The Race To The Bottom: LED Bulbs And DFM

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The dropping cost of LED bulbs is accelerating. We evaluate just a few brands to see how they're approaching design and decrease cost manufacturing. You've probably observed LED bulbs situated subsequent to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your native hardware retailer. I spend manner an excessive amount of time in these aisles. This is capitalism at its most interesting! I discover the battle of new tech, sensible manufacturing, EcoLight home lighting and massive demand intriguing. I've switched almost the entire lights in our home over to LED partly because of the (small) energy financial savings, but principally as a result of I am lazy: A 22-year lifetime means I do not need to climb a ladder for a while. When i bought my LED bulbs a few years ago they were 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 recent visit to the lighting aisle I used to be taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips have been selling for $5 ($2.50 every!). This isn't just a drop in price, this is an all out worth battle between some heavy hitters. Confusing me was the truth that right next to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 have been 60W bulbs for $10 from the same producer. Upon closer inspection I seen something odd. These lower value LEDs had a display life of 10 years versus 22. Ok, in order that they shaved some price by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat advertising and marketing trick however the engineer in me wished to know how. Nothing too crazy. Each bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at various power consumption ranges (8.5W to 9.5W). And EcoLight solar bulbs i only noticed this now however the cheap bulbs are non-EcoLight dimmable. Exhausting to see within the above picture but the bulb in the center (cheap Philips) is barely shorter than the costlier Philips bulb.



The TCP is a few centimeter taller. This has little impact on lighting but millimeters of supplies will begin to matter. I did a fast preliminary check to see how the bulbs performed. 13.2W). Maybe the actual LEDs eat 9.5W and the ballast (the thing changing AC to DC) consumes the rest. This can be a brilliant-sneaky advertising and EcoLight dimmable 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 higher our bodies. The expensive Philips bulb came apart with some strong twisting. Beneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Below the diffuser was a mixture of small and EcoLight huge LEDs. Not what I'd have anticipated - 14 large LEDs, 6 small. A, EcoLight LED bulbs as well because the date code: 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from once i purchased the bulb. The date might be in relation to design model and never manufacture date.



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

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