I have had one say on package 120v, but the lamp itself said 120-277v. Newer lot is marked on the lamp 120v but the SKU is different.

You know when the LED BALLAST does not support dimming input when it does not function correctly at all behind a dimmer. It'll change the amount of malfunctioning with dimmer setting but it does not work properly in a meaningful way at any setting. If it is what you said as it is I wonder if they've just made inventory adjustments. I would love to see the Home Depot listing. I don't know of any LED LAMP that actually ADMITS to 1,000 hour life.
 
Electric-Light said:
I would love to see the Home Depot listing. I don't know of any LED LAMP that actually ADMITS to 1,000 hour life.
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Now that you mention it they really don't say what it is. This is a phillips brand lamp. Says 11% energy savings. 60 watt replacement uses 53W. Dimmable & mercury free. It does state in the fine print that it does have a filament. They did stop selling the iincandescent, didn't they?
 
growler said:
Now that you mention it they really don't say what it is. This is a phillips brand lamp. Says 11% energy savings. 60 watt replacement uses 53W. Dimmable & mercury free. It does state in the fine print that it does have a filament. They did stop selling the iincandescent, didn't they?
Click to expand...


It's an incandescent halogen. A special high efficiency type
 
growler said:
Now that you mention it they really don't say what it is. This is a phillips brand lamp. Says 11% energy savings. 60 watt replacement uses 53W. Dimmable & mercury free. It does state in the fine print that it does have a filament. They did stop selling the iincandescent, didn't they?
Click to expand...
They are still allowed to sell halogen bulbs. Those are tungsten filaments (incandescent) with a halogen gas atmosphere inside the shell that recycles evaporated tungsten back to the filament.
That allows higher temperature operation. That accounts for 60W worth of light from 53W power input.
Higher temp means a higher ratio of visible light to Infrared.

mobile
 
growler said:
I didn't furnish the lamps and we were only useing it for test purposes. But they are going to be useing LED lamps so I guess it's wait and see.

Things are certainly more complicated these days.

I want to go back to incandescent lamps, I want to club seals and harpoon whales, eat red meat , smoke and drink and have unprotected sex. We didn't live long but had more fun. Screw the environment.
Click to expand...

[Laughing Out Loud] Oh my! Best laugh I've had in days! [/Laughing Out Loud]

Saw a tee shirt that said, "How can I cope with LIFE when I can't even program my VCR!" Buying a lightbulb has recently become that. I empathize.
 
al hildenbrand said:
[Laughing Out Loud] Oh my! Best laugh I've had in days! [/Laughing Out Loud]

Saw a tee shirt that said, "How can I cope with LIFE when I can't even program my VCR!" Buying a lightbulb has recently become that. I empathize.
Click to expand...


Al my real problem is the looks I get from the homeowners when I try explaining how complicated buying a lightbulb/dimmer is these days. They get the dimmer that they like the look of and assume it should work.

These linemen from the power compay said the other day that the only constant nowdays is change.

I now understand why people are buying happy pills by the gallon. I try to make do with smoking my pipe and drinking lots of coffee.
 
GoldDigger said:
They are still allowed to sell halogen bulbs. Those are tungsten filaments (incandescent) with a halogen gas atmosphere inside the shell that recycles evaporated tungsten back to the filament.
That allows higher temperature operation. That accounts for 60W worth of light from 53W power input.
Higher temp means a higher ratio of visible light to Infrared.

mobile
Click to expand...
43W = 60W is actually a pinky tip sized halogen lamp made with special IR reflective coating housed inside a regular shaped bulb. The coating reflects infrared back into the filament and to help it keep hot. The result is reduction in power needed to get the same visible light output. These lamps put out crisper white closer to 3000K. It's too bad that the filament on these saver lamps are very fragile. You can see the slightest vibration cause the filament to jiggle and a slight bump while it's on is all it takes to make it burn out.

The outer bulb is held at a slightly reduced pressure. It's not a strong vacuum, because the shell has to withstand roughly 15 psi of pressure crushing inwards. Normal light bulb burns out if air leaks in but the leak into outer bulb doesn't disable the halogen capsule. so, a very slow inward leak can cause the outer bulb to build pressure after turning on and there's been reports of the bulb rupturing.


growler said:
I didn't furnish the lamps and we were only useing it for test purposes. But they are going to be useing LED lamps so I guess it's wait and see.

Things are certainly more complicated these days.

I want to go back to incandescent lamps, I want to club seals and harpoon whales, eat red meat , smoke and drink and have unprotected sex. We didn't live long but had more fun. Screw the environment.
Click to expand...

A typical LED lamp is very similar to a CFL. There is a disposable transistorized LED ballast inside.
This guy has done some teardown if you are curious what that might look like. https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1821

High quality T5 and T8 ballasts that cost $15-20 offers fantastic regulation so the light output is steady as if it is powered by a battery with barely detectable hint of AC line artifacts. Many disposable LED ballasts used with LEDs make more flicker than magnetically ballasted CFL of the 1990s.

When these LEDs are laid out in a straight line and connected to the same disposable LED ballast which is hidden behind or alongside the LED strip, you have a so called "ballast bypass LED retrofit bulb" which is the full equivalent of pin-based CFL ballast bypass to accommodate screw-in CFL.
 
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