Great Value LED Bulbs Failing

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I have somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen of the low cost Great Value (Walmart) 60W equivalent undimmable LED bulbs installed in my house and condo and have had two fail in the past 6 months. I have had all manner of indoor and outdoor LED bulbs scattered around both residences and I believe these are the only ones I have ever had fail, and I think the bulbs that failed were in use for under two years.

I wasn't planning to buy any more bulbs like this as I have found a reasonably priced dimmable "60W" bulb that has a full glass casing like an incandescent and much better light distribution than the other LED bulbs I have used (can't think of the manufacturer right now), but it is still disappointing to see these GV bulbs have such short lifetimes.

One of them is just plain dead and the other is intermittent...I thought the latter bulb was just get bad contact in its socket, but I popped another GV bulb and one from a different manufacturer in there and they were both fine. Tried to clean up the base of the flickering bulb just in case, but it made no difference.
 
Haven't had any GV fail yet. All bought between $.47- $.74 each.
 
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GV=Gypped Value haha
laugh.gif
 
The technology is getting cheaper.

If you save the box and the receipt, they usually say something like 3 year warranty, 5 year warranty, 7 year warranty, etc. EVERY single time I have tried to take a bulb back, to Wal-Mart or Home Depot, they ALWAYS give me a hard time, telling me to mail the bulb in for a replacement. I'm not spending $5 to mail in a bulb that cost less than that. Its frustrating, and makes you almost want to commit return fraud like many do. Almost.

Every light in my house is LED and I have about one or two fail per year on average.
 
For the bulbs where you cleaned the contacts, also check the center contact in the socket
they can fail too from the heat of incandencent bulbs you used before.

I have several sockets like that, the center contact can be tarnished to black or the rivet
that connects it to a wire pigtail with a crimped ring connector can actually oxidize
within the rivet-conntact interface, these sockets have to be replaced or at least removed and reworked.

Not designed to last 20 yrs!
 
I haven't lost any of the cheap store bought LED bulbs I've bought yet, but CFLs, wow! I've had some fail with smoke and sparks in open fixtures. Like said, as time goes on they'll be built cheaper and cheaper, just like CFLs did from beginning to end.
 
I have an assortment of LED bulbs in my house from Sylvania, Cree, Feit and Phillips. Haven't had a failure yet.
 
I used to design LED driver circuitry (not for consumer electronics) and starting buying LED bulbs for my home as soon I as saw them in stores just because I thought they were cool. The only ones that really turned me off in the store were some super cheapos at HD that advertised a 1000 hour lifetime...for an LED? Cmon!!
The only real LED bulb disappointments I've had were these GV bulbs and some small base ones for my daughter's study room light that didn't dim worth a squat, but would oscillate in phase at a low frequency. I've read since that "dimmable" LED bulbs are not necessarily guaranteed to function with any kind of dimmer, although I was surprised because the lamp was brand new and didn't have any warnings about LED incompatibility (it works fine with incandescents). All the dimming schemes I dealt with at work were designed expressly for LEDs...
 
Just picked up some Feit bulbs from Costco. So far I like them a lot better than the ones I'd bought on Amazon in 2014. The Amazon "LED 12W A60 Super Bright LED Bulb, Samsung LED, Equal to 75W Incandescent Bulb, 1080lm, Warm White" have always had a slight flicker to them, what was annoying. And wow the prices have come down, those were $10 each and these new ones were like $10 for 6... I will say the Amazon ones were a little brighter, but I honestly don't care.
 
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Originally Posted By: bubbatime
The technology is getting cheaper.

If you save the box and the receipt, they usually say something like 3 year warranty, 5 year warranty, 7 year warranty, etc. EVERY single time I have tried to take a bulb back, to Wal-Mart or Home Depot, they ALWAYS give me a hard time, telling me to mail the bulb in for a replacement. I'm not spending $5 to mail in a bulb that cost less than that. Its frustrating, and makes you almost want to commit return fraud like many do. Almost.

Every light in my house is LED and I have about one or two fail per year on average.


I feel your grief, nothing worse than having to return an item.
But, to be fair to Home Depot, their Warranty is "up to 90 days".
After 90 days, you return the item to the manufacturer (if you desire).
Just saying.

I once bought (at HD) a battery operated Motion Detected Light.
I set it at the top of my basement stairs.
It lasted 2 Months ...... then went back to HD (with receipt & packageing).
No problem returning.
 
I will have a conniption fit when my $10.99 eBay 50,000 lumen 9006 LED light in 1990s Toyota halogen reflector housing fails prematurely. The ad said they had a 55,000 hour lifetime.
 
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I've seen some early failures in cheap LED lamps, but even they lasted long enough to have paid for themselves in electricity savings.
These lamps are now so cheap they I can't get seriously honked off about early and unexpected failures.
They are an improvement over any CFL in every way.
 
I bought a dozen from HD two years ago. I've had one that has failed. Been buying 4' LEDs to replace the fluorescent lately.
 
Originally Posted By: walterjay
I thought LED bulbs were supposed to last 100,000 miles


The LED lights might last 100k hours, but it's the circuity that probably fails before the led does. That's why most of them are only rated for 25,000 hours. Some cheap ones are only 10-15,000. At one point Lowes had them for $1 a couple years ago and I think those were only rated for 1-2,000 hours which is almost like a light bulb, worse than CFL.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
I've seen some early failures in cheap LED lamps, but even they lasted long enough to have paid for themselves in electricity savings.
These lamps are now so cheap they I can't get seriously honked off about early and unexpected failures.
They are an improvement over any CFL in every way.


Gotta agree with you there...we had several early failures with CFLs and I never liked the way they looked.
I learned a lesson when I bought some that were rated for outdoor use for our front porch and they were about as bright as crippled fireflies when the temps got below freezing. The LED bulbs I replaced them with have been bright and happy out there for several years.

I still like LEDs a lot, just wanted to pass on my experience with the GVs. I meant to check the brand of the all glass enclosure ones I am enamored with last night and it slipped my mind...
 
I use one CFL in my 4 bulb bathroom fixture. Which I wired to a three way switch that allows the one CFL to come on or a combination of all four. This lets me use the slowly brightening CFL to be the only light when used at night so as not to blind myself when turning on the lights in the middle of the night.
 
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