The dropping cost of LED bulbs is accelerating. We examine a few manufacturers to see how they're approaching design and lower value manufacturing. You've got probably seen LED bulbs situated next to the incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs at your local hardware store. I spend approach a lot time in these aisles. This is capitalism at its finest! I find the battle of new tech, EcoLight lighting smart manufacturing, EcoLight lighting and massive demand intriguing. I've switched nearly the entire lights in our house over to LED in part due to the (small) vitality savings, however mostly because I am lazy: A 22-12 months lifetime means I don't must climb a ladder for some time. When i bought my LED bulbs just a few years in the past 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 native Residence Depot (Philips 60W) are hovering around $10.

On a latest go to to the lighting aisle I was taken off guard when a pack of two 60W bulbs by Philips have been selling for $5 ($2.50 each!). This is not only a drop in price, that is an all out value conflict between some heavy hitters. Complicated me was the fact that right subsequent to those 60W bulbs for $2.50 had been 60W bulbs for $10 from the identical producer. Upon nearer inspection I observed something odd. These lower cost LEDs had a show life of 10 years as opposed to 22. Ok, so they shaved some cost by shortening the life span of the bulb. Neat marketing trick but the engineer in me needed to know the way. Nothing too crazy. Every bulb claimed to be 800 lumen at numerous energy consumption levels (8.5W to 9.5W). And EcoLight lighting that i only seen this now however a budget bulbs are non-dimmable. Onerous to see within the above picture however the bulb in the center (cheap Philips) is barely shorter than the more expensive Philips bulb.

The TCP is a few centimeter taller. This has little impact on EcoLight lighting however millimeters of supplies will begin to matter. I did a fast preliminary test to see how the bulbs carried out. 13.2W). Maybe the actual LEDs eat 9.5W and the ballast (the factor changing AC to DC) consumes the remaining. This would be a brilliant-sneaky marketing ploy, as I assumed the rating on the surface of the packaging was the general power consumption of the bulb. All three bulbs had opaque plastic upper bodies. The costly Philips bulb came apart with some strong twisting. Underneath was a neat plastic diffuser. Below the diffuser was a mixture of small and EcoLight enormous LEDs. Not what I would have expected - 14 big LEDs, 6 small. A, as well because the date code: EcoLight lighting 2014-10-14, EcoLight solar bulbs a delta of 7 months from after i bought the bulb. The date is probably in relation to design version and not manufacture date.

With fairly a little bit of prying power, the steel LED PCB comes off the steel base heatsink. This was to be expected; there was good thermal grease sandwiched between the PCB and the heatsink. Some additional prying and we will see the ballast beneath. I acquired a bit forceful with a hacksaw so ignore the hack marks for the moment. The metallic base is threaded onto the plastic base and then spot crimped to the plastic (you may see the a number of dots or dimples around the metallic base). That is the first clue that Philips is engaged on simplifying the manufacturing course of. Furthermore, the 2 uncovered wires in the picture aren't soldered to the base, they are compressed to it, EcoLight additionally simplifying the assembly process. The ballast! Lots of caps, an inline fuse, transformer, inductor, EcoLight brand and EcoLight a few transistors. C1, EcoLight lighting C2 and C3 are metalized polyester film capacitors. Right here is the rear facet of the ballast.