Do LED's really burn out?

Maniacal Pete

Maniacal Pete

Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
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I just bought a set of LED Christmas lights and for some reason the sets came with spare LED's.
These things are rated for like ~20k hours.
I've owned a lot of LED's and I've never had a single one ever "burn out."

Has anyone here ever had one fail in a flashlight?
Elsewhere?
 
Only 1 complete failure due to overheating and a few bad connections, (bad solder joints) but for the most part if driven/ran within their specs they last for 10,000-100,000 hours.
 
It's possible if the LED is defective, or is driven with too much power (putting a 3 volt led directly across a 4.2 volt battery will do it). With the LED light strings though I think it's just so they can sell you more strings when the loosely mounted bulbs fall out and get lost or the contacts get damaged, and they can say "we included extra bulbs so it's not our problem".
 
Cougar Allen said:
You sure they're LEDs? Look again -- I bet they're little bulbs that look like LEDs.
Click to expand...

Nah, they're real LED's.

I bought them at Costco and they're made by GE.

They use 3.5 watts per string of 50 compared to 350 watts for real bulbs.

Not quite as bright as traditional,
but perfectly serviceable.
 
yoda4561 said:
It's possible if the LED is defective, or is driven with too much power (putting a 3 volt led directly across a 4.2 volt battery will do it). With the LED light strings though I think it's just so they can sell you more strings when the loosely mounted bulbs fall out and get lost or the contacts get damaged, and they can say "we included extra bulbs so it's not our problem".
Click to expand...

That could be it, they should just make the LED's permanent instead of replaceable.
It might also be marketing or to satisfy public perception.
 
The latter I think, I've never seen an LED rope light that wasn't clearly defective or damaged by power surge or cut/crushed burn out, the ones with the permanently affixed and covered LEDs. I have had a couple of the LED christmas light strings go dead on me, one I fixed by checking each bulb and found one that was a bit loose, the other one I'm not sure about, it's probably the same issue but the way the bulbs are mounted makes it a PITA since I'd have to check and replace each one, and I really don't feel like going through the hassle for a 10 dollar string of lights.
 
LEDs are diodes [transistors] they do have a finite life .That life is shortened with heat or things like overvoltage.
 
Hi MP -

I have seen them out in over the road truck taillights - you see a taillight with an array of LED's and then a few will not be lit - not sure if they are burned out or have lost connection etc - but yes, I think they can have problems.

I have never had the led Christmas lights - might be something to look for after this years festivities.

best

mqqn
 
My guess about the christmas lights is that they just kept useing the molds made for the traditional bulbs. Other brands are sealed in. As for truck LEDs, I've seen lots of bargain bin ones as they were very $$$ when they came, but looked cool, so a lot of cheap ones got on the market. I'm sure that lots of them either came loose, or were never good to begin with. I haven't seen any LEDs go out without another cause, mostly failed connections or circuits, and even that's pretty rare.
 
LEDs are made in the millions at a time, even with a 0.01% defect rate, a run of 1,000,000 means 10,000 "bad" LEDs (depending on the price of them, extremely cheap ones will have defects as high as 3-5%...) Not all of them are caught by QC before leaving the factory.

Good thing is that LEDs either work immediately, or they don't, but I'd hold on to those spares if I were you.
 
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