The Race To The Bottom: LED Bulbs And DFM

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The dropping price of LED bulbs is accelerating. We evaluate a number of brands to see how they're approaching design and decrease price manufacturing. You've got most likely observed LED bulbs situated subsequent to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your native hardware retailer. I spend way a lot time in these aisles. That is capitalism at its most interesting! I find the battle of new tech, smart manufacturing, and massive demand intriguing. I've switched almost the entire lights in our home over to LED partially due to the (small) vitality savings, but principally because I'm lazy: A 22-year lifetime means I do not have to climb a ladder for a while. Once i bought my LED bulbs a couple of years in the past they had been around $15 a pop. As with most all tech, I've watch the value drop over time. On this case, energy-saving LED bulbs bulbs in my native Residence Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering around $10.



On a latest go to to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips had been promoting for $5 ($2.50 every!). This is not just a drop in value, this is an all out worth war between some heavy hitters. Complicated me was the truth that right next to these 60W bulbs for $2.50 have been 60W bulbs for energy-saving LED bulbs $10 from the same producer. Upon closer inspection I observed something odd. These lower value LEDs had a show life of 10 years versus 22. Okay, in order that they shaved some cost by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat marketing trick but the engineer in me wished to know the way. Nothing too loopy. Each bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at numerous energy consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And that i solely observed this now but the cheap bulbs are non-dimmable. Arduous to see within the above picture however the bulb in the center (cheap Philips) is slightly shorter than the costlier Philips bulb.



The TCP is about a centimeter taller. This has little effect on lighting however millimeters of materials will begin to matter. I did a fast preliminary check to see how the bulbs performed. 13.2W). Maybe the actual LEDs consume 9.5W and the ballast (the factor converting AC to DC) consumes the rest. This could be an excellent-sneaky advertising and marketing ploy, as I assumed the ranking on the skin of the packaging was the general power consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic upper our bodies. The costly Philips bulb got here apart with some strong twisting. Beneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Beneath the diffuser was a mixture of small and huge LEDs. Not what I'd have anticipated - 14 huge LEDs, 6 small. A, as properly as the date code: 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from once i bought the bulb. The date might be in relation to design model and not manufacture date.



With fairly a little bit of prying power, EcoLight the steel LED PCB comes off the metallic base heatsink. This was to be expected; there was good thermal grease sandwiched between the PCB and the heatsink. Some further prying and we can see the ballast beneath. I received a bit forceful with a hacksaw so ignore the hack marks for the moment. The metallic base is threaded onto the plastic base after which spot crimped to the plastic (you possibly can see the multiple dots or dimples around the metal base). That is the primary clue that Philips is engaged on simplifying the manufacturing course of. Furthermore, the two exposed wires in the picture are not soldered to the base, they're compressed to it, additionally simplifying the assembly process. The ballast! A lot of caps, EcoLight an inline fuse, transformer, inductor, and a few transistors. C1, C2 and C3 are metalized polyester film capacitors. Right here is the rear aspect of the ballast.