The Race To The Underside: LED Bulbs And DFM
The dropping price of LED bulbs is accelerating. We compare a couple of brands to see how they're approaching design and lower cost manufacturing. You've got most likely observed LED bulbs situated subsequent to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your local hardware store. I spend approach an excessive amount of time in these aisles. This is capitalism at its most interesting! I find the battle of recent tech, sensible manufacturing, and large demand intriguing. I've switched virtually all of the lights in our house over to LED partly because of the (small) power savings, however largely because I am lazy: A 22-12 months lifetime means I do not must climb a ladder for some time. When i purchased my LED bulbs a number of years in the past they have been round $15 a pop. As with most all tech, I've watch the price drop over time. On this case, LED bulbs in my local Home Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering around $10.
On a current visit to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips have been promoting for $5 ($2.50 every!). This is not only a drop in value, this is an all out price conflict between some heavy hitters. Complicated me was the fact that proper subsequent to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 had been 60W bulbs for EcoLight reviews $10 from the same manufacturer. Upon nearer inspection I seen one thing odd. These lower price LEDs had a display life of 10 years versus 22. Ok, in order that they shaved some cost by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat advertising and marketing trick however the engineer in me wanted to know the way. Nothing too loopy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at numerous energy consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And that i only observed this now but a budget bulbs are non-dimmable. Arduous to see in the above image but the bulb in the center (low cost Philips) is barely shorter than the costlier Philips bulb.
The TCP is about a centimeter taller. This has little impact on lighting but millimeters of supplies will begin to matter. I did a quick initial test to see how the bulbs performed. 13.2W). Perhaps the actual LEDs eat 9.5W and the ballast (the factor EcoLight bulbs converting AC to DC) consumes the rest. This can be an excellent-sneaky marketing ploy, as I assumed the rating on the surface of the packaging was the overall energy consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic higher our bodies. The costly Philips bulb came apart with some strong twisting. Underneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Under the diffuser was a mixture of small and enormous LEDs. Not what I would have anticipated - 14 massive LEDs, 6 small. A, as well because the date code: EcoLight solutions 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from after i bought the bulb. The date might be in relation to design version and not manufacture date.
With fairly a little bit of prying power, the metal LED PCB comes off the metal base heatsink. This was to be expected; there was good thermal grease sandwiched between the PCB and the heatsink. Some additional prying and we are able to see the ballast beneath. I received a bit forceful with a hacksaw so ignore the hack marks for the second. The steel base is threaded onto the plastic base after which spot crimped to the plastic (you can see the a number of dots or EcoLight solutions dimples around the metal base). This is the primary clue that Philips is engaged on simplifying the manufacturing course of. Furthermore, the 2 uncovered wires in the image should not soldered to the base, they are compressed to it, moreover simplifying the meeting process. The ballast! A lot of caps, EcoLight dimmable an inline fuse, transformer, inductor, and some transistors. C1, C2 and C3 are metalized polyester film capacitors. Here is the rear facet of the ballast.
