Posted on 08/20/2019 5:07:06 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
We have friends who have a nice spread southwest of FW, and we recommend stopping here:
https://www.facebook.com/bluffdalejasperscafe/
Yep, they can pound sand and go out and set in the Sun for a day or so.
We ought to ask the authors of the report if they believe in Global Warming too. Nuts!
Thanks for the tip.
2 weeks ago I spent a week on Wrightsville Beach NC with my grandson. While we were there I at at Something Fishy in nearby Willmington, NC. They were reviewed by Guy on Drive-Ins, Dinners and Dives. Super good seafood and other things too. I first ate there about 10 years ago. It is locally owned and service is prompt, food incredible and prices are very good. I have photos of it in my cell phone. They even have a wall poster of the review they did on them.
Jaspers is in a class all by itself. The original is close by here in Medford. The owner found the Bluffdale location sitting empty on a hillside. John loves TX so he sold the OR store and moved. We have told most of our close TX friends about the [place and they all rave. Make sure to check their menu out!! http://www.jasperscafetexas.com/index.html
Thank you.
From PA, I grew-up in ‘flyover country’. York is a tier-3 city, but the downtown is 10-12 miles away; it’s the residential sprawl that I hate, since I moved here, 29 yrs ago. My former nursery/garden center/landscape contracting business was on 20ac in the country. I miss it every day, since I retired and sold the property.
My family has owned/operated farms in this county since 1889, before that in another county.
I was away for 25 years, back since 1995. Still traveled from here on business until 2010.
I traveled the West and Mid-West for 30 years. Know small town America. Love it.
Know urban America, would rather not think about living in a city.
Here are the enemies of rural America. Yes, they exist in the US too. Rural kulaks?
http://faminegenocide.com/resources/ukraine_famine.html
Could not happen here? Guess we will see. Right now, I doubt it. If the ComDems were to regain power, game is on.
TF, this is not intended as “talking down to you”, as you have some electronics knowledge. But, other readers do not, so I’m writing this for a wide range of readers.
You said the bulbs run hot. Were you able to measure how hot, and were the bulbs in enclosed or confined fixtures? (Only those stated to be rated for such use will hold up in that usage. That requires efficient LED’s & power supplies, or lots of heat sinking, or high temperature components. However, high temp supply components don’t help if the LED itself gets too hot internally. Lots of heat sinking is also very limited in how much it helps, unless it conducts the heat to exposed metal fixture parts reasonably efficiently. Otherwise an enclosed fixture tends to trap the heat anyway, and the main gain from the “big” heat sink is thermal lag — it takes a few seconds longer to heat up.)
Outside of that, my guesses would be, in order:
1) Inadequate heat sinking. (Just because a heat sink looks adequate doesn’t mean it is. The mfgr. may have skimped on good thermal transfer from the LED into the heat sink.)
2) Inefficient AC - to - DC conversion in the internal power supply (combined with insufficient heat sinking of the supply that might be ok with a more efficient LED). This is essentially your “crappy design”. This can be overcome in some cases with enough heat sinking, but it should show up in the energy use rating. “Should” You’d need a power use monitor or a good digital multimeter to be sure. Chinese “watts” sometimes seem to have their own definition - whatever looks best on the box or in the advertising, that they think they can get away with...
3) Inefficient LED (which again can be overcome in some cases with enough heat sinking, but that should also show up in the energy use rating. See “2” above.)
4)Poor internal electrical connections. The Chinese are really bad about this, in all manner of products.
5) Crappy parts substituted in production. Again, the Chinese can be really bad about this.
6) It actually IS remotely possible that the incoming AC could have HF content, if you’ve not looked at it on a o’scope. Strangely enough, if there’s a circuit to suppress intermittent incoming crap (a good thing to include, to protect the fragile electronics including the LED), it could well be overworked and heat up if hit with continuous incoming HF content. Such content, intermittent or continual, unless intermittent AND extreme enough to cause detectable flicker, would not bother an incandescent in the least. However, I’d think a problem with excessive HF content in the supply might show up in other of your electronics, too.
My experience with LED bulbs, carefully used, has been fairly good. So far, it’s been better than CFL’s, that’s for sure. As long as the color temperature is 3000K or below, and as long as the “frosting” / diffusion is good, glare is not a problem. I do have some 3’ and 4’ LED bulbs that are “glary” — too much light from too small (or too narrow) a source.
Failures have been few, so far, though I keep wondering about problems with lightning, which took out quite a few fluorescent electronic ballasts for me over the years. However, I’ve used very few LED bulbs in enclosed fixtures, and always check for that rating for that usage. (If it doesn’t say, it almost certainly isn’t.)
The most obvious seemingly very premature failures I have had were with 4/$4.99 100 watt-equivalent bulbs made by an outfit named Zilotech. (Yeah, I know...) I should measure the power consumption of a still good one, running temperature, and weigh one: I am almost certain they skimped on the heat sinking. Still, neither that failed abruptly and completely quit. Instead, they became intermittent (on and off), pointing to an internal connection issue, I would think. I’ve also had a 40 watt-equivalent Great Value bulb go intermittent, and a couple 60 watt-equivalent Great Value bulbs quit abruptly and totally. The GV’s were all older bulbs roughly 1/2 way into their 7-yr, IIRC, rated lives, which is not that bad, IMO, as transients are still a possibility. (We get lots of t-storms and close lightning here, among other sources of “spikes”.)
LEDS save us almost nothing in the winter, but in the summer they save us at least $20 a month vs. incandescents. Sometimes more.
“7-years” @ 3 hours a day, I should specify...
The base of the bulb was hot enough you did not want to hold it. The LED's were still operating when I removed it and found it very hot. Heat means power consumption. LED's themselves don't get that warm. I even cut the plastic bulb housing and examined a failed unit. I am sure the LED's are still operational but the power supply failed. I've built many types of power supplies. I have held an Extra Amateur Radio license for many years and hold a GROL commercial License. I spent many years building scratch electronic devices. Have etched and build many PC boards from scratch.
None of the failed bulbs were in enclosed fixtures. Some of the bulbs were mounted on top of the fixture and some on the bottom of the fixture (hanging down). All were open on top or bottom of the fixture.
My point was, the power supply DESIGN might or might not be ok. Unless you know the requirements of the LED used, know whether or not inadequate parts were substituted, maybe ran a “P-SPICE” analysis or other simulation, know whether or not the heat sinking was adequate, and ruled out all those other factors I described, the power supply design might have been fine, but subverted by (for example) parts substitution. There’s no way to know though, on our end, what the design actually specified. Considerable (industrial) experience tells me that too often with Chinese products, the design is ok, but on, oh, say the 3rd run, somebody decided to substitute cheaper parts. Or the parts vendor themselves screwed up. Or... well, the list for even something as simple as a LED bulb can go on and on. Once the process is “past” the engineer (who often is not even Chinese), the Chinese are really bad about cutting corners or not observing details.
Also, uh, hate to disagree slightly, but high output LED’s most certainly can get quite hot (and fail because of that) if run hard and not properly heat sunk. It’s current times voltage drop of the diode = power to dissipate, similar to any other diode, really. Also, as the LED chip itself heats up, it’s light output drops. You can actually run one hard off a rock solid power supply and watch the output dim as the LED heats up. I’ve also seen this happen in LED head worn lamps where the LED runs hot, and once the housing heats up, the LED has nowhere to send its heat, gets even hotter, and dims. (The spec sheets from reputable LED mfgr’s don’t lie, and show this as well.)
That said, based on your further investigation details, one of those power supply problems is most likely the issue. The power supply provides more opportunities for something to go or be wrong, than the LED. A near-parallel is that over the years I’ve had quite a few electronic ballasts in 4’ fluorescent fixtures fail. There, one expects the bulbs to last a limited time, but to have the ballasts fail even 1/2 as often is really aggravating. Especially when the fixture is in a “difficult” spot to uninstall... But, fail often those ballasts do.
Back to the LED’s, the fact yours have a plastic housing is a clue that the heat sinking may have been inadequate. Glass / metal housings will typically do better.
Last, a good / easy test for anyone might be to purchase a few different brands of LED bulbs in the lumen output rating you need. Try them out in an easily accessible fixture like a table lamp, and see which runs coolest. Take the others back to the store(s).
Got it. So, they just ran hot anyway. :-(
The bigger point is, while I find most (most) warm white LED bulbs to be a superior product to incandescents or CFL’s, having the Gov’t tell me I must use them, short of a national emergency, is BS.
I think we certainly agree on that!
I think you’d have to have more of a combination control — sort of a “heat index” or “feels like” setting. That would likely be more expensive than a simple thermostat.
Plus, people do “relate” more easily to temperature numbers than humidity numbers.
Yes, we can agree on that. I’m for good technology, but forced compliance is against my grain and that of US history.
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