LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy

Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by andix on Friday March 03, 2023 @01:29PM (#35013292)

The biggest problem of LED bulbs is usually heat. The design is just not suitable for LED, it would be great if we get a new standard.

First thing is voltage, 120/230V is not suitable for LEDs, if lamps would have an external 12V or 3V power supply a few centimetres away from the LED, this would be great.

The second thing is, that lamps need some kind of (passive!) cooling solution, to remove the heat from the chip. A lot of lamps are more or less closed and heat up as a whole. This is really bad for all the electronics, and probably the main reason why LEDs fail early.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by rootusrootus on Friday March 03, 2023 @01:32PM (#35013338)

Aren't filament bulbs the next evolution for both heat and power supply? The filament design puts the heat generation away from the electronics, and the electronics themselves are simpler because each filament can run off line voltage (or something along those lines). But they have more of a flicker problem IIUC.

The nice thing about newer filament bulbs is you can get 1600 lumen bulbs that are rated for enclosed fixtures now.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by ars on Friday March 03, 2023 @02:44PM (#35014103)

Yah, filament bulbs are the future of LEDs they solve basically all the existing problems of LEDs - heat, point-source lights, directionality, driver-size. And they are cheaper.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by inamberclad on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:00PM (#35014297)

Is this satire, or am I missing something?

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by rootusrootus on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:05PM (#35014350)

It does seem that the filament bulbs check a lot of boxes. The driver is so small it fits in the socket itself. If they can put 1600 lumens in an enclosed fixture, it does suggest they do better with heat. My impression from buying a box is that these are a next generation bulb design, not quite holy grail but a significant step. No more buying bulbs where the bottom half the globe is plastic housing a bunch of driver electronics.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by cooppearson on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:06PM (#35014357)

I believe they are referring to LED filament bulbs, which are designed to look like traditional filaments but have the benefit of separating the LEDs from the electronics.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by ars on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:04PM (#35014955)

???? I'm not sure what you find to be satire?

Have you used these LED filament bulbs? They are very good, the quality of the light is much better than the older style LED bulbs.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by amluto on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:57PM (#35015599)

Without some kind of driver, the light flickers strongly at 120Hz. For sensitive people, the effect is extremely unpleasant.

One can get perfectly nice drivers and perfectly nice LEDs for less than $25 all in. Sure, many people prefer paying less for a screw-base lamp, but the result is not as good.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by CapstanRoller on Friday March 03, 2023 @06:48PM (#35016552)

LED filament bulbs do indeed use a driver circuit. Some use a voltage above mains [1] while others drive the LED chain around mains voltage but in a smoother regulated way [2].

Sometimes there's just a basic dropper cap circuit, though. Those flicker but not too badly. The LED design in these is different than in a discrete LED, with the phosphor being quite thick and having a distinct slow fade/afterglow when switched off. I think in this case they basically use the phosphor to smooth out flickering instead of electronics.

[1] https://youtu.be/t3HpPikRDeY?t=279

[2] https://youtu.be/nMc6mjE9Y1s?t=447

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by cornstalks on Friday March 03, 2023 @05:53PM (#35016123)

I assume GP interpreted "filament bulb" as "incandescent filament bulb."

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by kyriakos on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:06PM (#35014363)

Which filament bulbs are you referring to? I was under the impression that filament was what we had before led bulbs.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by rootusrootus on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:18PM (#35014501)

LED filament[0], not tungsten filament.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by thriftwy on Friday March 03, 2023 @01:49PM (#35013509)

USB LED slot would be great.

Tight enough to hold light bulbs, thoroughly time tested.

USB power adaptors are super cheap and durable and the existing designs may be used.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by xattt on Friday March 03, 2023 @02:07PM (#35013694)

How realistic is whole-home Thunderbolt for lighting and smaller appliances?

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by JohnFen on Friday March 03, 2023 @02:16PM (#35013794)

Whole-house 12/24VDC power wiring has been a thing for at least 50 years, specifically intended for lighting. It's never proven widely popular, but it's certainly a realistic option. Probably more so in new construction than retrofitting into existing buildings, though.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by CapstanRoller on Friday March 03, 2023 @07:05PM (#35016681)

Whole-home PoE for lighting might be another interesting approach!

In either case, you'd need a very beefy DC power supply somewhere to get enough current, or individual power supplies scattered inside walls, etc. which sounds like a maintenance nightmare.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by nippoo on Friday March 03, 2023 @07:26PM (#35016839)

Or keep the voltage high and step down with a buck converter in each socket as needed and negotiated with the device: there's a good argument to use ~300VDC as a future home electrics design. High-power devices (water heaters etc) will work better and more efficiently with DC, and low-power devices can deal with 48VDC with a lightweight step-down converter (5A buck converters are tiny)

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by CapstanRoller on Friday March 03, 2023 @07:56PM (#35017027)

From a purely technical standpoint, I agree completely. However, given the debacle around USB-C cables & PD, I'd be very worried about a world where I have to trust devices to properly handle such high voltages.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by aidenn0 on Saturday March 04, 2023 @12:22AM (#35018434)

How safe is working with 300VDC?

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by xattt on Saturday March 04, 2023 @03:11PM (#35024050)

Half-way there to 600 VDC traction power!

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by vidarh on Friday March 03, 2023 @05:28PM (#35015895)

The LED strip behind my TV is powered by the USB port on my TV. Most longer strips (5m-20m) use one of a small number of form factor strips and 12V or 24V supply. There are also quite a few USB powered lamps, but a bulb form factor would be interesting.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by coryrc on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:07PM (#35014376)

The efficiency difference in a power supply running off 120V or 12V is not significant. The power supply is a negligible portion of heat output. They would last longer if separate though. Slim recessed LED fixtures have their power supply in a separate box.

I.e. https://www.ledsupply.com/led-bulbs/slim-recessed-led-light (arbitrarily chosen, not an endorsement)

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by userbinator on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:53PM (#35014846)

120/230V is not suitable for LEDs

It is with many in series, which is how the vast majority of lamps are made today. This lowers the current and reduces resistive losses.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by Scoundreller on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:09PM (#35015029)

I thought most household bulbs chopped it down to something like 30-40V.

Some lower spec lighting devices might take 120V and run LEDs in both series and parallel, but as LEDs fail, the rest get more current, leading to more failure… positive feedback loops for the win!

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by dekhn on Saturday March 04, 2023 @11:27AM (#35022010)

the parallel chains of serial LEDs are balanced during production so they all consume the same current and if any LED in a serial chain fails, they all stop working, simply eliminating that chain from the circuit. Of course in reality it's not that simple.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by Panzer04 on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:43PM (#35015450)

It’s not really very good to use them like that though - without a huge cap you’ll get pretty prominent flicker - I expect it’s probably just cheaper to stick in a cheap SMPS at that point if that’s something you care about.

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Re:LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can’t Buy by lightedman on Friday March 03, 2023 @08:10PM (#35017100)

"First thing is voltage, 120/230V is not suitable for LEDs"

Perfectly-fine if you put them in a series chain. In fact you reduce power losses at higher operating voltages.

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