Yeah, the real problem is there's no actual testing/enforcement of the claims on the box. You can sell "10,000 hour" bulbs/lights that all blow in 1000 hours and the worst thing that will happen is some small portion of the buyers will warranty them for another set of crappy 1000 hour bulbs. Fine the manufacturers/importers/sellers (looking at all those stores now exclusively full of "GE" trash) halfway out of business for that bullshit and it will stop. The weird part about this case is the cheapest bulbs seem to be the longest lasting, I have many dollar tree and similar bulbs that have run fine for years, but nobody seems to sell a name brand high CRI bulb that actually holds up like it should.

I bought a Dick Smith ESR meter kit a long time ago,and it was very useful on the bench. it was fun to build. I still have it 25 years later. I was thinking about installing a LiPo battery and USB charger board.

Agreed 👍

Somewhat true but you could keep the bulb form factor and just change the whole supply bus instead, so that it no longer runs on 12VAC... remembering that it had to have a PSU to get it from mains 110V/220VAC to that 12VAC in the first place. If it were 12VDC, it doesn't even need that circuit/capacitance.

@@stinkycheese804 But that is the point. If you did that, you would be moving the electrolytic capacitor to a place where there isn't much heat. But that is not compatible with the existing infrastructure because the sockets require a particular bulb shape and the power is that way because it is attempting to reuse existing incandescent infrastructure rather than building infrastructure that makes sense for LED lighting.

I designed and engineered a range of MR16 repacement lamps that used a separate LED driver rather than the 12V. They lasted fabulously long, but needed an electrician to install. We drove them at 3W, and the body was fine tinned aluminium with direct thermal path from LEDs to the fins. . The complicated electronics inside retrofit lamps like this is due to the horrendeous quality of ELECTRONIC transformers for LV halogen. There is SO much noise and ripple, different brands have different characteristics, many need a minimum load to even operate, etc. . Remember... the 12V supply can push 4A at unknown voltage, they aren't constant voltage in any remote sense of the word, and they are designed for a known resistive load. Yet LEDs need constant current drivers to ensure that current doesn't overdrive the chips if voltage rises. . Physically the MR16 LED lamps need to be 100% retrofittable into an almost unknown number of power supply supply scenarios, and the MR16 form factor is far too small to conduct the heat away. A 50W MR16 is pushing over 1000 lumens, and in this kind of arrangement you need 10W of LED to match the output. . You can get away with 5W without people noticing much, but then there is the problem of getting 5-6W of heat out. The lamps operate base up, so all the circuitry is above the LEDs and there is no air circulation whatsoever. . So, the chips in these are loterally cooking, there is no need to make the driver last longer than the LEDs in the bulb. And the TMC and wholesale selling price of these is WELL under a DOLLAR, and retailers will not buy if you are even 5c higher. The retailer is getting over $14 each in profit, if you pay $15. . The bottom line is that there is no possible way to keep a pure MR16 form factor if you want reliability, and equal light, even if there is no electronics inside there at all.

So instead of having to replace the bulb, you'll have to replace the entire fixture. Buy a house and every fixture has daylight LEDs built in and you want soft white, all those fixtures must be replaced. The incandescent package gives people choice and flexibility in their lighting.

Maybe some kind of energy-saving subsidy for an engineered-and-proven LED design? The answer to a sheikh is another sheikh.

For a lot of applications, there is no practical alternative to electrolytic capacitors.

Thing is Phillips actually does make very reliable lamps, with the same light output, and a guaranteed 100k hour life. Just that they do not offer then to the world market, because they cost double the price to manufacture.

It is not a no-name capacitor. Look at 03:53. It is a Threecon, which is a brand of Nantong Sunion Electronic Co., Ltd.

@@jonskunator I meant it figuratively. I would have said the same if it had said CapXon, or something similar.

@@natedawww Ok, I understand. You meant that it is not a brand that has gained good reputation.

It's enclosed and would just blow a track if not a fuse or resistor. Don't see the problem. Also it seems a bit misleading to suggest you had to switch to an electrolytic because there are other chemistries besides just (wet) electrolytic and tantalum.

@@stinkycheese804 you are correct that there are other chemistries, I just gave the conclusion of the saga since it wasn’t really the point. Also when a tantalum fails it may blow the track, but it is more likely to become a 0R Resistor… which is why I asked the creator of that would be a potential downside

I've actually seen some red ones before.

there are companies that test and rebuild e-bike battery packs. the bad part is,you have to send them your battery to be tested before you learn how much it will cost.

Oh, that won't be a problem for them once *_"LightBulbs As A Service"_* gets going. Just make sure all your bulbs are connected to the internet, the app is up to date and your subscriptions don't lapse.

Note here its an mr16 so 12v ac/dc in so not directly mains powered, but all other points are good. But changing the design of lighting altogether isnt good for retrofits (ie requires complete replacement) and theres no standardisation ive seen in splitting drive electeonics and led panels. I suspect convincing companiea and consumers to advertise/look at buld life more would be better. But its a hard sell as brand loyal customers buying half as often is a disincentive and price is often a key driver in purchasing.

Meh, just no. Trying to pretend that they will be expected to st art fires and burn, would ignore that they are used quite a bit in designs and aren't enough of a safety risk to abandon their use, nor that of other chemistries and compositions besides electrolytic. Nope, electrolytic is used for its low cost, including being able to pick a topology for the circuit that is low as well, and that is the only reason. You can easily design with a solid capacitor and keep the rest of the design, seems like your theory that you can't get rid of electrolytics, is ignoring the capacitor advancements that have been made in the last 40 years.

Google polymer electrolytic capacitor, gets rid of the liquid electrolyte. Microphonics aren't a problem in 99% of designs btw.

You're just stating random things that you memorized but don't understand. Microphonics? Really? Do tell what difference that will make in the crude current regulating circuit for a light bulb! There are multiple options to make the bulb work without electrolytic caps. All of them cost more besides the most crude of all which would have been to just use a current limiting resistor and make the assumption that the bus for the light system stayed a constant regulated 12VDC, or a rectifier and solid cap if it were 12VAC.

@@selwynrh Well, running on AC means having to rectify the power, and filter it too. It's mains stepped down with a transformer. If DC were required, this would push the rectification and filtering to the controller, which then can be reasonably asked to not have a filter which will conk out in a mere 3 years.

MLCCs have come a long way from their inception. I suggest using those whenever possible.

Tantalums are in fact used in various equipment, why would we need to pretend it is especially dangerous here? Further, so what if it did pop? It's not as though it is going to make the bulb become a grenade that takes you eye out or burns the building down. It would just stop working, same as it did with the electrolytic, "IF", and this is a BIG BIG BIG IF since all we have evidence of is the capacitance value dropped, not that it was the actual cause of failure. Capacitance drop will happen even if another problem was the actual failure point. We'd need to see the circuit schematic for starters and the drop in capacitance might just mean it has a slight bit of mains or double-mains frequency brightness fluctuation which many people wouldn't even notice since the cap was not completely open circuit, still had about 1/3rd it's rated value.

@@stinkycheese804 correct me if I’m wrong but I haven’t seen them being used in SMPS power supplies

@@VandalIO Then you haven't seen many SMPS because I just had one on my desk today with a few. However the thing to recognize is where you might find them. Tantalum have a reasonable limit on capacitance (and/or start to get really expensive), so when the core purpose of the thing being designed is low ripple from switching, more capacitance wins as long as the ESR stays low enough. However, better PSU have moved away from electrolytics towards solid caps, but again it depends on both the BOM budget and how much current they have to deal with. LED bulbs are a bit different because the human eye has a persistence of vision for light, so the supply does not have to be as low ripple, just to avoid any peaks that are high enough to damage the LEDs.

Lifetimes hours go up as temp goes down though, without that data from a sheet or testing, can't really determine much as it is unrealistic to just assume that if it runs hot, then it must be near the max rating of the capacitor.

I found a reference that states "CD28S Super Low Impedance Long Life 105°C (6000h~10000h)". And a datasheet for a threecon/sunion CD28C that says 8000h. So I don't think its a 1000h cap. We'd need to know the actual operating temperature to say much more, like cheese says above.

Meh, no, there is no expectation that if you start using more capacitors made from the limited supply of rarer materials, that the industry price would go down. We could say that price per unit goes down just placing a larger quantity order for them, but the same is true for the electrolytics. Why are you pretending to know something about Arab nation reliability bulbs? There is no evidence of that except isolated cases of using more LEDs to drive each at a lower current and thermal density, nothing at all supports the idea that Arab nations specifically reject products (designs) with electrolytic caps. For starters, it wouldn't then just be LED bulbs. They'd have to ban the majority of electronic products.

@@stinkycheese804 Yeah, no, that's totally the expectation and a good measure would be casings, for example 0402 components have dropped in price the last years compared to 0603. Tantalums are anyhow generally to be avoided, but higher capacity ceramics could be used but expensive due to processes, not material. The LED lamps are called "Dubai lamps" and Big Clive has done a video on them. As hackaday notes they were inspired by "the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who wanted more efficient and longer-lasting bulbs. " You can both avoid being rude AND an idiot.

@@TrickyNekroYou can get the same result buying dimmable LEDs with at least twice the power you need and just running them at half brightness.

@@NiHaoMike64 I guess that would depend on the dimmer. Most simple dimmers are just chopping the sine wave. Although that's an easy way to reduce power and thus temperature inside the enclosure, you are exposing the said input capacitor to higher inrush currents. Now these LEDs are fed through a transformer so chopping the power to the transformer might not be that of an issue, because the transformer will smooth that current. So yeah, for this setup, it might be a very good solution, indeed.

@@TrickyNekroThe better dimmers use trailing edge clipping, the best are bulbs with some sort of wireless remote for dimming. Note that if you go for the IoT ones, make sure it can be reflashed to Tasmota so it wouldn't depend on the cloud.

It will explode due to pressure.

@@michaeljones1664 why is it a problem if it's the size of a pea? the stored mechanical energy will be tiny.

LED bulbs banned? WTF is wrong with you. No they shouldn't.

@@simontay4851 What we need is assurances of lifetime that actually mean something.

@@simontay4851 you are wrong....