LED Hut

Zandoni

I bought a pack of 8 LED E14 bulbs in the spring from https://www.ledhut.co.uk and I've just had my second failure.

I emailed the company when the first one failed and they replaced it when I told them that it wasn't worth the effort to return the defective one. The second one failed yesterday and so far they haven't replied to my email.

I'm not convinced these LED bulbs are worth the expense, their failure rates are far higher than they say.

shaun_from_Africa

As with most products you can buy. LED lamps are made by a vast number of manufacturers from many different countries and because of this, quality can vary greatly.

I replaced 14 MR16 downlighters with LED's
https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_Menu_Index/Lamps_and_Tubes_Index/MR16_Led/index.html
back in January and it's one of the best things I've ever done.

The halogen lamps were forever blowing and the plugs and leads for these lamps were getting changed on a regular basis due to the heat causing them to fail
As yet, I've not had a single one of the LED's fail.

zax47

FWIW, in the last 2 years I've fitted roughly 400 LED bulbs from LED Hut for customers - mainly replacing halogens in downlights - with, so far, 3 failures. All of the failures are in are 240V ones (GU10), not 12V (MR16).

Despite the LED light source itself not emitting much heat, the extra circuitry inside the 240V units (required to drive the much lower voltage of an LED), generates plenty. Having taken them to bits, all my failures are in this circuitry not the LED itself. The lifetimes quoted are all MTBF, (mean time between failures) - a type of "average", if you like. Some will fail quicker (maybe considerably) some will last longer (maybe considerably). Look for posts here by the user "elstimpo" - he's a bit of an LED bulb guru, you might learn something.

Your E14 (small Edison screw) are going to be 240V unit I would imagine.

elstimpo

zax47 wrote: »

FWIW, in the last 2 years I've fitted roughly 400 LED bulbs from LED Hut for customers - mainly replacing halogens in downlights - with, so far, 3 failures. All of the failures are in are 240V ones (GU10), not 12V (MR16).

Despite the LED light source itself not emitting much heat, the extra circuitry inside the 240V units (required to drive the much lower voltage of an LED), generates plenty. Having taken them to bits, all my failures are in this circuitry not the LED itself. The lifetimes quoted are all MTBF, (mean time between failures) - a type of "average", if you like. Some will fail quicker (maybe considerably) some will last longer (maybe considerably). Look for posts here by the user "elstimpo" - he's a bit of an LED bulb guru, you might learn something.

Your E14 (small Edison screw) are going to be 240V unit I would imagine.

Ha ha, not sure about guru, just a guy who's spent over a decade researching, testing and now flogging LED's.

Speaking broadly about the UK LED market, truth is, there is an awful lot of crap out there, it used to be easy to spot it but now you can find really poor quality products in very professional and fancy looking packaging sold on flashy websites that promise the earth and deliver very little.

The No1 reason for LED failure is the power supply and more specifically the capacitors. Often when you look at lifespan on company sites they are referring to the lifespan of the LED chip, not the actual lamp. It doesn't matter how good the LED chip is if the power supply and every component in it is not of equal quality. It takes one component in an LED lamp to go for complete lamp failure.

It's no good having the worlds best chip if the power supply is made of cheap and average components. The power supply is the heart beat of any LED lamp and 99% of the time it will fail before the LED chip.

Problem is, you can't verify the quality of the power supply before you buy and very few will open it up and have a look and if they do, even fewer will know what they are looking at/for.

How many LED retailers know what temp the capacitors in their products are rated to? How many know what temp they should be rated to to achieve longevity of the product? Virtually none.

A good quality LED is not a cheap product to make. Which is why I find it strange when people buy these products based purely on cheap prices. You cannot manufacturer a quality LED product cheaply - it's simply not possible. I see people saying 'I bought these for 3 or 4 each' and I think, why did you bother!

The LED industry can be a very deceptive and manipulative place.

Zandoni

zax47 wrote: »

FWIW, in the last 2 years I've fitted roughly 400 LED bulbs from LED Hut for customers - mainly replacing halogens in downlights - with, so far, 3 failures. All of the failures are in are 240V ones (GU10), not 12V (MR16).

Despite the LED light source itself not emitting much heat, the extra circuitry inside the 240V units (required to drive the much lower voltage of an LED), generates plenty. Having taken them to bits, all my failures are in this circuitry not the LED itself. The lifetimes quoted are all MTBF, (mean time between failures) - a type of "average", if you like. Some will fail quicker (maybe considerably) some will last longer (maybe considerably). Look for posts here by the user "elstimpo" - he's a bit of an LED bulb guru, you might learn something.

Your E14 (small Edison screw) are going to be 240V unit I would imagine.

Thanks for your comments, they are mains E14 bulbs and understand your points but a 25% failure rate is unacceptable.

It's also unacceptable that LED hut have not answered my email. I have also raised the issue on their Facebook page and they have asked me to private message them, I'll see what happens there.

Other reviews are not as good as the ones on their on site https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.ledhut.co.uk

Zandoni

elstimpo wrote: »

Ha ha, not sure about guru, just a guy who's spent over a decade researching, testing and now flogging LED's.

Speaking broadly about the UK LED market, truth is, there is an awful lot of crap out there, it used to be easy to spot it but now you can find really poor quality products in very professional and fancy looking packaging sold on flashy websites that promise the earth and deliver very little.

The No1 reason for LED failure is the power supply and more specifically the capacitors. Often when you look at lifespan on company sites they are referring to the lifespan of the LED chip, not the actual lamp. It doesn't matter how good the LED chip is if the power supply and every component in it is not of equal quality. It takes one component in an LED lamp to go for complete lamp failure.

It's no good having the worlds best chip if the power supply is made of cheap and average components. The power supply is the heart beat of any LED lamp and 99% of the time it will fail before the LED chip.

Problem is, you can't verify the quality of the power supply before you buy and very few will open it up and have a look and if they do, even fewer will know what they are looking at/for.

How many LED retailers know what temp the capacitors in their products are rated to? How many know what temp they should be rated to to achieve longevity of the product? Virtually none.

A good quality LED is not a cheap product to make. Which is why I find it strange when people buy these products based purely on cheap prices. You cannot manufacturer a quality LED product cheaply - it's simply not possible. I see people saying 'I bought these for 3 or 4 each' and I think, why did you bother!

The LED industry can be a very deceptive and manipulative place.

Thanks for your reply it was very informative.

I do take your point about price but LED hut are probably middle of the road price wise.

Are there any manufacturer's that you could recommend?

Hoof_Hearted

We bought all our GU10-type LEDs from LED Hut. Probably at least 25 in operation and one failure in 3 and a half years, so I wouldn't write them off.

zaax

Good quality LED bulbs will last for the hours stated. It is up to the UK seller to know the difference between a good product and a rip off, not the consumer.

The Philips ones I brought have worked since I rought them 4 years ago

Zandoni

The good news is LED hut answered my Facebook message within a couple of hours and followed up with a phone call. They are sending me a new bulb with next day delivery.

They told me the reviews on their site are far more accurate than trust pilot, I'm not sure you can trust any of the revue sites, must do some research.

freshfruitbandit

Zandoni wrote: »

The good news is LED hut answered my Facebook message within a couple of hours and followed up with a phone call. They are sending me a new bulb with next day delivery.

They told me the reviews on their site are far more accurate than trust pilot, I'm not sure you can trust any of the revue sites, must do some research.

LED Hut can get any fake or false review for them on Trustpilot taken down incredibly easily. They simply notify Trustpilot which review they consider to be fake and trust pilot immediately takes it down and contacts the reviewer. If that reviewer provides a genuine order number from the company, trustpilot publishes the review, if they don't they remove it permanently.

Interesting if you look at Ekomi, who LED Hut use for reviews, on Trustpilot, you get;
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.ekomi.co.uk

MarkBargain

Did you know you need to fill a form in to get LED Hut's 5 year guarantee? I didn't realise that until it was too late after my first order. Thankfully, I haven't had an LED bulb fail yet in my house.