Bought SMD 2835 x 144 E12 candelabra bulbs...

Hey all,

Just wanted to get some very quick expert input on my breakfast nook situation. We have an up-facing small chandelier with five bulbs (with shades around them) and I have struggled to find an LED bulb with sufficient brightness and color. The last batch I purchased after trying a number of items from Amazon was SMD 5730 x 69, 15W. Again, pretty dull color, but most importantly, weak brightness.

The latest after doing a bit more research I eventually ordered some SMD 2835 x 144 LED bulbs @ 21W. I guess my question is, at first glance, does this seem like a good or a bad idea? It seems like a pretty small housing to hold 144 LEDs within it, so I'm wondering if heat might cause them to expire more quickly...?

Here's the link for the interested:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/12166131671...49&var=420664388578&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Thanks for any input.

in general, the "corn cob" style lights have a poor reputation. Some of it is that they tend to have poor quality control practices, and some of it is that there is little to no way to get the heat out of it.
It sounds like you are interested in the high powered versions of this light, which is probably going to run hotter than the other versions and have a shorter lifetime.

I've got a bathroom light fixture that takes bulbs with candelabra bases, so I'm looking around for a good bulb to fit it. Haven't seen anything that looks good so far. Considering how small the bulbs are, and how little space is available for housing the electronics or heatsinking, I'm not that surprised that good bulbs aren't available.

Gotcha... so basically it's precisely as I expected: the technology simply isn't there yet. I don't suppose there is much of a safety concern regardless in trying one out, right? So now that I've already got some on order there's no sense in chucking them out of presumptions of them running too hot to be safe or anything.

Thanks very much for your input.

If you've got them, use them and track how many hours they are being used. It might be fun to know whether they die in the first 1000 hours, or if they die at 100 hours.

I'm not sure if it's the case of the technology not being sufficiently advanced, or if physics just won't allow it. There's just so little surface area available to use as a heatsink that keeping temperatures to a safe level would either require much more efficient LEDs or LEDs that could be operated at much higher temperatures. Manufacturers have started stating the LED lifetime with a junction temperature of 85C instead of 25C, so the LEDs have gotten more heat tolerant. Perhaps we're not too far from something that will be acceptable?

Ultimately, the solution is to build the LEDs into the light fixture and use the fixture as a heatsink. I think this is catching on for commercial light fixtures, but residental lighting is more cost sensitive and will take longer to make that transition.

Well, just an update. Ultimately, I did not like the original color and light output (not as intense as promised) of these bulbs. So I wound up replacing them with these instead:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321864753031

And thus far have been incredibly happy. Longevity obviously is yet to be determined, but I feel this new filament design may be something which greatly benefits the candelabra form factor. The 360-degree light output alone is of great benefit in our particular application, since the light fixture has up-facing bulbs above the dining table; the bulbs also seem even brighter than those above. And the mere fact that they are 6W instead of as much as 18 or 20 in the case of the original ones I posted about is just icing on the cake.

If anyone is thinking about buying these, I say give them a shot. For reference, the ones I chose were the Warm White variety, which seems quite close to 2700K actually... or at least, close enough for me.

Hope this helps someone.