Brads Electronic Projects Forum

Bulb Still Burning After 100-Plus Years as GE Brings Business Back to US

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/20 ... ack-to-us/

According to the Bulb Cam, it is still burning:

http://www.centennialbulb.org/photos.htm#anchor1234

They don't make them like that anymore. Even LED lights can't last that long!

LED bulbs' electronics sure won't last that long, but I think the LEDs themselves would last pretty much indefinitely if designers used more LEDs per bulb and didn't run so much current through each LED. I replaced the fluorescent tube in our aquarium in the living room with an LED bulb (changing the fixture) partly to get more of a point source of light like the sun so the gravel at the bottom would have the shimmering effect from the pump always making little waves at the top of the water. (You don't get that with a long fluorescent tube.) The light is on 12-14 hours a day. After a few months, it was becoming clear that it was no longer as bright. At seven months of age, it became super dim and finally went out.

You only got a matter of months out of the LED bulb? How many hours was it rated to?

brad wrote:You only got a matter of months out of the LED bulb? How many hours was it rated to?

15,000. It seems that the marketing on replacements for older lighting technologies tend to get carried away, over-optimistic, or think no one will keep track of the number of hours' service and hold them accountable. CFLs were of course supposed to give ultra long life and save money; but when our son was working in maintenance at a school, he bought a large box of CFLs that were supposed to last 10,000 hours or some huge number, and he marked the installation date on each and knew how many hours per week they were being used, and half the box was kaput after 250 hours! Junk.

I guess they rely on consumers not bothering to check hour counts so they can really market it however they want and people won't do anything about it.