Orbit A60 LED Bulb seriously overheating

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openmedia

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#290593 22-Nov-2021 09:23

We've got a range of basic LED E27 bulbs in recessed downlights in our house, and most of them have been working without issue, but one of the LED lights in my home office has just failed with a heat problem.

I actually don't use the main lights very often so these bulbs haven't been on very often, plus I also date the bulbs when I fit them so I know this was puchased and installed back in August last year. The bulb started to flicker and then lost a lot of its power. When I remove the bulb the base was way to hot to touch so I put it somewhere safe overnight to cool down.

First time I've seen any LED E27 bulbs fail since we started using them about 4 years ago, so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen a similar problem.

Here is a link to the bulbs @ Mitre 10

https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/orbit-lighting-led-light-bulb-a60-warm-white/p/300785

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

timmmay

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#2816873 22-Nov-2021 09:40

We have about 15 - 20 E27 LED bulbs, mostly Philips. I find them fairly unreliable, about 20% fail within their warranty period, and we have a failure every 3-6 months on average. The two Panasonic (which I can't find anymore) have a nicer light and have been reliable, but small sample size. I guess they're just made to be cheap and disposable, but they're still $5 - $10 each.

Orbit is a fairly cheap brand.

networkn

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#2817021 22-Nov-2021 12:59

We bought these nearly 3 years ago.

https://www.visionarytechnologies.co.nz/product-pages/apollo-2

We also bought some that had no blue light for the bedrooms, which were around $15 more expensive. Not sure if they were worth it, but did it anyway. They haven't missed a beat, look great and whilst not as cheap as orbit, have a great warranty and are kiwi made. Our electrician installed them for us, and was so impressed he now sells them as his number one choice.

shk292

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#2817070 22-Nov-2021 14:00

networkn:

We bought these nearly 3 years ago.

https://www.visionarytechnologies.co.nz/product-pages/apollo-2

We also bought some that had no blue light for the bedrooms, which were around $15 more expensive. Not sure if they were worth it, but did it anyway. They haven't missed a beat, look great and whilst not as cheap as orbit, have a great warranty and are kiwi made. Our electrician installed them for us, and was so impressed he now sells them as his number one choice.

They look good. I replaced about half the light fittings in our house with similar from Switch Lighting and have been very pleased - they have been working flawlessly for about 7 years so far. The advantage of replacing the whole unit is that you eliminate the "chimneys" into the roof space that are there with the standard fittings

openmedia

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#2817157 22-Nov-2021 15:09

Right now we've gone for a straight bulb swap. We'll consider swapping the downlight units as we renovate the rooms.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

neb

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#2817219 22-Nov-2021 17:24

openmedia:
First time I've seen any LED E27 bulbs fail since we started using them about 4 years ago, so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen a similar problem.

We've got recessed downlights with enormous finned heatsinks on them so haven't seen this, but I would expect it with standard form-factor lightbulbs, they're pretty much the worst possible design for getting rid of heat, a completely sealed thermally insulating enclosure with only the socket contact to get rid of heat, I'm surprised they don't fail more often. For those, a frequently-mentioned issue is that they'll never reach the 50K hours the emitters are rated for because the electronics will cook long before then.

mattwnz

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#2817239 22-Nov-2021 18:53

Yes I had a big number of this brand fail (B22s mainly) within a short period.. Got them replaced as each failed and they also failed. The retailers said there could be something wrong with my power supply, but only has one or two philips or panasonic ones fail, and nothing wrong with any other appliances prematurely fail. We also had a lot of lights. In the end I just had to give up on them.

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richms

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#2817244 22-Nov-2021 19:08

For replacing old style lamps I have found the filament style ones are the best if you're ok with the low output they have. Cheap ones have no capacitor in them so flicker like a strobe light tho.

Other ones are the GE glass ones from Mitre10 https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/ge-lighting-led-classic-opal-glass-gls-7-5-watt-806lm-es-cool-white/p/380452 are good and I have had none fail despite having 1000s of hours on them and starting to dim down massivly. The B22 ones in the outside festoons have not filled up with water and still work fine.

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#2817249 22-Nov-2021 19:15

Also orbit is from the same bottom of the lowest barrel buried somewhere below acceptable levels importer that does goldair and elto,

If there is a melted powerstrip that has failed while being run within its ratings, it probably says elto on it and cost $3.50 from the warehouse.

Richard rich.ms

k1w1k1d

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#2817277 22-Nov-2021 20:16

I gave up on the Orbit B22 LED bulbs due to too many failures. Took some back under warranty.

Got sick of changing them, so changed to Phillips, which have been much better. I think there are only 3 or 4 Orbit bulbs left through the whole house now.

I am surprised at how hot the base of LED bulbs get.

neb

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#2817280 22-Nov-2021 20:26

k1w1k1d:
I am surprised at how hot the base of LED bulbs get.

See my previous post, that's almost the only way for the heat to escape from that form factor.

mattwnz

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#2817374 23-Nov-2021 00:35

k1w1k1d:

I gave up on the Orbit B22 LED bulbs due to too many failures. Took some back under warranty.

Got sick of changing them, so changed to Phillips, which have been much better. I think there are only 3 or 4 Orbit bulbs left through the whole house now.

I am surprised at how hot the base of LED bulbs get.

I had the same thing, the thing is that the retail staff made me feel like it was a problem at my end. They probably should have done a recall on them. Ended up being a waste of money and hassle. I would have taken them all back for a full refund, except I didn't purchase them all in one lot and didn't have all the receipts. I have had had a few Philips ones prematurely die, which are some of the more recent ones which are quite light weight. But I also have quite a few old Philips ones which are are lot heavier than the new ones, and were a lot more expensive, and they have worked fine for years, they are probably 10 years old.

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openmedia

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#2817435 23-Nov-2021 08:56

This is the first issue I've had in 4 years with a mix of Orbit and Elto bulbs

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.