# GE's new 250 watt corncob



## electricbysullivan (Aug 16, 2013)

Heard that it was coming next week. Has internal fans in it. Perhaps it will last and not smother in the heat.


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## joebanana (Dec 21, 2010)

A light bulb with fans in it? Hmmmmmm! (literally) How many of those 250 watts are wasted as heat?


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

joebanana said:


> A light bulb with fans in it? Hmmmmmm! (literally) How many of those 250 watts are wasted as heat?


Less than what it takes to boil mercury or whatever is in an old fashioned lamp. I bought and installed a lamp with a fan in it several years ago. They haven't called back yet. 
I just want to add that LEDs seem to have a duty rating.
We just re-lamped a project with customer supplied $5 Home Depot lamps, about 300 of them. They didn't want to pay $8.50 ++ from us and our supplier. 
Their brand was FEIT or something like that.
The labeled said 35,000 hours based on *3 hours per day of operation*. 

Is that typical of Light Emitting Decorations??


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## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

electricbysullivan said:


> Heard that it was coming next week. Has internal fans in it. Perhaps it will last and not smother in the heat.


Not sure what good that would do if not in a properly ventilated fixture.
It would literally turn the fixture into a convection oven, blowing hot air around inside it.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Helmut said:


> Not sure what good that would do if not in a properly ventilated fixture.
> It would literally turn the fixture into a convection oven, blowing hot air around inside it.


I seriously doubt a 250 watt lamp with a fan would be rated for use with an enclosed fixture.


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## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

Southeast Power said:


> I seriously doubt a 250 watt lamp with a fan would be rated for use with an enclosed fixture.


A corn cob?

Where else would you use them? Them are edison based.


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## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

Is it a 250 LED or 250W LED equivalent?

That would be around 60W.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

This is a good idea because now the LEDs don't have to last forever, as long as they last longer with the fan :wacko:


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## nrp3 (Jan 24, 2009)

I've had a couple of requests for corncob replacements in shoebox parking lot lights and haven't been to keen on the idea. I have some places that I think they'd be a good idea, but the most recent requests not so much. I priced new fixtures instead with a separate price for the corncobs. By the time I gut them out and find out whether they fit or not, because I'd have to rent a lift just to look, I'd feel more confident in fixture replacement.


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## Forge Boyz (Nov 7, 2014)

I replaced some metal halide uplighting in a restaurant using some paclight bulbs that had a fan in them, and within about a year or so 2 of them had failed due to dust build up in them. The customer now has sweeping his light bulbs on his maintenance list.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

Southeast Power said:


> I just want to add that LEDs seem to have a duty rating.
> We just re-lamped a project with customer supplied $5 Home Depot lamps, about 300 of them. They didn't want to pay $8.50 ++ from us and our supplier.
> Their brand was FEIT or something like that.
> The labeled said 35,000 hours based on *3 hours per day of operation*.
> ...


It's not a duty rating. It's a way to say that the bulb will last for 30 years.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

HackWork said:


> It's not a duty rating. It's a way to say that the bulb will last for 30 years.


The box has 35,000 hours written all over it. Some of the lamps will burn 24/7, some are in a closet on a motion sensor.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

Southeast Power said:


> The box has 35,000 hours written all over it. Some of the lamps will burn 24/7, some are in a closet on a motion sensor.


The "based off of 3 hours per day" thing is an average number used by the manufacturers so that they can say that their bulbs will last many years.

35,000 hours / 3 = 12,000 / 365 = 33 years 

So based off of that 3 hours per day they can say that the bulb will last 33 years.

The 3 hours isn't a duty rating, it's advertising propaganda.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

The only thing I've seen corncob LED's do is fail.


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## Galt (Sep 11, 2013)

I put a dozen or so in a warehouse 3 years ago still working, about 50 hours per week.

Got them at the local hardware hank


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

HackWork said:


> It's not a duty rating. It's a way to say that the bulb will last for 30 years.


Yes and it’s why LED claims are a quagmire of steaming $hit.

Traditional lamp mortality is based on how many hours it takes for half the lamps to burn out. There is no industry attempts that I know of to determine LED mortality.

And don’t get me going on this thing that warm white suddenly became bright white...

...and lumens seem to be something manufacturers pull out of their asses.


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## Galt (Sep 11, 2013)

You would think by now they could come up with some standards. The lumens don't seem like something you can go by. For sure above 12 to 14 feet. I'm afraid to try new fixtures with lower prices because of the light output doubts.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

This goes way beyond my paygrade and attention level, but from what I understand a lumen count alone doesn't mean much without including other factors. So one light can seem to be much brighter than another with the same amount of lumens.


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## electricbysullivan (Aug 16, 2013)

Supposed to be a 1000-watt MH equal. I go to a wholesaler OEM who sells to anyone, more of them than you think hidden out there. Anyhow at 545 AM last week we were shooting the chit and he mentioned the GE bulb.

He always claimed cobs up to 100/120 is all a shoebox could take. Some people drilled out and put tubes/straws to make stuff work, but on a fixture outside, it is just another way to let water in.

I was at my local supply house this morning picking up a 200-amp service kit and was talking about that to the manager. He claims the old 250 heating up, burned the glue off itself and then dropped out of industrial round high bays a few years back.

Personally, I would go with a sealed unit real leds. Retrofitting is not even worth it with prices dropping.

PS: I have used Cobra Head Paddles in the past a 115 watt is a 400 eq .It shoots down like a brush.


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## Galt (Sep 11, 2013)

Iv'e been pleased with all products from RAAB. but more money.


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## wcord (Jan 23, 2011)

nrp3 said:


> I've had a couple of requests for corncob replacements in shoebox parking lot lights and haven't been to keen on the idea. I have some places that I think they'd be a good idea, but the most recent requests not so much. I priced new fixtures instead with a separate price for the corncobs. By the time I gut them out and find out whether they fit or not, because I'd have to rent a lift just to look, I'd feel more confident in fixture replacement.


I relamped a few wallpacks to see if it was worth it.
The corncob is too close to the back reflector to allow much light to bounce forward. Ends up only 1/2 as bright.
I agree, fixture replacement is the proper way to do it


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## svh19044 (Jul 1, 2008)

Galt said:


> Iv'e been pleased with all products from RAAB. but more money.


The key for RAB is that they make massive heat sinks on their products. It's a no brainer, and thus the reason they can make 100k rated LED's on a lot of products compared to 30-50k.


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

svh19044 said:


> The key for RAB is that they make massive heat sinks on their products. It's a no brainer, and thus the reason they can make 100k rated LED's on a lot of products compared to 30-50k.


Yet their best residential motion sensor lights can't handle LED bulbs :sad:


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## svh19044 (Jul 1, 2008)

HackWork said:


> Yet their best residential motion sensor lights can't handle LED bulbs :sad:


They aren't specifically rated for them yet I've never had a problem using any of the Stealth series with LED. :sad:


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## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

svh19044 said:


> They aren't specifically rated for them yet I've never had a problem using any of the Stealth series with LED. :sad:


From what I have read the inrush of the LED bulb will damage the sensor. RAB says not to use them. 

I haven't had a problem using LEDs either, but I install the more expensive RAB's because they are supposed to be reliable and not cause me to have to go back, so I don't want to push it.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

HackWork said:


> From what I have read the inrush of the LED bulb will damage the sensor. RAB says not to use them.
> 
> I haven't had a problem using LEDs either, but I install the more expensive RAB's because they are supposed to be reliable and not cause me to have to go back, so I don't want to push it.


I had a dark spot in a commercial job recently and the easy fix was a small Rab flood wall mounted indoors. It actually worked very well. I could easily see them used as night lights in the proper setting.


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## goldengadgets (Apr 8, 2019)

svh19044 said:


> The key for RAB is that they make massive heat sinks on their products. It's a no brainer, and thus the reason they can make 100k rated LED's on a lot of products compared to 30-50k.


New Gen manufacturer strategy is combine both Massive Heat Sinks + Lots and Lots of LED in the COB to offset the load each LED has to bare. In the early days of LEDs, the chips were too expensive so they just kept on upping the Amps to get more light out of a chip but now that chips are less expensive they can just go from 1 big chip running 5-Watts to 5 little chips from 1-Watts and produce significantly less heat.


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## goldengadgets (Apr 8, 2019)

I've been distributing LED bulbs are a while now and I almost never recommend an LED corn bulb because of the all the issues listed on this forum.

1. Corn bulbs need heat dissipation (with or without fan) and you can't dissipate heat inside a completely enclosed fixture. earlier convection oven comment is spot on.

2. Almost all the LED Corn Bulbs are not "Wet Location" rated. You need to modify the fixture to let airflow in/out but that moisture is bound to find its way into the fixture.

3. Light direction is crap. Sometimes you find single sided corn bulbs for wall packs and it's suppose to "direct" the light out of the fixture but the light output is nowhere near an LED fixture where the LEDs and the lens are directing the light where it should go

about 2=3 years ago, I had a large scale computer manufacturer upgrade his whole parking lot to LED Corn Bulbs cause he was "saving money and electricity" for his facility. He has shorter 18ft poles in a parking lot with like 50 poles. He had me quote his facility for both LED corn bulb and fixtures and I only quoted the LED corn bulb with a stipulation that I will not warranty them for more than 6 months regardless of what the box says. Fixture came with 5 year warranty per DLC standards. Customer ended up choosing to get the LED Corn bulbs from another lighting distributor and I was off the hook. 7 months after installation, I get a call from the facilities manager telling me that 2-3 of the bulbs are flickering and he asked that I look at it for him to see whats wrong.

During inspection, all the LED corn Bulbs were installed in enclosed fixtures and usually after about 30-1 hour on, the bulbs start to flicker. I told him that they're over-heating and that he needed to remove all the lens on the fixture so the bulbs are at least directly exposed to air to help with heat dissipation. His reply..."What happens when it rains?"...my reply "your bulb isn't weatherproof?"

He ended up having the bulbs replaced over and over for a period of 1-2 years till eventually the distributor/manufacturer stopped taking his calls and he had to hire scissor lift and electrician to replace them multiple times with the same results after about 6-8 months.

Crazy thing is that in 2018 I started seeing DLC rated LED Corn Bulbs with 5 year warranties. I've seen some of the new generation LED corn bulbs and even used some in certain limited situations, but I never recommend LED corn bulbs and if I do I always stipulate 6 months warranty.


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## Chris Wendt (Oct 13, 2015)

Be careful of the location you use these lamps with the on board fans. I have had a bad experience twice using LED's with on board fans " They weren't GE, so maybe things have gotten better". Once in an exterior fixture that had a hole in the bottom made to drain any moisture or water that got in the fixture. Well the problem is the bugs would get in the fixtures and the on board fans would suck them on to the bulb, and cause them to overheat and fail. Second time was in a facility that had many clothes dryers and the lint would get stuck in the bulb and cause them to overheat. Learned this the hard way as each site had many many lamps installed.


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