# Spreading the hate: Integrated LEDs.



## wcord (Jan 23, 2011)

I agree about the fact that you are stuck with the fixture. We've all seen how quickly a product becomes obsolete. Had 1 project where we waited 4 months for a brand new design hit the market. 6 months later, no longer available. 
My lighting salesperson prefers to spec fixtures with bulbs. Easily replaced, no OEM driver, no built in obsolescence


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

I'm gonna be honest with you Greg. Right now, I don't give a rat's hoot for 5-10 years from now what happens with integrated led lights. Nor will I be wistful about the good old days when lights had a lamp that screwed into the socket. I guarantee that by then I will be so sick dealing with 8/32 screws that don't hold while attempting to attach a bracket to the fixture box that I won't be answering my phone any longer....... That and the ridiculous and insane code changes that don't protect the public in reality , but sure make life nice for the manufacturer's. Besides, in 5-10 years there will be laws that prevent using lights at night because all the electric vehicles are charging at that time , and gasoline cars are as useless as a horseshoe.


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## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

Wafers cost $16.00 today. 10 years from now they will cost $6. What better way to freshen up the looks of a place? Especially since the "trims will be discolored".

The same holds true for most other lights, they will get cheaper.

As far as the landfill, ever hear of recycling?

The one area I will agree with you somewhat is "fluorescent" style fixtures. Particularly row mounted/ surface mounted. Not so much the standard looking models, those will like always look "standard". It's the decorator/architectural models that will cause problems. 

Last T-bar panel I put up not only had adjustable color, it also had adjustable output and dimming. All for what I thought was a very reasonable price, about the same as the fluorescent equivalent. Kind of hard to get that kind of flexibility without throwing something in the trash.

What happens if you install housings and they stop making edison LED lamps? Might not happen tomorrow, but it might the day after.


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## MotoGP1199 (Aug 11, 2014)

I despise integrated LED's on basically everything. For the reasons that you mentioned. I hate having to change out a whole fixture in 2 years when the light fails prematurely. And I think it's a complete waste of everything that has to be replaced because of a light that went out. Wafers have their place but everything else is a joke. That being said in my house I installed LED ready recess lighting. That way I'm just changing out the trim kit and not the entire can or wafer.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Pretty sure I can change out a wafer light in the same amount of time as re- lamping. Or purty near to it..... yep. Maybe not the driver, but I haven't had a single failure in the driver side of things yet. And why is that macmikeman? 9 watts is why I replied...........


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

When we talk about high bays, I have been suggesting that people consider replacing what's there with cord and plug connected LED highbays, so that they can stock a few spares and have the maintenance people change them when they go. Most of the bigger brands have a cord and plug connected option in the spec sheets but good luck getting those without a big order for a big warehouse or something, never saw anyone stocking them, even before the pandemic supply crunch. 

The cordsets are cheap, even 277V are were less than $10 last time. There was some brief debate about the code correctness of installing your own cordsets, concensus has been it's compliant. The other thing that you have to think about is the connection for the 0-10V dimming wire.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

splatz said:


> When we talk about high bays, I have been suggesting that people consider replacing what's there with cord and plug connected LED highbays, so that they can stock a few spares and have the maintenance people change them when they go. Most of the bigger brands have a cord and plug connected option in the spec sheets but good luck getting those without a big order for a big warehouse or something, never saw anyone stocking them, even before the pandemic supply crunch.
> 
> The cordsets are cheap, even 277V are were less than $10 last time. There was some brief debate about the code correctness of installing your own cordsets, concensus has been it's compliant. The other thing that you have to think about is the connection for the 0-10V dimming wire.


Who exactly is it that dims a warehouse, especially one with high bays? Is that so they can't see it better?


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

My new prediction if things keep on the way they are........

*Mandatory* whole house battery backup systems. $$$$$$$$$.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

macmikeman said:


> Who exactly is it that dims a warehouse, especially one with high bays? Is that so they can't see it better?


Another thing I suggest is to keep in mind the LEDs lose some brightness over time, so buy them with more lumens than you need and dim them now, use the dimmer to adjust for that over the years. You could go with those elaborate setups they're mandating in California now where they put in light level sensors and the dimmers interact with the sensors and do that automatically, that's where we're probably headed.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Corral ifonia


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## dspiffy (Nov 25, 2013)

I agree 100%


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## ohm it hertz (Dec 2, 2020)

I offer extra units to my customers. The simpler looking the fixture the easier it is to match. 🤷‍♂️

I agree that integrated anything is wasteful, but that's how it is right now. I couldn't tell you the last time I read plans that spec'd traditional cans. I had to match two cans in a small remodel about 3 years ago and that's the last time I installed them.


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## kb1jb1 (Nov 11, 2017)

I feel a lot of us are not too fond of LEDs but use them because of the power draw and quick installation 9f the wafer type. Another drawback I find is even though they claim to be brighter I find that they are not. Looking at them they are bright but the focused lighting is poor.


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## SWDweller (Dec 9, 2020)

Ya I have heard of recycling. Where I us ed to work we had a metal dumpster and a wood dumpster both 9 yard both dumped once a week. Then some GEN X, Y or Z got hired and he took it upon himself to get into paper and card board recycling. Hint there is NO ONE in my area that uses recycled paper/card board. China quit buying ours so now the bails just sit until there is a freight car full and then they go far away. The paper and cardboard recycling cost 2x more than the other combined. There went part of my bonus that year. Now when it comes to glass for get about it no one will discuss the issue. I am all for recycling but it needs to be real not propped up by the government making the cronies rich before they file bankruptcy and retire. Remember the American solar panel companies.


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## kb1jb1 (Nov 11, 2017)

SWDweller said:


> Ya I have heard of recycling. Where I us ed to work we had a metal dumpster and a wood dumpster both 9 yard both dumped once a week. Then some GEN X, Y or Z got hired and he took it upon himself to get into paper and card board recycling. Hint there is NO ONE in my area that uses recycled paper/card board. China quit buying ours so now the bails just sit until there is a freight car full and then they go far away. The paper and cardboard recycling cost 2x more than the other combined. There went part of my bonus that year. Now when it comes to glass for get about it no one will discuss the issue. I am all for recycling but it needs to be real not propped up by the government making the cronies rich before they file bankruptcy and retire. Remember the American solar panel companies.


Unfortunately the recycling systems are flawed. Many types of plastic and not all are recyclable. Now the parking lots have to have several dumpsters as you mentioned. Glass, plastic, metal, paper, trash. A lot of municipalities have incinerators that burn garbage to produce electricity and if they fall below the required amount of burnable trash they have to burn the paper. Several large office buildings I used to do maintenance on had a major green / save the environment / recycling program but only had one trash compact where everything got dumped into.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

splatz said:


> Another thing I suggest is to keep in mind the LEDs lose some brightness over time, so buy them with more lumens than you need and dim them now, use the dimmer to adjust for that over the years. You could go with those elaborate setups they're mandating in California now where they put in light level sensors and the dimmers interact with the sensors and do that automatically, that's where we're probably headed.


That's been done with pro sports stadium lighting for 15+ years now. 
Start with lights brighter than needed and dim them down so as they age you can dim them up to produce the same output.
It's for the television production.


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## aidonius (Jul 10, 2018)

I am also all for recycling but i think it's pretty unreasonable to think that LED fixtures are going to be recycled. Think of all the items on the job site that are a mix of scrap metal and plastic that go straight into the garbage because nobody wants to spend the time separating them. This is without considering the actual reality of recycling programs like kb1jb1 is saying.
Even if you could realistically separate the different materials in the lights it's pretty hard to believe that most of those materials would be worth anything. As far as I can tell most of the electronics recycling programs in canada are NGOs funded directly by the government or from the government legislating the manufacturers to pay a certain amount per year for recycling programs. I doubt that any of them make money at all.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

MikeFL said:


> That's been done with pro sports stadium lighting for 15+ years now.
> Start with lights brighter than needed and dim them down so as they age you can dim them up to produce the same output.
> It's for the television production.


I have heard the leagues have very detailed lighting levels in their contracts with the stadiums, they actually send around auditors to do lighting level tests. The lighting systems have ten year and even twenty year maintenance contracts where the company will replace bad lights and ensure the lighting levels. With millions invested it makes sense they'd be careful about getting their lifespan out of them.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

Haven’t read all the posts but LED’s were supposed to save the planet, not fill the landfills with fixtures.


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## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

splatz said:


> Another thing I suggest is to keep in mind the LEDs lose some brightness over time, so buy them with more lumens than you need and dim them now, use the dimmer to adjust for that over the years. You could go with those elaborate setups they're mandating in California now where they put in light level sensors and the dimmers interact with the sensors and do that automatically, that's where we're probably headed.


Every light source has lumen depreciation. With old fashioned bulbs, published data was provided to allow for depreciation over time when designing. With LED’s, who knows?

Another thing is dirt depreciation. I know what you’re saying, splatz, but it isn’t saving energy when you crank up the dimmer when the fixtures should actually be taken down and hosed down (assuming today’s flimsy fixtures could survive being hosed down).


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## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

I've only ever promoted them as energy saving alternatives. 

I've had very few failures with quality products. Even with fixtures I've installed 7-8 years ago. With conventional lighting, I would have put at least one round of lamps into the trash. And likely a ballast or two. What's worse, pot metal or mercury?


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## aidonius (Jul 10, 2018)

splatz said:


> I have heard the leagues have very detailed lighting levels in their contracts with the stadiums, they actually send around auditors to do lighting level tests. The lighting systems have ten year and even twenty year maintenance contracts where the company will replace bad lights and ensure the lighting levels. With millions invested it makes sense they'd be careful about getting their lifespan out of them.


At work we got a call a few weeks ago for just that. According to the test they did the overall lighting levels were good but the light wasn't sufficiently spread out so we had to go move things around. We regularly get calls for the lighting in the gyms as well in the days leading up to tournaments the school is hosting. They seem to put a pretty high priority on it here where university level sports are not nearly as big of a deal as the pro leagues in the US so I can only imagine how particular the NFL is for example.


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

99cents said:


> Every light source has lumen depreciation. With old fashioned bulbs, published data was provided to allow for depreciation over time when designing. With LED’s, who knows?
> 
> Another thing is dirt depreciation. I know what you’re saying, splatz, but it isn’t saving energy when you crank up the dimmer when the fixtures should actually be taken down and hosed down (assuming today’s flimsy fixtures could survive being hosed down).


That's a good point. They have that L70 rating but they are not actually tested to that rating, they use a formula to predict it, but I don't think anyone buys it, and the drivers fail well before the LEDs themselves anyway.


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## superdeez (Sep 13, 2010)

Finally someone else who hates integrated LEDs! I personally if I have to go LED, will go out of my way to get a fixture with a socket or tombstones just so I can retrofit it if needed.

When I worked at the airport I began to have to replace integrated LED lights and we didn't have appropriate driver/LED replacements. For some of the ones that look like outdoor fluorescents, we had some that were similar, but required the entire fixture can to be replaced. When they're piped fixture to fixture this meant I had to pull wire back two fixtures, take the pipe loose with the can, then put it together and fight it all to fit again. I also had to change the brackets on the ceiling. Now to make that more interesting, the fixtures we had for this had 347V drivers. There was no 347V on that entire property that I knew about, so I had to take the driver out of the old fixture and tek screw it in the new fixture. This was made more challenging by the old driver being the same form factor as an electronic ballast and the useless 347V driver and its bracket being the size of a pack of cigarettes. But I could shoehorn it all in there.

We had some others in bathrooms where I had to take an LED strip light and strip all of the parts out of the can (driver and the individual LED strips) and tek screw them to the fixture can and trim. The driver in the "donor" fixture was held in with threaded posts that had round heads and I figured out it was easier to cut them off with my Dremel from home than trying to use long nose pliers or wire strippers to hold the "bolts" while I tried to get the nuts off. I then would turn the existing fixture into an abortion of wire nuts, scrap wire and tek screws, but it looked good and worked when closed.

In either case it I got it to about a 90 minute procedure or maybe less if I got lucky and didn't have to do too much disassembly/reassembly. Edit: I guess while all of that was more difficult than changing a fluorescent or LED tube lamp, it helped me build character.

I would rather buy a NOS fixture and bypass it before I install it just for ease of maintenance myself. But integrated LED is better because you have to buy a new fixture and it keeps the assembly lines busy. Better yet if you have to change several working fixtures to make everything match now. Trouble is the people who buy the fixtures have either never done the work (and never will) or they're so far away from their tools they've really forgotten what the work is like.


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## CraziFuzzy (Jul 10, 2019)

I did make the decision to put in PAR20 cans when I remodeled my kitchen a few years ago, based on not being tied to a specific light style and can just change out bulbs as time goes on - but in the last year, the LED fixtures have gotten so cheap and easy to deal with that I don't know if that decision was all that important. I'm going to be adding some lights to my carport soon, and will not be going with actual cans - I'm just going to get whatever cheap slap-em-up led's and be done with it.


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## Veteran Sparky (Apr 21, 2021)

Greg Sparkovich said:


> What about the environment?
> This may not be important to you, but this is another reason why I no longer install integrated LEDS:
> 
> _*Besides the huge waste of your money, these are also just more junk for landfills. When you throw out a light bulb, it takes up space in a landfill. An entire integrated LED fixture takes up a lot more space.*_ Plus, it certainly takes more energy to manufacture an entire new light fixture than it does a light bulb. Don't let yourself get sold on this scam. _Standard LED light bulbs are great for the environment since they use less electricity, but integrated LEDs are an environmental disaster_.


The first part of your post, we have talked about at nauseum between our office, vendors, customers. 

The last paragraph...I do not fully agree. A lightbulb that is on all the time lasts less than a year, LED's can last a decade. In a decade think how many bulbs you threw out.
There is much more to worry about landfill wise than ILED. How about office fit outs? Whenever a tenant moves out and office is renovated for new tenant and you have whole ceiling full of can housings, MC, conduit, wire. Lets not forget the walls, sheetrock, insulation, duct work...all gets thrown in a large dumpster and taken to the dump. That...should make you sick if anything. OR...where do you think all the batteries for cordless tools, flashlights, or anything else you use them for. AND...cell phones, iPads, game consoles, TV's, etc. AND...car batteries from electric cars. What are we going to do with all those if country goes all EV?


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Mast and full set of sails. They will have to widen the roads a bit so I can tack properly though.


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## Greg Sparkovich (Sep 15, 2007)

99cents said:


> Haven’t read all the posts but LED’s were supposed to save the planet, not fill the landfills with fixtures.


I'm not anti-capitalist, but this is definitely one of the things that sucks about capitalism -there are few considerations for hidden expenses that society pays for without making manufacturers responsible. Hence we end up with an ignorant and lazy citizenship that doesn't know ...and can't be bothered(!) because HEY, IT'S MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL AND RE-RUNS OFI LOVE LUCY!!!

_EVERYTHING_ in life boils down to "Principals vs. Economics" and we choose economics almost every time.


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## Greg Sparkovich (Sep 15, 2007)

Veteran Sparky said:


> The first part of your post, we have talked about at nauseum between our office, vendors, customers.
> 
> The last paragraph...I do not fully agree. A lightbulb that is on all the time lasts less than a year, LED's can last a decade. In a decade think how many bulbs you threw out.
> There is much more to worry about landfill wise than ILED. How about office fit outs? Whenever a tenant moves out and office is renovated for new tenant and you have whole ceiling full of can housings, MC, conduit, wire. Lets not forget the walls, sheetrock, insulation, duct work...all gets thrown in a large dumpster and taken to the dump. That...should make you sick if anything. OR...where do you think all the batteries for cordless tools, flashlights, or anything else you use them for. AND...cell phones, iPads, game consoles, TV's, etc. AND...car batteries from electric cars. What are we going to do with all those if country goes all EV?


I agree. But the problem isn't about Integrated LEDs vs. Non integrated ...it's about the silliness of fussy people who look bad if they don't spend money. It's like the kids who run tech companies and keep "upgrading" products that actually work. They HAVE to do something to justify their jobs ...and the rest of us suffer for it.


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