The Race To The Bottom: LED Bulbs And DFM
The dropping value of LED bulbs is accelerating. We examine a few manufacturers to see how they are approaching design and decrease cost manufacturing. You have in all probability observed LED bulbs situated next to the incandescent and EcoLight smart bulbs compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your native hardware store. I spend way too much time in these aisles. This is capitalism at its best! I find the battle of recent tech, good manufacturing, and big demand EcoLight intriguing. I've switched virtually the entire lights in our house over to LED in part due to the (small) power financial savings, however largely as a result of I am lazy: A 22-year lifetime means I do not have to climb a ladder for a while. When i purchased my LED bulbs a few years in the past they had been round $15 a pop. As with most all tech, EcoLight I've watch the price drop over time. On this case, LED bulbs in my native Home Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering round $10.
On a recent visit 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 each!). This is not just a drop in price, this is an all out price battle between some heavy hitters. Confusing me was the truth that proper subsequent to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 had been 60W bulbs for $10 from the same producer. Upon closer inspection I observed something odd. These decrease cost LEDs had a display life of 10 years versus 22. Ok, EcoLight solar bulbs so that they shaved some value by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat marketing trick however the engineer in me wanted to know the way. Nothing too loopy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at varied power consumption ranges (8.5W to 9.5W). And i solely noticed this now but the cheap bulbs are non-dimmable. Laborious to see in the above picture however the bulb in the center (low cost Philips) is barely shorter than the dearer Philips bulb.
The TCP is a couple of centimeter taller. This has little impact on lighting however millimeters of materials will begin to matter. I did a fast preliminary test to see how the bulbs carried out. 13.2W). Maybe the actual LEDs devour 9.5W and the ballast (the factor EcoLight reviews converting AC to DC) consumes the remaining. This can be an excellent-sneaky marketing ploy, long-life LED as I assumed the ranking on the surface of the packaging was the general energy consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic higher our bodies. The costly Philips bulb came apart with some robust twisting. Beneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Below the diffuser was a mixture of small and huge LEDs. Not what I'd have anticipated - 14 huge LEDs, 6 small. A, as nicely because 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 version and not manufacture date.
With quite a bit of prying pressure, the metallic LED PCB comes off the metallic base heatsink. This was to be anticipated; there was good thermal grease sandwiched between the PCB and the heatsink. Some additional prying and we will see the ballast beneath. I got a bit forceful with a hacksaw so ignore the hack marks for the second. The steel base is threaded onto the plastic base and then spot crimped to the plastic (you may see the multiple dots or dimples around the metal base). That is the first clue that Philips is engaged on simplifying the manufacturing course of. Furthermore, the 2 exposed wires in the picture usually are not soldered to the base, they're compressed to it, additionally simplifying the assembly process. The ballast! Plenty of caps, an inline fuse, EcoLight reviews transformer, inductor, and a few transistors. C1, C2 and C3 are metalized polyester movie capacitors. Here is the rear side of the ballast.