Real lifespan of aftermarket LED bulbs

I bought these from Amazon for $9, installed them as side marker lights and license plate lights, and only had them die within two weeks. They were so hot that they turned the plastic housing to burnt brown. Now I'm looking for something that lasts longer.
YITAMOTOR 194 T10 LED Light Bulb, Non-Polarity, 168 2825 W5W 158 175 LED Interior Bulbs for Truck Car Dome Map Door Courtesy License Plate Lights, 12V-14V 7000-7500K White, 10-Pack

 

Like asrdogman once said, I thought leds produces no heat.

 

LED's operate on low voltage. Early LED replacements used a resistor to drop the voltage to about 4 volts. That's what makes them run hot.

Newer LED replacements use a series-parallel wiring circuit that eliminates the need for a resistor.

I've had these installed in my 2012 Prius v and two other cars for over three years with no issues of heating and burn out.

 

You thought wrong.
They produce heat proportional to the amount of wattage consumed.......which is a LOT less than conventional incandescent bulbs......USUALLY.
But IF the LED array produces a lot more light, it too will produce a significant amount of heat.

 

Reread my post, I used an indirect quote

 

Only the first sentence is right.

The voltage is applied in the FORWARD direction across the diode.
Early LEDs operated at milli-volts and drew only micro-amps of current.

And nothing "makes them run hot" other than being engineered to produce greater light outputs and to operate at higher voltages (higher current flows actually).

Series/parallel wiring has nothing to do with it.
The higher output devices require a more sophisticated voltage regulator and that also produces heat.

 

I did.
You failed at that endeavor too.
" I thought leds produces no heat."

 

Series means that three LED wired is in series receives the required voltage with no resistors. Each receives a nominal four volts.

Any number of series "trains" then could be wired in parallel to secure the desired light output.

It's as simple as that. Basic physics. Need I do more s'plaining?

 

You need to dig into the operation of the actual LED device a bit deeper.
Unless there is a tiny little resistor built into the LED device "package", 4 volts is WAY too much.

Or to put it another way.........an LED is a semi-conductor device.
It is possible to use a similar process to "deposit" other tiny devices into the same "package" but the actual LED itself
only needs a tiny current flow to work.
An unlimited voltage source over a few millivolts will burn it out.

And yes, I know physics.
I also know that details are important.

 

Replaced all bulbs inside and out. Everything but the rear tail lights work perfectly. The rear hatch is much MUCH brighter. Alas, the rear tail lights are lasting less than a year before they start flickering. Have tried three different designs. Grrrr...

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

We've got some LED grow lights, they're hot as heck.

(Just in case anyone's wondering, just regular, non "medicinal" plants.)

 

It shouldn't have to fall on Georgina to do more s'plaining, as the information on how the forward voltage is different for different LED types is super easy to look up, say from any of the top search results for white led vf. Vf was easy to remember at about 1.4 V or so for the old ubiquitous red buggers, but ends up more in the 3.1 V to 4 V range for white ones (which are blue ones under the hood, shorter wavelength, higher band gap).

I would be surprised if there isn't any resistive element at all as part of that series stack just for some stability (and to make sure that among parallel 'trains', slight manufacturing variations and thermal runaway don't result in one train taking way more than its share of the juice).

But if you manage to reduce the amount of voltage you need to resistively drop so instead of 9 volts (13 down to 4 for a single LED) it's more like 1 V (13 down to 12), with dissipated power going as V squared, you've eliminated 80 ÷ 81, or 98.8%, of the heat you were losing that way.

 

With about 10 readings I begin to grok that last sentence Chap.

 

Indirect quote, not sure if that can’t be any clearer

 

My first LED bulb is now 12 years old and still going strong. Oh, that's not on my car, but on a regular light fixture at home replacing a 60W bulb when the LED bulb still costed $30. Now it is less than $1 apiece.

 

The structure and wording of your statement does NOT constitute an "indirect quote".
I am not sure how THAT can be any clearer.

 

Round two: Dragon wins, on Points!

 

The LEDs are running on low voltage - as mentioned above - not on the 12-14V the prius have.
What kills the LED is the current, so high quility lights drives the LEDs using constant current - well not exactly. Cheap solution uses just resistor or series LEDs, which will result changing current based on changing input voltage (which may kill the LED).
Anyhow, the old style LEDs doesn’t emit enough light on that low current, so recent one uses LED driver which switch the LED on and off on high frequency, so human eye will not see it flashing. With shorter duty cycle the LED survive the higher current.
I had issue with the cheap LEDs, but not with Osram - I assume there other relyable brands also, I have ecperience with this one.

 

No question that low quality LED brands won’t last long. Too easy to cut corners to save cost.

What’s more, it’s not clear to me at all whether using LED’s as a drop-in replacement for a halogen bulb will provide the right light pattern. In an OEM setup, the reflector is also changed out.