Re: LED Christmas Light Failures
- From: D from BC <myrealaddress@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:06:53 -0700
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:22:37 +0000 (UTC), don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Don
Klipstein) wrote:
In article <hapnv3194lqa4qh2bjh1dl1msukqnj4qlr@xxxxxxx>, D from BC wrote:
Are LED Christmas lights really lasting as long as they claim?
Anybody witness some failures?
I was just on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_lights
I read stuff like:
replacement LED's not available
Merely not offered by the holiday light string manufacturer. Not
necessary if the LEDs do not fail. Merely get an LED of the same shape,
size, general brightness class (normally OK to use any of high
efficiency/superbright/ultrabright/InGaN/GaAlAsP/InGaAsP),
and same color. (Keep in mind that brilliant non-yellowish green and
dimmer chartreuse green are not the same thing.)
For that matter, replacing the failed LED with any singtle-chip LED that
is mechanically compatible normally works. Even if the voltage drop is
off by a volt or two, everything will normally work.
sealed designs preventing LED replacement
Not a problem if the LEDs do not fail. Also, I suspect plenty of people
reading this newsgroup can replace an LED in a "sealed product" via
suitable "surgery".
galvanic corrosion
rust
Should not be a problem if the product actually is sealed.
If the product spends a lot of time outdoors, it should be rated for
such use. Keep in mind that many outdoor-rated holiday light strings come
with instructions to deploy them no more than 90 days a year.
coloured plastic lenses fading
That requires a lot of daylight exposure, if it happens at all. Since
the LEDs are usually colored ones with somewhat narrow spectral bandwidth,
fading of the lenses will not do much to the color of the light.
yellowing of epoxy LED encapsulations
That normally requires a lot of exposure to bright daylight, typically
direct sunlight. The damage comes from UV and shorter visible violet
wavelengths close to UV. The plastic lenses usually block most of that,
especially if they are red, orange, yellow, or green.
Yellowing also has little impact on red, orange, yellow, and
yellow-green LEDs. The impact on non-yellowish-green is minor, white LEDs
affected thus get a little dimmer and a warmer shade of white, and blue
LEDs are dimmed somewhat and made slightly more greenish (color of blue
LEDs is hard to change much without a major loss of light since most of
their output is usaully in a fairly narrow spectral band).
I think it would have been better to make (and support) claims of actual
failures, rather than replacement difficulty, minor degradations and
corrosion.
- Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)
Sure, I can fix my own LED Christmas lights if they fail.
But I think most people are only able to 'pop' in a new light.
I didn't know about the 'no more than 90 day outdoor' restriction.
I have to wonder about how many designers raced to get LED christmas
lights to market. How many lost.
And how many made millions from it.
I had the idea many years before LED Christmas lights came out.
But, like many...didn't do anything.. :(
D from BC
British Columbia
Canada
.
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