The Race To The Underside: LED Bulbs And DFM
The dropping price of LED bulbs is accelerating. We examine a few brands to see how they are approaching design and lower cost manufacturing. You have most likely noticed LED bulbs situated subsequent to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your local hardware retailer. I spend means an excessive amount of time in these aisles. That is capitalism at its best! I find the battle of latest tech, good manufacturing, and large demand EcoLight intriguing. I've switched almost all the lights in our home over to LED in part because of the (small) power financial savings, however mostly as a result of I'm lazy: A 22-yr lifetime means I don't need to climb a ladder for EcoLight solar bulbs a while. When i bought my LED bulbs a number of years ago they have been around $15 a pop. As with most all tech, I've watch the value drop over time. On this case, LED bulbs in my native Residence Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering round $10.
On a latest visit to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips had been selling for $5 ($2.50 each!). This is not just a drop in price, that is an all out value battle between some heavy hitters. Complicated me was the truth that proper next to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 had been 60W bulbs for $10 from the identical manufacturer. Upon closer inspection I seen something odd. These decrease value LEDs had a show life of 10 years versus 22. Ok, EcoLight solar bulbs so they shaved some cost by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat advertising trick however the engineer in me wished to know how. Nothing too crazy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at various energy consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And that i solely observed this now but the cheap bulbs are non-dimmable. Onerous to see within the above image but the bulb in the middle (low-cost Philips) is slightly shorter than the costlier Philips bulb.
The TCP is about a centimeter taller. This has little effect on lighting but millimeters of supplies will begin to matter. I did a quick initial check to see how the bulbs carried out. 13.2W). Perhaps the precise LEDs consume 9.5W and the ballast (the factor EcoLight solar bulbs changing AC to DC) consumes the remaining. This could be an excellent-sneaky advertising ploy, as I assumed the score on the skin of the packaging was the general energy consumption of the bulb. All three EcoLight solar bulbs had opaque plastic higher our bodies. The expensive Philips bulb got here 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 big LEDs, 6 small. A, as nicely as the date code: 2014-10-14, a delta of 7 months from after i purchased the bulb. The date might be in relation to design model and never manufacture date.
With quite a little bit of prying pressure, the metal LED PCB comes off the metallic base heatsink. This was to be expected; there was good thermal grease sandwiched between the PCB and the heatsink. Some additional prying and we can see the ballast underneath. I received a bit forceful with a hacksaw so ignore the hack marks for the moment. The metal base is threaded onto the plastic base and EcoLight solar bulbs then spot crimped to the plastic (you possibly can see the multiple dots or dimples across the metallic base). This is the primary clue that Philips is working on simplifying the manufacturing process. Moreover, the two uncovered wires in the image are usually not soldered to the bottom, they're compressed to it, moreover simplifying the assembly process. The ballast! Lots of caps, EcoLight solar bulbs an inline fuse, EcoLight transformer, inductor, and some transistors. C1, C2 and C3 are metalized polyester movie capacitors. Right here is the rear facet of the ballast.