Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Good the LED and the Ugly part 2

.





THE UGLY

One of the Worst examples
of a LED lamp I have experienced to date



This post contains the first LED lamp comparison test. In this test, if you can call it a test proper, I simply want to show one of the very worst examples of LED lamps I have in my possession.

These MR16 bulbs were bought on EBay from a dealer called “william6”. See the photo above. I quickly complained that the lamps were sold as “soft white” where in fact the ones I received are VERY blue in the spectrum. The dealer promised to replace the lamps but so far I am still waiting for replacements!!

The blueness of the colour is not what I am writing about here. Instead, I am looking at the almost complete deterioration of light output of one of the bulbs in just 3 months of normal use.

The bulbs were purchased on 8th of December last; the EBay sales confirmation is reproduced here:

We hope you enjoy your purchase. Your payment has been received for the following item:

Item title: 2 x 48 LED SOFT White Spot Light Bulb Lamp 12V MR16 u
Web Address: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290280181561
Item number: 290280181561
Buyer User ID: xxxxxxxxxxx
Seller User ID: william6.trade
Your total: £10.70

The type of bulb is a multi LED MR16 purporting to replace a 50watt halogen bulb. The light output of a brand new bulb barely reaches that of a 20 watt halogen. It does not come even remotely close to a 50 watt.

I used one bulb in a fitting in my office for 3 months, and the other bulb remained unused until the test shown here.


The new bulb is on the left - The 3 month old one on the right!

This is a bog basic visual test. In fact, you don’t need any measurements of any type to clearly see that the light output of the used bulb is half or less of the new bulb, and that the colour has drifted a long way into the blue/violet spectrum. This is a bulb which has been used for, at most, 1200 hours!!!

The 3 month old bulb is now nothing more that a novelty and is just about useless for any practical purpose. The new bulb is also just a museum piece to display as an example of the worst type of LED lamp I have encountered.

My advice, be very slow to buy multi-LED type bulbs and don’t buy LED bulbs on the Internet.

The guy is still selling the same bulbs! I have written to him advising that he remove these lamps from sale. I hope he will listen!!



http://cgi.ebay.com/3-x-48-LEDs-MR16-SOFT-White-Spot-Light-Bulb-Lamp-12V-a_W0QQitemZ370104021922QQihZ024QQcategoryZ20706QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262




.

1 comment:

misan said...

Exactly the same experience here with the same multiled MR16 from the same eBay seller.

We both have been fooled. But I'm still trying other alternatives (Cree-based) and DIY.