Electrek Poundland LED Light Bulbs - Are they Safe?

[DIYNotIan]

Hi all

I wondered what people's opinions are on the Electrek LED light bulbs available from Poundland for the bargain price of... you guessed it... £1!!! (On closer inspection it would look like they are actually made by/for Poundland too.)

I have had a couple of them for probably the best part of a year. One died after a few months. The other is still going, but it does see less use. I'm happy to accept that longevity might be questionable. But what I've really come to ask is how safe are they? I had a cheap bulb blow on me before (can't remember what type, but not LED) and there is still the burn mark to remind me on the carpet. I'm just glad I was here when it happened. So what about these cheapo LED bulbs, are they safe? Or a potential fire risk? Or any other types of risk that I should be concerned about before I start using more of them?

Many thanks

Max

 

[Taylortwocities]

No more of a fire risk than any other type/ make/ price of lamp.

Personally I don’t choose Electrical goods on the price.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

No more of a fire risk than any other type/ make/ price of lamp.

We know that's not true for cheap cob lamps.

It may well not be true for other formats.

 

[Taylortwocities]

We know that's not true for cheap cob lamps.

I have no experience of such a thing. As I said

Personally I don’t choose Electrical goods on the price.

I cannot believe that you do either, or are you just believing hearsay?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm believing the teardown(s) of dodgy cob lamps on YouTube.

Although TBF the issue there was personal safety, not fire.

 

[Iggifer]

Personally I don’t choose Electrical goods on the price.

I choose them on build quality, which is usually related to price. But not always. I’m looking at you MK

 

[ericmark]

There are a few ways to power an LED inside a bulb, in the main either very simple using a capacitor to limit the current or complex using some form of switch mode power supply, the latter may mean 100 lumen per watt, but being unable to dim, the former may dim OK but likely down to 75 lumen per watt however also likely cheaper.

Although some LED bulbs are poorly made having an inadequate heat sinks or exposed live parts as found it seems with some cob lamps, one is hardly in the position to know one way or the other is well made or not, and most are made in China so the only control is the importer doing random quality control. It really does not matter if the label is Electrek or Philips, it is all down to the random quality control.

It really does not matter if made in China or UK firms have for many years produced goods with different labels, when working in the cheese industry the cheese going to Tesco had it's own area, but every other supermarket had exactly the same product, I also remember pop sold in Kwik Save had less CO² than the pop sold else where, so there can be makes or distributors who either have more or less control but unless you know some one working inside the factory one is unlikely to actually find out which distributors actually have quality control inside the factory and so have better quality.

It is a lottery really, even when one has been ripped apart on U-tube you have no idea if yours is from the same batch.

I made in hind sight an error, I swapped all bulbs in living and dining room to 8W Philips globe CFL as to if just bad batch or poor design don't know but of the 16 bulbs 18 months latter just 6 left in service, of the cheap 5W Home bargains LED globe bulbs after 2 years not one failed, so bitter experience is cheap are some times better than expensive.

 

[DIYNotIan]

Hi all

Thanks for the helpful replies. Plenty to think about.

At the end of the day, I like the Electrek/Poundland bulbs in terms of the amount of light they give off, the "colour", etc. etc. I really like them. I just want them to be safe. And if they can last for more than just a few months that would be great too. But safety is what I'm most interested in.

@ban-all-sheds - what aspect of safety are you referring to in post #5?

Cheers

 

[mattylad]

If you look up big clive on youtube he does a good review\teardown of them and rates them pretty highly for their cheapness.

Remember, anything from poundland cost at the most 50p (delivered) to them.