LED Long Term Reliability

[ZephyrEFI]

Has anyone here had any trouble with using retrofit LED bulbs in their cars? I know I jumped on the bandwagon with both feet, but I was watching this video yesterday and it said the non-canbus type bulbs can overheat with long term use and fail. It was just a guy with a clickbait video on youtube, but it still got me to thinking. I put a lot of eggs in that basket, so I thought I'd see what others' experiences are. I haven't driven mine enough to be able to really say one way or the other. I never gave much thought to the heat thing since LED bulbs don't produce heat from the light like incandescent bulbs do.

I've seen a few cases of people putting cheap LED HEADlights on their cars and melting their housings, but I guess I think of headlights as a whole different animal. I have regular halogen 9007 bulb headlights at this point just because decent LED headlights seem to be prohibitively expensive.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Bryan Knebworth]

I've read studies suggesting LED's are bad for plants and animal life. They were white-hot(no pun intended) for awhile but I've never cared for them. I'd always get a stomachache when an approaching car had them, usually at dusk. I knew there had to be something to it, so I started researching the subject. If you investigate the adverse effects of LED, make sure to read only studies conducted in U.K. and Canada--more thorough.

[ZephyrEFI]

What exactly is bad about them? Are we talking because of the type of light they put out or something to do with the manufacturing?

Also, some of the really bright headlights you see are xenon HID and stuff like that.

[Bryan Knebworth]

What exactly is bad about them? Are we talking because of the type of light they put out or something to do with the manufacturing?

Also, some of the really bright headlights you see are xenon HID and stuff like that.

Apparently the danger stems from the size of the wavelength. Human beings are more used to candlelight. Humans have been around candlelight for thousands of years. LEDs have only been around for a couple of decades.

Scientists discovered from the very beginning that shorter wavelengths create stronger energy. Ex: Think of hearing the bass from a passing car's stereo, but not anything else. Low soundwaves are stronger than high frequencies.

As we know, the light spectrum ranges from Ultraviolet to Infrared. LEDs are very low on the nm scale, closer to Ultraviolet, while Candlelight is higher on the scale, closer to Infrared light. LEDs, especially the cheap ones(known as 'White Light' even though it comes off as Bluish/Purple) stress all living things (even trees!!) So long story shorter, LEDs make human beings uncomfortable. If you know of any LED streetlamps in your town or city, you might observe that half of a tree is dead, while the other side is thriving(the side facing away). Its interesting stuff. Here's an article to get started.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4355556/

https://www.bing.com/search?q=negati...99bf19d5eccea1
and...
https://www.ledsmagazine.com/smart-l...ks-highlighted

[stangPlus2Birds]

Whoa there.
Please don't talk to people that have foil hats on.
MIT is "right next door" to Lexington. Maybe take a walk over there and talk to some of the students.
Iirc, MIT has a reputation of having students that lean Liberal (like most universities).


First of all, you say "LEDs", like they are all the same thing.
Saying "LEDs" is like saying "Mammals".
Or.... "Mammals will bite your head off and feast on your guts".
Well, we all know that is not even close to being true.

There is no such thing as "LED wavelength".
An LED is similar in many ways to the old filament bulbs.
The materials, the voltage, etc, etc, etc all determine the wavelength.

Familiar with "Blu-Ray" DVDs?
Those use an LED with a different wavelength than the first generation DVDs, in order to read the disk.

You're using the interweb.
The Interweb is one of the biggest users of "high power" LEDs. The LEDs drive the optical links used for data.
Again, there are many different wavelengths used for those optical data links.

Go to any Home Depot or Walmart.
You'll see at least three types of LED bulbs - Daylight, warm, cool.
Those use different LEDs to get the different wavelengths.

There is nothing at all "magic/different" about the light coming from an LED.
It's a photon of a specific wavelength - nothing more, nothing less.
Again, like with the filament bulbs, any specific LED will have it's own characteristics on what wavelengths, and their ranges, are emitted.

LEDs have a tendency to produce wavelengths within a smaller/tighter frequency range.
That is why they are so important in communications and manufacturing.
Again, the makeup, and the quality of the LEDs have a big impact.


Feel free to look up non foil-hat stuff, used by many many many people:
Like LED growth lights.
https://www.google.com/search?q=LED+growth+lights

My guess, is that LED growth lights are used very heavily in newer legal recreational marijuana industry.
If not, I guess that their brains are fried from smoking their own product.

I just did a search on:
led growth lights for marijuana

From:
https://heavy.com/marijuana/2018/10/...d-grow-lights/
==========
According to a study done by NASA ( http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...0150009399.pdf ), LEDs provide optimal light wavelengths needed for plant growth. It is easy to manipulate the schedule and configuration of colored LEDs in order to boost vegetative or flowering growth, depending on what stage your plants are in.
==========


Disclosure, I have associations with some of the industries/etc mentioned above (NOT marijuana in any area at all).
For example, I've mentioned that I was in networking, and "backbone/core" networking for many years.

I hope the above helps.

[stangPlus2Birds]

As for long term LED reliability, it depends.

People may be familiar with "SDD(Solid State Drives)" used in PCs/etc, or the "FLASH" memory in their phones.
LEDs are a massive market, like the Flash/SSD market.

What many people don't realize/know, is that even for one specific part (let's say a single "chip" that has 4GB of Flash Storage with part number "123-XYZ" made by company BigCompany) there are many different variations/levels of part available to companies that buy that part.

For a VERY VERY made up example:
Samsung is a major maker of flash storage. Samsung makes their own phones and tablets.
When a "patter/lot" of flash chips is made, then many tests are run on that batch.
Those tests indicate many things about that specific batch.
One is the reliability of the number of times that the flash can be written.
One is the temperature range that the part works at.
One is the voltage range the part works at.
One is the storage retention of data (in years) at cold temperatures.
One is the storage retention of data (in years) at hot temperatures.
One is the storage retention of data (in years) at moderate temperatures.
And, hundred/thousand more parameters.

Samsung "could" decide to keep/use the best flash chips for it's own products.
Samsung "could" decide to offer the "boarder line" flash chips at deep discount to company's that want cheap as possible parts, so that they can sell lower cost items.

AGAIN, the above is ALL MAKE BELIEVE.
It has NOTHING AT ALL to do with Samsung!
It is a MADE UP EXAMPLE ONLY using a well known brand, so that it's easier to understand how some OTHER chip manufactures MAY operate.


So, the above is true for LEDs, and for many electronic parts.
In electronic design, depending of the market, cost, and so on, it's not uncommon to get "screened parts", so that the end item may meet "some specification" (such as speed, or reliability, or temperature use, or cost, etc, etc, etc).


So, a top quality brand-name company that sells LED replacement bulbs, is more likely to have and to use top quality parts.
Conversely, a low-cost company that sells LED replacement bulbs, is more likely to have and to use cheap "bargain bin" quality parts.


Please note, regardless of the company used, parts do have failure rates. And, the handling of the parts, the environment of the parts are used in, can effect the life of the parts.


I hope the above helps.
Good Luck!

[stangPlus2Birds]

I do not know if AZN Optics has the LED replacement bulbs that people are looking for in four-eyes.

But, I do know that that are a well respected company that sells parts that has been use in other vehicles. From what I've read in other forums, their products are top quality and I haven't seen any complaints about product life.
http://www.aznoptics.com/

I am not associated with AZN optics in any way. Also, I have not personally used any of their products.

[ZephyrEFI]

Yeah, I do find it hard to believe my turn signals are killing my yard.

My personal choices in bulbs were all from reputable companies, not cheap-as-possible ebay pieces. For example, my turn signal/brake light bulbs, front and rear are all from Diode Dynamics. They certainly were not cheap, so it was a bit disconcerting to hear they may fail from heat. Like I said, I'd just never thought of that being a factor with LEDs.

I do want to rip your head off and feast on your insides though.

[darkd0r]

All electronic components generate heat during operation. Any component can overheat if driven too hard; trying to get too much light from an led means too much current = too much heat. Proper circuit design uses keeps components in temperatures which result in reasonable service life.

Lots of streetlights/brighter headlights equals light pollution to some people, to others it means safer streets and safer driving. My old eyes find that white leds tend to wash out detail, especially tan and brown colors, which coincidentally are the predominant colors of the wandering 4-legged roadblocks we have out in flyover country.

The internet is full of wonderful information. It is also full of bull dust. I don't trust anybody who believes that another law is the best solution to every perceived problem. It seems that some people would like to legislate us back to subsistence farming and living in caves, but not allowing smoke from cooking fires.