LED degradation over time.

[bigclive]

I'm guessing you guys 'n' gals are all aware that LEDs degrade over time and will produce less light for the same power.

Red is usually the most stable unless it's an early light where they grilled the reds to try and match the other colours, but the blue, green and white gallium nitride based colours seem to degrade at a surprising rate.

 

If you install LED lights but then keep some bought at the same time as spares, then there will be a very obvious difference in intensity after a year (if they last that long) when a new lamp is fitted in amongst the others.

The same effect is very apparent on some LED screens, even though the LEDs on them are usually run at quite low current.

 

With the move away from tungsten to LED I wonder how many lights are actually being designed with a standardised LED module that will allow replacement in the future, possibly even with more efficient emitters.

My guess is that very few are being designed with that in mind, so the entire fixtures will end up as landfill.

 

Tungsten landfill mainly glass, ceramic and minimal metal from the replaceable lamp.

 

LED parcan landfill huge block of alloy with PCBs and plastics.

[sunray]

I'm guessing you guys 'n' gals are all aware that LEDs degrade over time and will produce less light for the same power.

Red is usually the most stable unless it's an early light where they grilled the reds to try and match the other colours, but the blue, green and white gallium nitride based colours seem to degrade at a surprising rate.

 

If you install LED lights but then keep some bought at the same time as spares, then there will be a very obvious difference in intensity after a year (if they last that long) when a new lamp is fitted in amongst the others.

The same effect is very apparent on some LED screens, even though the LEDs on them are usually run at quite low current.

 

With the move away from tungsten to LED I wonder how many lights are actually being designed with a standardised LED module that will allow replacement in the future, possibly even with more efficient emitters.

My guess is that very few are being designed with that in mind, so the entire fixtures will end up as landfill.

 

Tungsten landfill mainly glass, ceramic and minimal metal from the replaceable lamp.

 

LED parcan landfill huge block of alloy with PCBs and plastics.

Again, it's nice to find someone who has the same thought process as myself.One of the Schools I do some work for purchased 12 Eurolite LED PAR64's summer of 2017 but being a School found the process of plugging 12 lamps into 10 sockets too difficult and 2 were hung on the same bar as the others and even linked in to the DMX but not powered. Come the end of year show 2019, 5 of the fittings had failed and simply plugging the 2 spares in revealed the difference was astounding both in colour and brightness.

 

[Tomo]

Within the EU suppliers must comply with WEEEEEEE*, which requires the supplier to arrange for suitable recycling at the end of the device's lifetime.

(Some do this by direct return, others by paying into 3rd party schemes)

 

Most of an LED fixture is pretty easy to recycle.

- By mass they're mostly sheet steel and alumnium blocks/castings that will pop away from the rest with a few screws and/or heating.

- Some have glass optics, which is again simple.

 

Plastic optics and casings might be harder or impossible to recycle, depends what it's made of.

 

The PCBs are more difficult. I'm not sure how much is actually extracted and how much ends up being burned or buried.

Obviously the gold and copper is recycled, but I'm pretty sure IC epoxies, FR4 et al substrates are impossible to recycle.

 

While some fixtures are using copper or aluminium-cored PCBs for the LED arrays, which are reasonably easy to recycle (but a total pain to manufacture), pretty much all of them are also using FR4-style or CEM (paper-backed) PCB materials.

 

So an LED parcan landfill should be a very tiny amount of ash.

- As long as the user does actually return them for recycling, which is a different question I guess.

 

_{* Might have too many E's.}

[richardash1981]

Topically:

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/01/e-waste-recycling-process-developed-to-stop-environmental-contamination/

So, no, not much you can do with FR4 ...

 

[musht]

WEEE isn`t what it appears to be, balance of large amounts of Far East imports is there is a large amount of empty capacity heading West to East, sometimes chock full of Western waste.

 

If only other sectors were subject to take back legislation, supermarkets with all their plastic packaging..., back at the topic

 

50K hours seems to be often replaced with anywhere from 15-30K hours on lamps now, which on some of them may be the expected life of the driver rather than the emmitter.

 

Been through this with compact fluros that had lifespans of less than 1K hours because of duff driver electronics.

 

Rush to replace fluro with LED, T5 fluro lamp has a genuine 25K hour usable lifespan, like most sources, tungsten excepted, light output will drop over time.

 

LEDs are still very sensitive to heat , its one thing to add a chunky heatsink, it seems another to actually bother adding any thermal path from the LED to the heatsink in some designs.

 

There is a Standard aiming for interconnection, Zhaga, but replaceable light engines fall over at the driver probably having a shorter life than the LED array and matching latest advance to driver standards from years ago.

 

https://www.zhagastandard.org/

[bigclive]

A friend with a successful early eBay lighting shop got continuous letters demanding WEEE compliance that he thought were just some spammer looking to sell a fake service.

The letters got more and more aggressive and official and we looked it up online and found it was a real thing.

 

It turns out you just have to include a message stating that you'll take back products or the item they're replacing for recycling and include a picture of a crossed out wheelie bin.

 

He was really excited because he loves weird lava lamps and was hoping people would send their old ones to him. But nobody sent anything back EVER. Mainly because it would involve packaging it up, taking it to the post office and paying for its delivery.

 

But I guess the WEEE department had ticked their box and secured their pension.

[sunray]

A friend with a successful early eBay lighting shop got continuous letters demanding WEEE compliance that he thought were just some spammer looking to sell a fake service.

The letters got more and more aggressive and official and we looked it up online and found it was a real thing.

 

It turns out you just have to include a message stating that you'll take back products or the item they're replacing for recycling and include a picture of a crossed out wheelie bin.

 

He was really excited because he loves weird lava lamps and was hoping people would send their old ones to him. But nobody sent anything back EVER. Mainly because it would involve packaging it up, taking it to the post office and paying for its delivery.

 

But I guess the WEEE department had ticked their box and secured their pension.

I find that whenever I supply anything to Schools there is ALWAYS a request to remove discarded equipment in lieu of Weee requirements and to state is on the invoice/receipt, it's amazing how creative they can be and what they ask to be taken away.

 

For a Dimmer pack I removed a smoothing iron, Burco urn, vacuum cleaner and 2 floor standing fans, all documented. With a new thermostat in the urn and a mains switch in Henry our local church found a home for both. The rest went straight for WEEE recylcing as they were well beyond help.

[david.elsbury]

I find that whenever I supply anything to Schools there is ALWAYS a request to remove discarded equipment in lieu of Weee requirements and to state is on the invoice/receipt, it's amazing how creative they can be and what they ask to be taken away.

 

For a Dimmer pack I removed a smoothing iron, Burco urn, vacuum cleaner and 2 floor standing fans, all documented. With a new thermostat in the urn and a mains switch in Henry our local church found a home for both. The rest went straight for WEEE recylcing as they were well beyond help.

I... you what now? Surely it’s not your job to be removing old junk? We have companies over here that do scrap metal recycling, is that not the case in the UK?

Unless your business does everything from sound and lighting equipment supply to rubbish removal, floor polishing, hairdressing and animal washing, then I’d understand that you’re a jack of all trades?

[Brian]

I find that whenever I supply anything to Schools there is ALWAYS a request to remove discarded equipment in lieu of Weee requirements and to state is on the invoice/receipt, it's amazing how creative they can be and what they ask to be taken away.

 

Doesn't that make you a waste carrier for which a licence is required?

[callumb]

I find that whenever I supply anything to Schools there is ALWAYS a request to remove discarded equipment in lieu of Weee requirements and to state is on the invoice/receipt, it's amazing how creative they can be and what they ask to be taken away.

 

Doesn't that make you a waste carrier for which a licence is required?

 

Carrying around an empty coke bottle in a van is enough to trigger them into thinking that you need that licence...

[bigclive]

I find that whenever I supply anything to Schools there is ALWAYS a request to remove discarded equipment in lieu of Weee requirements and to state is on the invoice/receipt, it's amazing how creative they can be and what they ask to be taken away.

 

Doesn't that make you a waste carrier for which a licence is required?

 

No. There's an exception for technical hoarders.

[Robertdazzler]

Before retirement I was an Approval manager for a domestic appliance manufacturer and grew up with the Weee rules some 15 years ago. Yes a manufacturer has to show the" underlined waste bin symbol" on the product and instructions ( I don't recall a demand for such to be on invoices) indicating that at end of life it must go back by recycling. Weee has 2 forms: new and historical, meaning that it may not be marked with the symbol. The purchaser should not be not charged for either except in the case of refrigerators/freezers where the safe removal of gases has to be done! When a retailer sells a piece of electrical/electronic equipment he is obliged to accept an item back for recycling. The legislation only requires the retailer to accept a number of items equal to those delivered but did not say that the returned item(s) should be of the same ilk. Sadly there is a lot of abuse here. No account of internet sales appears to have been considered but reasonable purchasers should just take said old equipment to their local site. Once returned the item can be re-cycled by scrapping or repair.

[musht]

On cue, `Malaysia returns 42 containers of 'illegal' plastic waste to UK`

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51176312

 

`Once returned the item can be re-cycled by scrapping or repair.`

 

In places like Guiyu

 

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162,00.html