Why nothing you buy is good anymore?
- Thread starter Hari Iyer
- Start date
The thing about light bulbs is true. The cartel imposes penalties if light bulbs last long. It seems that they put lesser tungsten then before. I figured out the problem with incandescent light bulbs, in my school days. Example I found that 100 w bulb with reduced voltage to give 60 w would last forever. That's what I do with my table lamps. I just use a fan regulator and I have bulbs going strong for 30 years till now. My soldering iron (labeled Tony) is from my school days from the 80s.
something like this ?
I use to reduce the table fan speed further , or the brightness of table lamp when needed.
unfortunately, the Fan gave up after about 10+ years( could be couple of years on this regulator ).
The long lasting home appliances are no longer durable as AMC/Extended Warranty paradigm are taking over. So be it a bulb, fridge , Washing machine or RO machines, companies had learned that giving durability may hamper their profits, so started making sub-standard products and offering AMC now.
I remember reading somewhere, there is a light bulb in England which is on for last 100 yrs and no issue what so ever. Gone are those days.
I remember reading somewhere, there is a light bulb in England which is on for last 100 yrs and no issue what so ever. Gone are those days.
If your bulb is incandescent lamp then its a resistive load. Modern fan regulators are typically designed for an Inductive load and so the regulators may have a capacitor across the voltage drop resistor to keep the current leading the voltage to adjust for the Inductive load of the motor windings.
In general, planned obsolescence is pattern we see in the modern consumer products. There are brands like Patagonia which are against this practice. They encourage customers to keep wearing them for a life time and make lasting memories. They even have a mobile repair service for torn clothes which mean a lot to their customers.
Having said that, this is not be taken as a blanket statement that new products are all cheap and unreliable. Isn’t the modern technology of LED more long lasting than incandescent bulb? With the kind of power infrastructure we have, those filaments are prone to failure.
Having said that, this is not be taken as a blanket statement that new products are all cheap and unreliable. Isn’t the modern technology of LED more long lasting than incandescent bulb? With the kind of power infrastructure we have, those filaments are prone to failure.
Fan regulators use triac and works perfectly for resistive loads. I have been using them since the 80s for my table lamp bulbs and my soldering iron. They will not work for tube lights and most led bulbs.
The LED driver is the weak point. They fail quite often. Some go totally dead and few start blinking every few seconds. I have had atleast 3 Eveready led bulbs fail in the last 3 years and 2 led tubelights fail. Plenty of my false ceiling lights have failed till now because of the inbuilt led driver. For the led based tubelights, the drivers can be easily obtained in any electrical store. One just have to open the led tube light from the sides and pull out the led strip. Then desolder the led driver and solder a new one. Not something a normal person will do. So the led tube lights are repairable but I haven't found a solution for the bulbs other than harvesting the individual SMD leds from failed led bulbs to use them in my various DIY projects as power indicators. None of my Syska led bulbs have failed till now.
Though the individual LEDS may last long but they start loosing intesity as time passes by.
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While there is chance that LED fail due to poor quality or workmanship, in general they last longer. LEDs typically last anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 hours, whereas incandescent bulbs usually only last about 1,000 hours. My experience has been that they rarely fail. Even if they may grow dimmer through time, this surpasses the incandescent bulb by a large measure.
Not to mention, they are energy efficient and reduce our electricity consumption by 85%. And the quality of light is much better. LED bulbs are built with solid-state components, making them more resistant to shocks and vibrations. Filaments can pop even with a minor jerk.
Anyways, the point is that all modern technology is not necessarily inferior or short lived.
Ok. My fan regulators has resistors and capacitor hence my reply.
I saw the video and the 5 points he makes why quality of everything sucks now. I would like to add a 6th point from a different perspective. I think the main reason it feels like everything sucks now is what I call the pandemic effect. Bear with me - I am not blaming this on covid - rather the knee jerk reaction - fiscally to its effect. In the US, they gave free money upto $5000 (or more) to people based on their income, as did many other countries in other forms. This in turn fueled inflation which drove up the prices for almost everything. Just compare prices of any items before and after the pandemic. For example cars, all of them became significantly overpriced (not only due to inflation - also due to pent up demand). This in turn caused even the price of base items to shoot up, so we as consumers had to move down a notch below for everyday items - lightbulbs, coffee, clothing etc.,-and this downgrade was basically for junk products which we would ignore in the past, hence it feels like everything sucks now.
Specifically to audio - I have been looking to upgrade portions of my chain - and to my dismay I realize that to get equivalent quality of what I bought before the pandemic - say 5 years ago, I have to spend 100-150% more. So that is a 20%-30% rise every year which is significantly higher than my income - My income hasn't doubled in past 5 years!
Anyways this is my take on the current situation.
Cheers,
Sid
Specifically to audio - I have been looking to upgrade portions of my chain - and to my dismay I realize that to get equivalent quality of what I bought before the pandemic - say 5 years ago, I have to spend 100-150% more. So that is a 20%-30% rise every year which is significantly higher than my income - My income hasn't doubled in past 5 years!
Anyways this is my take on the current situation.
Cheers,
Sid
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dheerajin
Well-Known Member
This is called - theory of obsolescence
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