Planned Obsolescence is your fault

[Albert Chan]

I did some math, and cost of electricity is much more than the bulb itself.
Even if LED only last as long as cheap incandecent, you still comes out way ahead.

Cheap bulb = $1 + (1200 hrs) (0.060 kW) ($0.20 / kWh) = $15.4
LED bulb = $2 + (1200 hrs) (0.009 kW) ($0.20 / kWh) = $4.16

Instead of going for long lasting product, may be cost-to-own criteria is better.

[DA74254]

(01-01-2019 12:40 AM)Albert Chan Wrote:  I did some math, and cost of electricity is much more than the bulb itself.
Even if LED only last as long as cheap incandecent, you still comes out way ahead.

Cheap bulb = $1 + (1200 hrs) (0.060 kW) ($0.20 / kWh) = $15.4
LED bulb = $2 + (1200 hrs) (0.009 kW) ($0.20 / kWh) = $4.16

Instead of going for long lasting product, may be cost-to-own criteria is better.

Well, if you live in a cold country, that math doesn't add up. If I have a 60w light bulb lit, then I spend 60w less on my heating. And.. I get light as a bonus

[Albert Chan]

(12-31-2018 10:56 PM)David Hayden Wrote:  What I find frustrating is that you can't get a high quality product even if you're willing to spend the money on it.
We have a 3-year-old range that cost a fortune and it's a piece of crap.

I am guessing ... is it the electronics ... next to a hot stove ?

[Garth Wilson]

Quote:The ones who has *not* learned the business are the light bulb mafia. They banned (at least in Europe) incandecent bulbs and everyone is now forced to buy environmentally catastrophic CFL lamps or ugly coloured non-dimmable LED's at 10x the price. "The LED's lasts at least 40.000 hours" they claim. What a sack of donkey's droppings that statement! I've replaced as many "long lasting" LED bulbs as I've replaced halogen and incandecent bulbs. Sad

Our son worked in maintenance in a school. They got a box of CFLs that were supposed to last so many thousands of hours each. When he installed them, he put the date on them. Knowing how many hours per day they were used, he quickly found that half the box didn't even make it to 250 hours. I bought some LED bulbs for home that were supposed to last 15,000 hours. They had all become uselessly dim by 2,000, and all were totally dead before 3,000. At the normal temperatures inside our house, the CFLs take a couple of minutes to come up to full brightness. They are quite dim when first turned on.

Commenting on other things said, without quoting them:

Most of the electronics I have from the 1970's and even 1960's still work. The notable exceptions are tape recorders whose belts have rotted (but could be replaced), rubber wheels (harder to find), and dirty switches (which just need to be sprayed with contact cleaner, although in some cases they're not very accessible). Neither I nor my family have ever had a microprocessor go out, and I use computers for many years after I get them, used, cheap (or free).

The best car we ever had was a 1981 diesel Peugeot 504 station wagon. It had its first actual repair at 120,000 miles (brake master cylinder), and had had only $350 in repairs by the time my wife destroyed it in a head-on collision at 188,000 miles. She was not hurt, but the people in the other car, an Olds Cutlass Ciera, were removed with the jaws of life and taken by ambulance to the hospital. I do remember however how gas cars needed frequent tune-ups, whereas now they don't need that anymore but when they do need an actual repair, it's very expensive and you can't do it yourself anymore. (Yeah, we've had a few of those!) Modern oil makes engines last a lot longer than they used to also.

[pier4r]

(01-01-2019 12:20 AM)DA74254 Wrote:  If you've never seen CPU's failing, it's a pity I did not take pictures of my unoverclocked Fujitsu-Siemens PC CPU. It failed; it even had a hole in it.. My Samsung 9 series laptop CPU died just short of three years usage. So there's that. (Bonus question, which TV series is that last quote from?)

Nah. I saw CPU dying, but very a little compared to the amount of CPUs handled. A certain amount of mortality rate is to be expected.

Normally Motherboards/PCB fails, HD fails, PSU fails but what fails a little are CPU and Ram. I observed a lot of servers, or computing devices running up to 10 years in companies or universities without major problems. (they they get changed as obsolete in any case).

CPU and Ram are very resilient. You don't need planned obsolescence if the product is going to be obsolete in any case.
For example do you know that some bikes or some network switches have 99 years of warranty (or "lifetime warranty"). Why? Because it is more likely that the product after a while will be changed in any case as too old/obsolete/out of fashion.

The point is: let's not be paranoid or "we know it better". Some things need to break down to generate revenue, others do not need to as they become obsolete in any case.

For example in the 2nd world war the most common tank in the soviet armed forces was the t34. They built it very roughly without thinking about it as a vehicle to last. Why? Because they observed that the expected lifetime of a tank on the frontline was 6 months and was cheaper (resources, time, disruption of the front) to ship a new one than fixing a heavily damaged one.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(12-31-2018 11:45 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  ... or ugly coloured non-dimmable LED's at 10x the price.

I can absolutely not confirm that. Since LED bulbs became awailable I have replaced every failed incandescent and CFL bulb around the house with LED. Since then I have not have had to replace a single one again. Apart from a box of cheap ones that I got from eBay/China when they still were very expensive around here.
If you buy them form a quality manufacturer (e.g. Philips or Osram) there is a good coice of colours, they are all dimmable (which I am not interested in anyway) and the price has come down to 3-4 Euros a piece which I think is reasonable. CFLs and good halogen bulbs cost more than that.
In "my" horse riding club we have switched to LED lighting two years ago or so. Everything, inside, outside, flood lights for the 1000 square metre inside and outside riding arenas. Not a single LED lamp has failed to date (and they are nearly always on in the dark season from 16:00 to 23:00 every day). The light colour is much more pleasant the that of the prevoius CFL tubes and they are much brighter. The savings in electricity cost have already paid for the new lights. But we bought quality bulbs and lamps from an insustrial supplier, not the cheapest ones!

Regards
Max

[toml_12953]

(12-29-2018 04:45 PM)Albert Chan Wrote:  Interesting article ... Don't blame the manufacturer

Planned Obsolescence is your fault

I'd gladly use 20-30 year-old products if the manufacturers would make their products last that long. In fact I do use 35-year-old HP and TI calculators every day! One of the computers I use every day is a 3.5GHz 32-bit Pentium 4 with 4GB RAM. It still runs Win 7 like a champ and I see no reason to ditch it as long as it still runs fine. I use Microsoft's anti-virus and I've never had a virus infect it.

[DA74254]

@Max:
Well, the very first LED bulb I had, that failed was a Philips
Here in Latvia, we have "KanLUX" LED bulbs and spotlights (downlights) for the most part. Priced between €1,99-5,99.
My bedstand lamp, a 1,8w LED failed within a year. Considering I'm away half the time, it actually failed in less than half a year use. Which, with abt one hour use per night in 180 days is, well, 180 hours. That would be 0,45% of the expected lifetime of the bulb. Costwise, my 15W €0,35 incandescent would be better.
Again; you mentioned that you've saved electricity to cover the price of LED conversion. That may be in a big stable og storehouse. At home, as I already mentioned, you don't save that much. Consider you have a total of 300W worth of lighting. That means that you reduce your heating by 300W. Cost is the same. And the bulbs are still 1/10th the price at €0,35-0,50 for incandescent vs €2,- to €6,- for an LED bulb.

@toml_12953:
Me to. My desktop PC, although upgraded a couple of times, still runs most of the HDD's and RAM from 2009. Also the display is pre 2010 and functioning. What I removed during last upgrade (in 2014) was the floppy drive. Datestamped 08/92 and still functioning, though not more used.
I have my 28S from 1986 (or 87), which is in, if not daily, so at least fortnightly use.
My turntable or record player is from 1989 and my laserdisk player is from 1985. I'd admit I have a "fancy" smartphone, and nearing 3 years, it has become a tad slow and it begins to self reset at inconvenient times. A pity, since I like the phone and hoped it would last almost until they killed the 4G net, whereupon I had planned for a 5G phone

[Albert Chan]

(01-02-2019 06:12 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  Consider you have a total of 300W worth of lighting. That means that you reduce your heating by 300W.

Although above is technically true, economically, it might not.
Assuming the house require heating:

1. Wasted heat generated by electricity is likely the most expensive kind of heating.

2. Location of lighting normally is not designed for efficient home heating

Incandescents could heat your home, in a wildly inefficient way

Why the Bulb as heater argument falls short

[Zaphod]

(01-01-2019 12:45 AM)DA74254 Wrote:  Well, if you live in a cold country, that math doesn't add up. If I have a 60w light bulb lit, then I spend 60w less on my heating. And.. I get light as a bonus

You forget the (% of 60W) wattage of the actual light output ........

So depending on the actual light technology , technically you’d be spending ~>55W less on heating

[DA74254]

(01-02-2019 07:39 PM)Zaphod Wrote:  

(01-01-2019 12:45 AM)DA74254 Wrote:  Well, if you live in a cold country, that math doesn't add up. If I have a 60w light bulb lit, then I spend 60w less on my heating. And.. I get light as a bonus

You forget the (% of 60W) wattage of the actual light output ........

So depending on the actual light technology , technically you’d be spending ~>55W less on heating

Umm, no..
Technically, the light output is the "waste product" of heating

[DA74254]

(01-02-2019 07:24 PM)Albert Chan Wrote:  

(01-02-2019 06:12 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  Consider you have a total of 300W worth of lighting. That means that you reduce your heating by 300W.

Although above is technically true, economically, it might not.
Assuming the house require heating:

1. Wasted heat generated by electricity is likely the most expensive kind of heating.

2. Location of lighting normally is not designed for efficient home heating

Incandescents could heat your home, in a wildly inefficient way

Why the Bulb as heater argument falls short

That may be true in (south) Europe and "warm" countries. A study in Norway, which mainly uses electricity for heating, comes to the conclusion that my statement is fairly accurate.

[Thomas Okken]

(01-02-2019 10:25 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  A study in Norway, which mainly uses electricity for heating, comes to the conclusion that my statement is fairly accurate.

Does that study look at heat pumps?

[burkhard]

Having an argument about waste heat from electricity is a little silly. For some of us, heating with electricity would be extraordinarily expensive. For others, it's actually pretty darned cheap. We've got people on this forum all over the world—sources and rates vary wildly. At least as important are the costs of alternatives. A place with cheap electricity might have still cheaper natural gas making electricity a poor option for heating energy. Likewise a place with expensive electricity might have even more expensive everything else, making electric heat the best option of a bunch of bad ones.

It's further complicated that power sources are one of those things things that governments can't resist tinkering with via public policy, taxation, and subsidies.

In the end, there is no "universal" answer, world or even region-wide because situations vary tremendously. Where I live in the USA, I pay about US$ 0.12 per kW×hr of electricity. People in a town nearby (15 minutes away) have it much cheaper (paying only about half of what I pay!). While I wouldn't think of heating with electricity, folks in that town tend to have more electric heat (both resistive and heat pumps) as well as electric cars. They might even switch all their light bulbs back to old incandescent ones in the wintertime as well, but I'm not sure of that :-)

[DA74254]

(01-02-2019 11:15 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  

(01-02-2019 10:25 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  A study in Norway, which mainly uses electricity for heating, comes to the conclusion that my statement is fairly accurate.

Does that study look at heat pumps?

That, I don't remember. Even so, heat pumps are not very effective in subzero temps that is present for 6 to 7 months of winter in Northern Norway.

@burkhard:
El. price in North Norway has no V.A.T due to the fact that one simply need more electricity for heating on a general basis. It's seldom average temperatures in excess of +20°C, even in summer. Heating has to be on throughout the year. Up to the seventies, coal was used a lot by private homes. Through the seventies and early eighties, it was fairly common with kerosene heating but electrical heating became more common and/or in addition to kerosene. Gas have never "caught on" in Norway. Besides, it's deemed less "green" than electric heating.
Since the government of Norway now think that it must save the world all alone (with all its 5 mill inhabitants, or a mere city block in NY), everything is taxed down or illegal. Coal and kerosene heating is banned and everybody with a kerosene tank has to remove it by own cost before the end og 2020.
Norway's environmentally friendly hydropower is sold out to the highest bidder in Europe and "dirty" coal power is imported back at higher prices. Everything in the "green" interest. The ACER was agreed upon by the government under heavy protests from the citizens. Anyway, enough politics (and I've moved from Norway and use gas for waterborne heating). El.prices in Norway, with the new "smart" KW-meter and "efficiency tax" now has pushed the household cost up 10-30% depending whether you live in the south or the north. Not really sure of the prices anymore, but my parents pays abt NOK 0,60 per KWh or abt US$0,07.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(01-03-2019 02:28 AM)burkhard Wrote:  For some of us, heating with electricity would be extraordinarily expensive.

Heating with electricity generated from fossil fuels (which is how 50% of the electricity is generated in my part of the world) is expensive for everybody on this planet, not only the one who directly pays the electricity bill. Even the present occupant of the white house had to finally admit that a short while ago.

And don't forget about those parts of the world where cooling is required instead of heating. Removig one Joule of heat costs three to four joules of electricity if the air condition is powered electrically (and most of them are). Generating one Joule of electricity from burning fossile fuels again consumes about three Joules of stored chemical energy. And overall efficiency below 10%. Which means that a 100W incandescent bulb in an air conditioned building requires the equivalent of 1kW of coal, oil or natural gas to be burnt (or Unranium atoms split) on the other side of the cable. Replacing those bulbs with LEDs pays off big time!

Regards
Max

[Thomas Okken]

(01-03-2019 12:11 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  And don't forget about those parts of the world where cooling is required instead of heating. Removig one Joule of heat costs three to four joules of electricity

The EER ratings I'm googling suggest a usage of about a quarter of a joule, or less, of energy used per joule of heat removed by modern AC units. That strikes me as plausible since it's also in line with heat pump efficiency ratings I'm seeing.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(01-03-2019 02:02 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  The EER ratings I'm googling suggest a usage of about a quarter of a joule, or less, of energy used per joule of heat removed by modern AC units. That strikes me as plausible since it's also in line with heat pump efficiency ratings I'm seeing.

There can be no fixed numbers as it very much depends on the process temperatures. My figures above were for the worst case. Unfortunately this is what I see very often: Protable AC units with a hot-air hose that is supposed to be routed through a hole in the window (or wall), but which are operated with the window half open so that the hose can hang outside. Used like this, they have a negative efficiency because they add the heat from their electrical motor to the room temperature and really only cool their immediate surroundings. But even when operated properly these things are very inefficient.

For the studio of my wife (which is above the garage in a separate building) we use an electrically driven heat pump with an air-to-air heat exchanger. Under optimum conditions (say outside temperature 15°C for a room temperature of 20 degrees) it will add about 2.5kW to the 2kW that the motor draws, thereby more than doubling the electrical energy. Today (-5°C outside) it will "harvest" less than 0.5kW with those 2kW input. And operated the other way round (for cooling) the figures can only be worse because other than with heating the heat lost by cooling the engine is really lost.
(Heat pumps that can use ground water or geothermal energy the efficiency is much better.)

Regards
Max

[Garth Wilson]

Wow, you guys have it easy. I'm in the middle of Los Angeles county. I'm looking at my last electric bill, and the first tier of 350kWh cost $.17/kWh, tier 2 costs $.25/kWh, and tier 3 costs $.35/kWh; and then there's tax on top of that, and that's all on top of a basic charge. Our local power plants are powered by natural gas. We were just barely into tier 2 for November, and the bill was $73. It will be quite a bit more for December (over $100) because of my wife's Christmas lights.

[Thomas Okken]

(01-03-2019 04:54 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  

(01-03-2019 02:02 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  The EER ratings I'm googling suggest a usage of about a quarter of a joule, or less, of energy used per joule of heat removed by modern AC units. That strikes me as plausible since it's also in line with heat pump efficiency ratings I'm seeing.

There can be no fixed numbers as it very much depends on the process temperatures. My figures above were for the worst case. Unfortunately this is what I see very often: Protable AC units with a hot-air hose that is supposed to be routed through a hole in the window (or wall), but which are operated with the window half open so that the hose can hang outside. Used like this, they have a negative efficiency because they add the heat from their electrical motor to the room temperature and really only cool their immediate surroundings. But even when operated properly these things are very inefficient.

I didn't see you qualify that four-for-one number as "worst case" anywhere. Now that you are suggesting an actual scenario of how to get that kind of terrible performance, all I can say is that that may be a common scenario in Germany, but in places like the U.S. where residential AC is a lot more common, central or wall-mounted AC is the norm, and in those kinds of units, there is no mixing of inside and outside air.

I've seen the portable units with hoses that you describe, and they come with an adjustable plastic piece that fits in a sliding window, so that the inevitable slit is closed off and only air from the hose goes through. I'm not sure how much it matters though, because if it blows air out, air must come back in somewhere. And in Germany where you tend to have pivoting windows, not sliding ones, it wouldn't fit anyway.

(01-03-2019 04:54 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  For the studio of my wife (which is above the garage in a separate building) we use an electrically driven heat pump with an air-to-air heat exchanger. Under optimum conditions (say outside temperature 15°C for a room temperature of 20 degrees) it will add about 2.5kW to the 2kW that the motor draws, thereby more than doubling the electrical energy. Today (-5°C outside) it will "harvest" less than 0.5kW with those 2kW input. And operated the other way round (for cooling) the figures can only be worse because other than with heating the heat lost by cooling the engine is really lost.
(Heat pumps that can use ground water or geothermal energy the efficiency is much better.)

I'll admit that I'm not an expert on this, but I know someone who is, and they opined that the yield you're getting out of your unit is rather bad. You're quoting coefficients of performance of 2.25 and 1.25 for ideal vs. cold conditions, but you should be able to get around 6 and 3, respectively. It could be your unit is dirty, or just not very good. You may want to get that looked at.