Autopsy of a dead OSRAM LED module.

PeetieGonzalez: Yes. I used to live in Dubai and got a load of Philips "Dubai Lamps". They have 4 filaments per watt so run very cool, the low LED current also means that recombination losses are low which helps efficency. Available in 1, 2 and 3 watt versions. I currently have about 15 of them, they have a good CRI and none have failed yet. They don't even get warm! I guess they are filled with argon or CO2 so there is good heat conduction to the glass envelope. Much better than having great lumps of aluminium.

Are you talking about the COB filament bulbs? Clive's done teardowns on a few different versions. I'm a huge fan of those, too, but getting ones with the right circuitry to eliminate flicker, and also that don't have shitty caps that go bang, has been a struggle. Suppliers are so hit and miss when buying from the big rock candy mountain.

PeetieGonzalez

Clive, we routinely scrap very large industrial and commercial LED lighting fixtures that are quite beefy machined aluminum simply because the bastards completely potted in the driver circuitry with epoxy or silicone. The money is in selling full replacements. Ecological concerns seem to be lip service at best if not a non-factor entirely.

Michael Thompson

For domestic lighting I prefer the "virtual filament" type of lights. They have small lines of LEDs in a gas filled glass bulb and a small bit of control circuitry in the base. This design has the highest efficiency I've come across (The Philips Dubai lamp is 200lm/w) and everything runs cool without the need for a big lump of aluminium.

It does seem an INCREDIBLE waste to toss that housing, doesn't it? It seems as though the cost/energy savings in use would be surpassed by the manufacturing cost when you figure it requires energy to mine the metals, ship the raw material, smelt the material, form the alloy, cast the alloy, ship the part, ship the assembled product and dispose of it at the end of it's life. That is before you even get to the associated costs of the other components. I don't know about other places but in California you are no longer allowed to simply toss out ANY device that has a cord attached to it. My understanding is that they take those items and strip them down. I think the main concern is lead and other chemicals, however. I'm not sure if any recycling is involved.