The hidden, extremely costly LED lighting maintenance

[Electric-Light]

I have had good luck with CFLs. A quick count figures about 20 of them in my house. AFCIs are another issue altogether and you know that.

I've never seen CFLs spaz blink that lasts more than a few minutes. Blinking 9W twin tube sconces with a magnetic ballast and glow starter can be annoying but they're not marketed for extremely difficult to reach places and the rhythm is nowhere near as annoying as blinking caused by a malfunctioning LED ballast.

I've seen many LED luminaires spaz flashing or frittering at incredibly annoying pace (6-12 Hz range).

I love service calls.

Even the kind you're paying for as part of warranty on LEDs you sold?

I would like to study what he has to say, but his posts are so long when I look at them it takes me to the same place in my brain as when my wife starts talking about the neighbours or her family.

Some parts of my posts aren't meant to be read word for word, but there are people with major stake in LED sales even when it is bad interest of the customer. Without independently verifiable reasoning or references, those people are likely to object and complain even if casual readers don't care to read it.

We had a lot more hard balling ESCOs that focused on saying anything it takes to close LED sales on small and medium businesses and franchisors. As LEDs don't carry the same extremely expensive price tag they did five years ago, they've quieted down a lot. Fly by the night ESCOs want money now and not too worried about five years from now.

Who's going to pay to address a high mount pole light that that disco strobes at a rural property and owner needs it addressed immediately because it's drawing complaints about distracting drivers around a curve or it's distressing livestock?
I have only seen LEDs suffer from that failure mode and it seems to be a common failure for LED street lights, although the government wastes plenty of money on experimental products.

Long standing businesses would prefer not to get inquiries about spaz blinking that tends to only affect LED based lighting systems coming up during sales consultation. They don't want customers asking for blink proof LED and insisting on vendor to cover emergency service call or pay for another company to deal with disruptive blinking at no cost to customer for the duration of expected life. Spaz blinking due to poor LED ballast design means you the multiple fixtures can experience spaz blink weeks apart. Without spaz blink coverage, the cost of labor might force him to make the decision to replace all of them after 2nd or 3rd spaz blink issues. Having this rolled into warranty can't hurt the customer. Vendors with such a huge confidence in LEDs can just smile and let him have it like he was asking for kangaroo attack insurance in Michigan.

Burnt out, or cycling at the rate of dying HPS can wait weeks or months without much tension. Spaz blink is a different matter. Sadly, it's very unpredictable. Some just go out all the way, some because very dim and pulsate mildly but some does insanely annoying spaz flash.

ESCOs usually pitch promise of saving money over decades using ROI calculated with presumption of zero interest rate, requirement of payment in full upon completion and LEDs never fail. Oh but if they do, don't worry there's warranty. They don't offer interest free loan for the duration of ROI, so why should the ROI be calculated at no interest? there is also a lack of allowance to cover repair costs not covered under warranty prior to reaching ROI by diverting payments.

More problems that leave end users high and dry as a result of companies trying out in LED gold rush:
http://luxreview.com/article/2016/1...he-manufacturer-will-fail-than-the-led-driver

" Many will argue that the driver is the weak link in today’s
luminaires. Inventronics makes that argument null and void with their 10 yr
warranty driver. The EUD-150S105DTL has a lifetime projected to be 120,000
hours at 220 VAC input, 80% load and 85°C case temperature, achieved through a combination of careful component selection, excellent thermal design, extensive modeling and simulation of possible failure modes based on physics of failure, and highly accelerated stress testing. This is a good thing for the industry. Bill Brown
Sales Booth #1021"

http://www.edisonreport.net/files/3214/3068/0305/EdisonReports_Top_10_2015_v1.0.pdf

Interestingly, the warranty seems to have shrunk down to five years since then. Reducing warranty length is the common trend across the entire LED industry including C&I products as well as household LED light bulbs. Does anyone read the warranty terms?

Short version: If our performance piston rings go bad, just send the failed ones. We'll send you replacements. . . But how concerned are you if the replacement piston rings are free or not?

Freeze an LED ballast in the freezer. hang it under an inverted bucket and set it over moist ground. Let water condense. Power it up. Electronic ballasts (VFDs too) are more affected exposure to repeated cycle of humidity and physical stress from heating up from freezing temperature than coil and core. Traffic lights are 24/7, so the LED ballast doesn't see chill down to ambient temperature or experience rapid thermal cycling. Outdoor induction and LED ballasts struggle with this. CFLs too, but they stop lighting up instead of acting up.


Here's the full text:

"If Inventronics determines that the product is defective as provided in the foregoing paragraph,
Inventronics will, at its option, repair or replace the products or credit the Buyer with the
purchase price thereof. To obtain a replacement or repaired product or credit under this warranty,
the Buyer must contact Inventronics Sales within the Warranty Period to obtain a Return
Material Authorization and shipping instructions. Inventronics shall have no responsibility for
products outside of the Warranty Period. Under no circumstances shall Inventronics be liable for
any loss or damage, whether direct or indirect, incidental, consequential, special or otherwise,
arising out of or relating to the use of, or the inability to use the product, in excess of the cost of
replacement of any product proven defective during the Warranty Period"

 

[mivey]

Simple enough.
Several decades of use. Zero failures.

I had some fluorescents that had been in use for over 20 years with about a 14% failure rate. Have some other fluorescents in use for about 30 years with zero failures.

Not much of a substantive argument about much of anything. Just subjective talk without specifics.

I thought his posts #8 and #12 at least sounded reasonable. Not sure if they would stand up in a good debate as it is not my area of expertise but it did not sound wacky anyway.

You have 1650lm and 180W? 9.2 lm/W? What is up with your data? Does not sound right for LED application but more like incandescent.

 

[ActionDave]

....Some parts of my posts aren't meant to be read word for word, but there are people with major stake in LED sales even when it is bad interest of the customer. Without independently verifiable reasoning or references, those people are likely to object and complain even if casual readers don't care to read it.

We had a lot more hard balling ESCOs that focused on saying anything it takes to close LED sales on small and medium businesses and franchisors. As LEDs don't carry the same extremely expensive price tag they did five years ago, they've quieted down a lot. Fly by the night ESCOs want money now and not too worried about five years from now.

Who's going to pay to address a high mount pole light that that disco strobes at a rural property and owner needs it addressed immediately because it's drawing complaints about distracting drivers around a curve or it's distressing livestock?
I have only seen LEDs suffer from that failure mode and it seems to be a common failure for LED street lights, although the government wastes plenty of money on experimental products.

Long standing businesses would prefer not to get inquiries about spaz blinking that tends to only affect LED based lighting systems coming up during sales consultation. They don't want customers asking for blink proof LED and insisting on vendor to cover emergency service call or pay for another company to deal with disruptive blinking at no cost to customer for the duration of expected life. Spaz blinking due to poor LED ballast design means you the multiple fixtures can experience spaz blink weeks apart. Without spaz blink coverage, the cost of labor might force him to make the decision to replace all of them after 2nd or 3rd spaz blink issues. Having this rolled into warranty can't hurt the customer. Vendors with such a huge confidence in LEDs can just smile and let him have it like he was asking for kangaroo attack insurance in Michigan.

Burnt out, or cycling at the rate of dying HPS can wait weeks or months without much tension. Spaz blink is a different matter. Sadly, it's very unpredictable. Some just go out all the way, some because very dim and pulsate mildly but some does insanely annoying spaz flash.

ESCOs usually pitch promise of saving money over decades using ROI calculated with presumption of zero interest rate, requirement of payment in full upon completion and LEDs never fail. Oh but if they do, don't worry there's warranty. They don't offer interest free loan for the duration of ROI, so why should the ROI be calculated at no interest? there is also a lack of allowance to cover repair costs not covered under warranty prior to reaching ROI by diverting payments.

More problems that leave end users high and dry as a result of companies trying out in LED gold rush:
http://luxreview.com/article/2016/1...he-manufacturer-will-fail-than-the-led-driver

" Many will argue that the driver is the weak link in today’s
luminaires. Inventronics makes that argument null and void with their 10 yr
warranty driver. The EUD-150S105DTL has a lifetime projected to be 120,000
hours at 220 VAC input, 80% load and 85°C case temperature, achieved through a combination of careful component selection, excellent thermal design, extensive modeling and simulation of possible failure modes based on physics of failure, and highly accelerated stress testing. This is a good thing for the industry. Bill Brown
Sales Booth #1021"

http://www.edisonreport.net/files/3214/3068/0305/EdisonReports_Top_10_2015_v1.0.pdf

Interestingly, the warranty seems to have shrunk down to five years since then. Reducing warranty length is the common trend across the entire LED industry including C&I products as well as household LED light bulbs. Does anyone read the warranty terms?

Short version: If our performance piston rings go bad, just send the failed ones. We'll send you replacements. . . But how concerned are you if the replacement piston rings are free or not?

Freeze an LED ballast in the freezer. hang it under an inverted bucket and set it over moist ground. Let water condense. Power it up. Electronic ballasts (VFDs too) are more affected exposure to repeated cycle of humidity and physical stress from heating up from freezing temperature than coil and core. Traffic lights are 24/7, so the LED ballast doesn't see chill down to ambient temperature or experience rapid thermal cycling. Outdoor induction and LED ballasts struggle with this. CFLs too, but they stop lighting up instead of acting up.


Here's the full text:

"If Inventronics determines that the product is defective as provided in the foregoing paragraph,
Inventronics will, at its option, repair or replace the products or credit the Buyer with the
purchase price thereof. To obtain a replacement or repaired product or credit under this warranty,
the Buyer must contact Inventronics Sales within the Warranty Period to obtain a Return
Material Authorization and shipping instructions. Inventronics shall have no responsibility for
products outside of the Warranty Period. Under no circumstances shall Inventronics be liable for
any loss or damage, whether direct or indirect, incidental, consequential, special or otherwise,
arising out of or relating to the use of, or the inability to use the product, in excess of the cost of
replacement of any product proven defective during the Warranty Period"

Can you repeat that please?

 

[mivey]

Can you repeat that please?

I think it reads: LED flashy-flashy more bad-bad than CFL no-worky-worky/no-flashy-flashy, or something like that.

 

[Fulthrotl]

I think it reads: LED flashy-flashy more bad-bad than CFL no-worky-worky/no-flashy-flashy, or something like that.

that... was a clear and succinct summery.
thank you for that.

at the end of the day, in this part of the
country anyway, there is almost nothing
but LED fixtures installed in commercial
construction.

i think it was last winter, just before
christmas that i saw T-8's in an office.

 

[zbang]

I think it reads: LED flashy-flashy more bad-bad than CFL no-worky-worky/no-flashy-flashy, or something like that.

If the light is up a pole or high on the side of a building, it doesn't really matter what kind of fixture it is; you're probably going to replace most or all the guts at once to avoid a second trip.

(more later, gotta run now)

 

[Electric-Light]

I had some fluorescents that had been in use for over 20 years with about a 14% failure rate. Have some other fluorescents in use for about 30 years with zero failures.

Not much of a substantive argument about much of anything. Just subjective talk without specifics.

Just a few confirmed identical abnormal failures can reveal a design flaw though. Only inadequate ballast design will cause LED blinking at failure where it will cause a great inconvenience.

Product reviews can easily become invalid, because LED modules, LED elements on the module and ballast module often change to lower cost while the product retains the same SKU or UPC. Even disposable household LED light bulbs use separate LED board and ballast board to allow those parts to be sourced separately. The changes are usually not for the better on the lower end products.

Many LED sales pitch use testimonials which is often as informative as diet pill TV ads.

https://terralux.com/first-congregational-church-2/

"TerraLUX’s LED lighting solutions are saving us on energy and maintenance costs. We used to have to replace lights 4-5 times a year at $200 each, now we won’t have to worry about changing a bulb for seven years or more."

If they were chasing lamp-by-lamp as they go out and never group re-lamp, they were not saved by the LED technology. The latter claim of no maintenance for "7 or more years" is a huge assumption based on unquestioned faith in LED sales claim.

"Four to five times a year, one of the fluorescent bulbs in the church would expire because of the dimmer system. One of the goals in retrofitting the church with TerraLUX LEDs was to achieve a more reliable lighting system. Another was to eliminate the need to pay $200 per replacement ballast each time a light went out. "

Fluorescent lamp don't suffer early failure because of "because of dimmer system". It's a problem of improperly working system and whack a mole maintenance strategy and willing service contractor who like $200 light bulb service calls.

5% rise in line voltage cuts incandescent lamp life in half. So two identical buildings with identical usage fed off a different transformer with one at 118v and the other at 124v can expect to see the light bulb lasting half as long on the average. This is also easily solved by using a dimmer and running it just shy of maximum setting. LEDs and fluorescent lamps that use electronic ballast don't see any lamp life effect from voltage variation within ANSI tolerance and the latter site can cast an undeserved and inaccurate perception of superior durability to LEDs.

Ballasts(including those for LEDs) and lamps have limited life. They failure a predictable failure curve which starts off with a few going out a year out of hundreds at a steady rate and you hit a knee point where a bunch starts dropping dead. LED sales testimonial that compare the existing system that has already hit the knee point is playing mind games.

Another cause of false sense of savings can be attributed to LED retrofits or lamps that have "thermal management" which means dimming down to avoid self destruction. Users might believe they're getting 100% output, when it's actually tripping on the governor or cause mysterious peculiarity like unexplained reduction in watts during summer time.

If the light is up a pole or high on the side of a building, it doesn't really matter what kind of fixture it is; you're probably going to replace most or all the guts at once to avoid a second trip.

(more later, gotta run now)

Oh LED? Those parts are special order and have to come from factory and they're not in stock. Warranty covers standard shipping, but if you want it over night'ed you got to pay. If you replace the entire fixture, there's the permit fee/paper work depending on your jurisdiction. Just because it gets done without does not make it okay for LED purveyors to assume this cost does not exist and they absolutely must consider this into cost of LED failure resolution.

 

[mivey]

I will agree with you on the dimmer system. If they have a bad system that is no testimate about LEDs, just a testimate that they did a poor job years ago.

Comparing a new system with an old system is not an apples to apples comparison. Suppose they had some old LED tech and put in modern fluorescent tech: oh how wonderful the fluorescent would seem.

I would rather see new vs. new and forget the old as it is a poor comparison to either new system.

That whole thing is just a testimate that when an old system is failing then you need a new system. Nothing astounding about that.

 

[Electric-Light]

I can't get over the ugliness of the thing they call "wagon wheel chandelier"

 

[gar]

170724-0805 EDT

Ballast.

Fundamentally from its earliest use it meant something to provide stability.

Electrically this could mean voltage, current or power. Possibly something else. Usually it has been used to mean a current source, or approximation thereof, for powering a gaseous discharge device (constant voltage devices).

An LED is more of a constant voltage load, and thus, needs to be driven by an approximately constant current source.

In a broad sense the use of the word "ballast" for an LED driver is valid usage.

.

 

[retirede]

The experience I have had in my home with LEDs is quite favorable. About 10 years ago, CFLs were the big thing and were a disaster. My replacement rate of CFLs was about the same as incandescents - 1 to 3 per month. The warmup time was annoying, some buzzed loud enough to annoy, and disposal was a concern. Now that I've gone almost completely LED, I find it easier to select the light intensity and color (cooler white in task areas, warm white in others) and have yet to replace a bulb in 3+ years. My biggest complaint with LEDs is that I have some ceiling fixtures with candelabra bulbs that I cannot find LEDs that will fit due the volume required for the ballast (or driver, if you prefer).

 

[Electric-Light]

tl;dr insist for blink free products if you're going LED and not just "trust me" promise. Iinsist they provide emergency service call or agree to pay the bill at reasonable and customary rate for another company to respond to halt the disruptive(in customer's opinion) spaz blinking without affecting other fixtures or devices within 24 hours of request at no cost to end user.

And governments should just add a couple sentences to their existing requirements requiring none spaz blinking LED products and full cost reimbursement requirements if they spaz blink. It's all on paper that will go unnoticed as long as it doesn't spaz blink. LED selling vendor would only have to provide labor or pay for someone else to respond ONLY IF the LEDs they sold as non spaz blink suffer spaz. It's not a big deal, because absolutely nothing discussed here have any relevance if spaz blink does not happen.

You don't have to reading below this line is


What is LED ballast induced spaz flashing?

First 10 seconds or so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UerFD3AgJHE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hverhcCI-H8

Note: The blinking interval and on duration can cause it to appear much different in person than on recording because of the way camera captures image. Remember how CRTs looked like a a zebra when you look at it through a camcorder?

Only LEDs and induction can suffer from it, but the highly annoying spaz blink is only seen among LEDs. Traditional lighting technologies do not suffer from it.The troubling thing is the absence of requirement for LED ballasts to have inherent protection against spaz blinking. It probably won't fit the definition of "catastrophic failure". There's no labor cost discussion in general but they have their own in-house crew that do the maintenance work. But there should be a reimbursement or emergency vendor cost allowance for cost burden caused by needing to address spaz blinking urgently if it happens.

These are governments: not one reference to flashing/blinking
A few years old:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/ttsb/electrical/pdf/PURCHASE SPECIFICATION.pdf
http://bsl.lacity.org/downloads/led/...utilities/LED_General_Specs_70w_100w_072811.pdf

Last year:
https://www.columbus.gov/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=2147492692

 

[Electric-Light]

The experience I have had in my home with LEDs is quite favorable.

But, there is also no labor cost as far as warranty is concerned and no great inconvenience from spaz blink failures and they can just keep throwing the same one from the inventory or similar replacement and non-conformance often goes unnoticed.

Many LED fixtures use are built from two major components of LED ballast + LED module(s) which form a light engine.

LED ballasts are often made from "reference design", which is a blue print shared by the ballast controller IC manufacturer.
If the fixture integrator chose an LED ballast using a design that is fallible to spaz blink failure, every replacement will be fallible to the same failure. The efficiency and electrical performance become invalid if they change to a different ballast until they get the new configuration retested.

If they underestimated the effects of environment(humidity, high ambient) in the field and fixtures do not live up to the touted purposes such as "difficult to reach places", spaz blinking from premature aging of LED ballast component that is fallible by design to suffer a spaz blinking failure means the only remedy is to redo the entire project all over, because, it's likely many of them will soon exhibit symptoms.

Some light engines are utilizing a governor to trigger when the ballast and/or the LED board hits a temperature limit to prevent self-destruction which in LED marketing speak is called "thermal management. It's a spec failure when it triggers routinely and causes fixtures to go into unwanted dimming.

It's ok for cell phone LED Light to have flash mode to allow several times the output for a still photo and a boost mode allowing elevated output for short video clip. It's also fine if a dusk-to-dawn light is forced into protection mode if it gets left on mid day in summer. It's not fine for a high-bay retrofit sold to a steel mill to sag down to 8,000 lumens from heat when the LED salesman claimed 12,000 lumen. However, it maybe possible to fix this by installing a larger 20,000 lumen system and dimming down to 12,000 lumen.

Properly specified requirements ensures the cost of such corrections and spaz blink related issues to be addressed entirely at LED dealer's expense.

In the real world, its too common to hear power bill reduction caused by throttling to get credited to LED technology, while pretending they're still making 12,000 lumens when they're throttled to 8,000.

 

[Ragin Cajun]

I will make one comment regarding signal lights on the roadway. IMHO, a hUGE failure rate! I will guess that nearly 1/3 of the traffic lights in my area have segments out at any given intersection. Sometimes more.

FWIW, all of my current projects have LED lighting. BUT, I force quality fixtures that I have checkeed out. Too much CCC out there (cheap china C__p). I have had issues in a dining room fixture where I had to mix different LED lamps to avoid strobing.

RC

 

[packersparky]

But, there is also no labor cost as far as warranty is concerned and no great inconvenience from spaz blink failures and they can just keep throwing the same one from the inventory or similar replacement and non-conformance often goes unnoticed.

Many LED fixtures use are built from two major components of LED ballast + LED module(s) which form a light engine.

LED ballasts are often made from "reference design", which is a blue print shared by the ballast controller IC manufacturer.
If the fixture integrator chose an LED ballast using a design that is fallible to spaz blink failure, every replacement will be fallible to the same failure. The efficiency and electrical performance become invalid if they change to a different ballast until they get the new configuration retested.

If they underestimated the effects of environment(humidity, high ambient) in the field and fixtures do not live up to the touted purposes such as "difficult to reach places", spaz blinking from premature aging of LED ballast component that is fallible by design to suffer a spaz blinking failure means the only remedy is to redo the entire project all over, because, it's likely many of them will soon exhibit symptoms.

Some light engines are utilizing a governor to trigger when the ballast and/or the LED board hits a temperature limit to prevent self-destruction which in LED marketing speak is called "thermal management. It's a spec failure when it triggers routinely and causes fixtures to go into unwanted dimming.

It's ok for cell phone LED Light to have flash mode to allow several times the output for a still photo and a boost mode allowing elevated output for short video clip. It's also fine if a dusk-to-dawn light is forced into protection mode if it gets left on mid day in summer. It's not fine for a high-bay retrofit sold to a steel mill to sag down to 8,000 lumens from heat when the LED salesman claimed 12,000 lumen. However, it maybe possible to fix this by installing a larger 20,000 lumen system and dimming down to 12,000 lumen.

Properly specified requirements ensures the cost of such corrections and spaz blink related issues to be addressed entirely at LED dealer's expense.

In the real world, its too common to hear power bill reduction caused by throttling to get credited to LED technology, while pretending they're still making 12,000 lumens when they're throttled to 8,000.

We get it. You hate LED's. Or at least that they market them as providing the same amount of lumens as conventional lamps. The thing you don't seem to "get" is that most people don't care. If people are happy with the amount of light in their kitchen no amount of bloviating by you on the subject will change their minds. (No! You cannot like the amount or color of lighting in that room! I am the lighting designer and I will tell you what you will and will not like!)Especially if it saves them money on their power bill. If one of the LED's in my kitchen "spaz blink", I would replace it just like i would replace an incandescent that burns out or a cfl that goes bad.
BTW, what the heck is a "light engine"?

 

[Electric-Light]

I will make one comment regarding signal lights on the roadway. IMHO, a hUGE failure rate! I will guess that nearly 1/3 of the traffic lights in my area have segments out at any given intersection. Sometimes more.

FWIW, all of my current projects have LED lighting. BUT, I force quality fixtures that I have checkeed out. Too much CCC out there (cheap china C__p). I have had issues in a dining room fixture where I had to mix different LED lamps to avoid strobing.

RC

How old are they? I have see plenty of LED signs with with dead pixels. LED element blowouts were actually reasonably common when a whole bunch of those 1/4" LEDs were driven near their maximum ratings in close proximity. Those LEDs were not really heat-sinked and the LED inside actually burned out from time to time.

Things like LED alarm clocks don't burn out, because the LEDs are pushed nowhere close to the limit for daylight visible high brightness signs.

But, dead pixels are not a great concern since it doesn't become immediately unusable like spaz flashing caused by LED ballast failures.

 

[hbiss]

LOL, I had to smack my forehead a few times over that too. A "light engine" is what the LED lighting manufacturers call things like the trim for recessed lights that contains the LEDs and the driver for them in one package.

-Hal

 

[zbang]

A "light engine" is what the LED lighting manufacturers ...

It's also what Redwood Systems/CommScope calls their multi-fixture lighting controller. It's actually a rather neat device, but then I had a hand in early designs . It never had any "spaz" flickering.

 

[gadfly56]

We get it. You hate LED's. Or at least that they market them as providing the same amount of lumens as conventional lamps. The thing you don't seem to "get" is that most people don't care. If people are happy with the amount of light in their kitchen no amount of bloviating by you on the subject will change their minds. (No! You cannot like the amount or color of lighting in that room! I am the lighting designer and I will tell you what you will and will not like!)Especially if it saves them money on their power bill. If one of the LED's in my kitchen "spaz blink", I would replace it just like i would replace an incandescent that burns out or a cfl that goes bad.
BTW, what the heck is a "light engine"?

You clearly don't "get" his point. It's that if you are doing a commercial or government installation, it would be wise to insist either on your own behalf or the customer's that the specification require a "no blink" failure mode. Why? Because strobing is the kind of failure that is immediately annoying and likely to require an emergency fix from the customer whereas a simple failure would be a "stop by when you can" sort of call. It can also generate all kinds of ill will due to the degree of aggravation it causes, and that can cost you future business. Therefore it is in your own economic self interest to be aware of the issue.

 

[sasquatch99]

The experience I have had in my home with LEDs is quite favorable. About 10 years ago, CFLs were the big thing and were a disaster. My replacement rate of CFLs was about the same as incandescents - 1 to 3 per month. The warmup time was annoying, some buzzed loud enough to annoy, and disposal was a concern. Now that I've gone almost completely LED, I find it easier to select the light intensity and color (cooler white in task areas, warm white in others) and have yet to replace a bulb in 3+ years. My biggest complaint with LEDs is that I have some ceiling fixtures with candelabra bulbs that I cannot find LEDs that will fit due the volume required for the ballast (or driver, if you prefer).

I found a great LED lamps for candelabra and fan lights. It appears to be the next generation of LED lamps and is called a Filament LED. I am not sure how they did away with the electronics, but it works great. I having some ceiling lights with mixed incandescent and LED bulbs. You can not tell the difference between the old and the new when it on or off.



Here a link to them at HD:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/EcoSmart-60W-Equivalent-Soft-White-B11-Filament-E12-Energy-Star-and-Dimmable-LED-Light-Bulb-3-Pack-B1160WFILE123P/300657417