Philips LPrize Award LED Bulb.

[Brian H]

I just picked up a Philips LED Light Bulb that won the US Department of Energy $10,000,000 LPrize Award.

For the 60 watt replacement category.

 

10 Watts, 940 lumens, 2700K, 92 CRI. Dimmable with a Leading Edge Type Dimmer. 30,000 hour average life.

 

Most vendors have them for around $49.99. My power company had a $10.00 incentive so I got one for $39.99

plus CT State Sales Tax and shipping. The lesser efficient 12.5W 800 lumen Philips ENDURALeds where $16.60

including the $10 incentive.

 

Those who have seen the alien head style of the 12.5 watt 800 lumen,Philips EnduraLED.

This one looks similar. Except it uses a few Ultra Bright Red LEDs along with the Ultra Bright Blue LEDs.

To cause the phosphorescent plastic covers to glow bright white.

When dimmed to a very low I could see the bluish red tint in the light.

 

Did not work well with a few automation modules.

LM14A. Flickered and went partially dim when On.

LM465 SS 08A01. Flickered and went partially dim when On.

LM465 SS 09J44. Flickered and went partially dim when On.

LM465 before SS no date code. Worked fine. Flicker one pulse when going On or Off near 0%.

Insteon 2456D3 LampLinc Dimmer Hw 4.3. Worked OK. Flicker one pulse when going On or Off near 0%.

Insteon 2477D Dual Band SwitchLinc Dimmer Hw. 6.5. Worked OK. Flicker one pulse when going On or Off near 0%.

[Illusion]

Interesting. Thanks for the write up. Are these results more flickery for this L prize winning bulb than for the lesser efficient and cheaper 12.5w LED of similar design by Philips?

[Brian H]

The one pulse when going On and Off maybe how its electronics starts up.

It has both high brightness Red and Blue LEDs in it and they cause the plastic covers to glow.

The partially dimming at 100% with the two X10 Soft Start LM465s and LM14A seems to be how the devices electronics interact with each other.

The older 12.5 Watt one did work fine with the two LM465's and LM14A

 

With an old revision 2476D SwithcLinc Dimmer. With an X10 addresses in it with my 1132CU.

I was able to do some dim% tests.

At 3% It would start from Off. The 12.5 Watt one was 13%

At 3% was bluish. 6% bluish red. 10%,13% 16% and 19% you could see the red and blue LEDs through the white glow.

 

Here is a link to a very detailed review of it. Along with some very nice internal photos.

http://www.molalla.net/members/leeper/L ... 20bulb.htm

 

DOE Video on tests.

!

[ELA]

Thanks for the redirection over here Brian,

I enjoyed seeing that breakdown. Especially when they go to the trouble to remove potting

That was a pretty involved evaluation, unfortunately nothing about inrush current?

 

I was surprised by the post at Smarthome on the LEDs that caused the dimmers to have to be so severely derated due to inrush every cycle when dimmed. I would hope that applies to a limited number of bulbs/manufacturers?

[Brian H]

I also hope it is just some designs of dimmable LED bulbs.

Through a few reviews I have seen. Both of my Philip's EnduraLED and LPrize us a Cypress chip. I did find the AN70005 Applications note on a datasheet related web sit and not on the Cypress site as mentioned.

I also have a EcoSmart bulb from Home Depot. It uses a National Semiconductor. LM3445.

[Brian H]

ELA

I looked at the Lighting Science LED bulbs.

Some show the caution and others do not.

My EcoSmart DEFN19 made for Home Depot has no cautions.

Their Definity A19 has the cautions.

 

I went to the Cree web site and randomly picked a CR6 down light as I have seen them mentioned.

They also have a dimmer information sheet that mentioned Inrush Currents.

http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/ ... bility.pdf

[ELA]

Hi Brian,

 

Seems as though dimmable LEDS are also putting a twist into dimmer ratings for a person to be concerned about.

 

I found this the other day when looking into this subject:

http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/367-2035_LED_white_paper.pdf

 

section 3.4

[Brian H]

It does look like there is a new twist in dimmer ratings with the dimmable LED bulbs.

I will give the white paper link you gave a look.

[IndyMike]

The Lutron paper was an interesting read - thank you for posting.

 

Lutron has been de-rating their C-L line of dimmers, for use with CFL's and LEDs, for some time now. Their typical 600W incandescent dimmer is rated at 150W for CFL's and LEDs (C-L Line Ratings). The derating is for the surge current that you documented above (nice plots BTW). Included in the list of "approved bulbs" is the 12W EnduraLED that BLH referenced (C-L Approved Bulb List). While the 4 to 1 de-rating is something to pay attention to, it doesn't normally come into play due to the efficiency of the CFLs/LEDs. A circuit designed for incandescent lighting can normally handle a light equivalent wattage of CFL/LED loads without exceeding the de-rating.

 

Up to this point, my experience with LEDs indicated that their surge current was actually less than that of an incandescent. I really, really like the low noise dimming these provide. I had therefor attributed the Lutron C-L de-rating to be due to the CFL loads with the LEDs being "thrown in".

 

Unfortunately, the white paper paper refers to 6 to 1 LED de-rating even though the current Lutron products are quoted as 4 to 1. I'm not sure if this is overly conservative, or if the new high efficiency designs are driving higher surge currents. It would be very unfortunate if the drive for efficiency required LEDs to pollute the powerlines with spikes and resonances the way CFL's currently do.

 

If anyone has the opportunity to test one of the new L-prize units - please do post!

[ELA]

Hi IndyMike,

As I reviewed the documents recently on LEDs I saw what you said about dimmers also being derated for CFLs for some time. I do not use CFLs in my home mostly because of the pollution they cause, as you mentioned. All I have tested were signal suckers to some extent. I only have CFLs for testing purposes and I can certainly see where the dimmers must be derated for them.

 

I also agree that the derating may be a little conservative for LEDs. While they do have a repetitive peak current when dimmed I think their input caps may be smaller and some may also incorporate an input inductor for power factor correction that would help limit the peaks.

 

Here is one 8W LED I tested the inrush current on a while back. The inrush on this unit was not close to as severe as the CFLs I tested. As can be seen the current spike does not occur every half cycle as it does on a CFL ( unless the LED is being dimmed).

 

At the time of this test I did not test when dimming but I would expect the repetitive current spike to be less than the initial turn on inrush ( this test was done as a worst case inrush using a phase fire turn-on.

[ELA]

You might also find this interesting ... someone has already done the testing. Looks like most LED lamps did well when compared to a CFL. Also looks like there may be some less desirable ones out there.

 

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/assist/pdf/assist-TechNote-Dimming-InrushCurrent.pdf

[IndyMike]

ELA,

 

Thanks so much for linking the Assist paper. That's far more data than we could have hoped to develop, or afford.

 

The paper appears to confirm that "some" LED's draw significantly less inrush than a dimmable CFL (mirrors our limited experience). The "kicker LED" would probably cause grief for any dimmer if enough were combined. I have lost triacs using dimmable CFL's in one of my test setups. Until now, I didn't realize that LED's could even approach that level of inrush.

 

Also interesting is the NEMA SSL-6 Specification requiring repetitive inrush to be below 9 amps. I'm guessing this is what Lutron is using when they are de-rating their dimmers. Based on the performance of the LED samples, the spec (and Lutron rating) does appear conservative. Nonetheless, a spec is a spec.

 

Thanks again for the information,

IM

[ELA]

Hi IndyMike,

 

I also found it interesting that there is a NEMA spec on repetitive inrush.

I would like to see the entire spec but it is not worth the $53 to me

 

In particular I wonder if they bother to address the pulse duration? From those I have seen the inrush pulse duration of the LEDs is typically much shorter than that of the CFLs. Only addressing the magnitude will result in a very conservative number in many cases.

 

It would be interesting to see the current plot of one of the bad performers like the "LSG Glimpse lights"

that were mentioned in another post.

[IndyMike]

ELA,

 

You would have been disappointed in the NEMA spec as it relates to the current inrush. The specification appears to relate to the total "safe" load that a dimmer should be able to tolerate. To be of any use, the LED manufacturer would need to specify the number of LED lamps that could be used on a given dimmer (say 600W). Since the "bad actor" led exceeds the 9A repetitive inrush, it should be specified for use on 1000W dimmers only.

 

Since the assess paper shows that there's a fair amount of variation in in-rush current when mixing different dimmers/LED's, this is a very "fuzzy" requirement.

 

 

 

Interestingly, there is also a section that specifies the the Current crest factor Should be kept below 3 to prevent audible noise. If applied strictly, I can't see how any of the bulbs in the Assess paper could claim to meet this.

 

IM