Scargill

Some day the BBC will get it right.  In “LEDs offer a brighter future, says report”  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16199552 the BBC report on a field trial of the “new technology” of LED lighting.

In it the report states the millions of Kilowatt hours that can be saved and paints a wonderful picture of LED lighting which it says can last for up to 100,000 hours.

Typical of the kind of surface reports we see, the author has not put the slightest effort into this – as there is a real story underneath which they missed.

LED Lighting in this country is currently a RIP-OFF – the likes of B&Q charge obscene prices for LED lighting – and yet the technology is NOT AT ALL new, high intensity LEDS having been around for several years now – as anyone with a LED keychain will tell you.

Many of the lights out there are nothing more than a printed circuit board with a load of inexpensive LED lights and a power supply and yet the charges are horrendous. Not only that but the “claimed life” is actually that of the LED itself, used in ideal circumstances and at reasonable temperatures.

The problem is – in order to cram as  much light as possible into a small space, many LED mains lights run warm or hot and this has a considerable effect on reliability.

Tosh? All you have to do is go into any of the larger stores which have LED lighting on demonstration – you’ll see dud lamps all over. Early adopter hotels that used these lights in come cases reverted back, in others have had to replace.

The newer 3-led units which DO work are even more obscenely priced…

http://tinyurl.com/8xej6yo 

Yes, that’s over £20 for a LIGHT BULB. The very same unit can be bought from China for around £3 or so including postage – and indeed in Spain, the outlet stores there sell them for not much more. I have several and they are great.. At £3-£4 they are a definite investment – but at FIVE times that price they are nothing more than a rip-off.

I always like to buy locally or at least British when I can – but seeing prices like that you think “to hell with it” – THERE’S the story the BBC SHOULD have come up with instead of a lame endorsement.

Technical: LEDS don’t like heat – note the new versions have a massive aluminium heat sink – but there are many millions of the older style (shown above) sold as new technology – basically they are crammed onto a board and over-driven to get the light output – they cannot achieve anything REMOTELY like the stated lifespan.  You might also ask why they’re not very bright in garden solar lamps? That’s because they are dramatically UNDER-driven – to save on solar cell and battery costs. Right now it seems to be all down to profit, not quality.

For those of you who think this stuff is new technology – and expensive – go to Ebay and punch in “5mm LED” or “LED strip” – cheap as CHIPS!!

The title may be slightly over the top, but we have had some pretty poor weather here in Wark and indeed the Northeast over the past few days. To press the point, here’s a picture I took over the weekend. We were on our way over to Bolam for lunch and spotted this uprooted tree. What’s interesting apart from the sheer size of it (not too well conveyed in the photo) is the fact that it knocked the tree behind it over too.

After buying another set of solar lights from B&Q only to throw two of them away today because the rain got into them – I’ve sent a letter off to them to complain – first time I’ve ever done that to B&Q. No doubt I’ll get a response back along the lines of "”very few customers ever complain” – which is probably true – it’s taken me years to get around to complaining about the cheap Chinese rubbish they import..

Anyway, here it is – if you have the same problem – feel free to pinch any information from this letter.

————–

B&Q Customer Services
Torrance House
Erskine
Renfrewshire
PA8 6AT

Dear Sirs

Over many years I’ve purchased solar garden lamps of one sort of another from B&Q and over the years I’ve noticed they are getting LESS reliable, not more.

Just a couple of months ago we had so many part-working sets in our garden we decided to buy a brand new set – you’ve only had them in a while, stainless steel set of 10 solar lamps with remote control (this is the first time I’ve seen a remote control on solar powered lights).

They look like the real thing – stainless steel, good construction, work straight out of the box, SPECIALLY MADE FOR B&Q in China….

The problem is like all the REST of the solar lights you’ve sold over the years, THEY’RE NOT WATERPROOF.

I don’t know what instructions you sent when you have these specially made but could you please add the instruction that it RAIN in Britain.

The set of 10 is already down to a set of 8 and this is typical, I expect half of them will last the winter.

The TWO things that stop these lights from lasting years (this applies to all but a few of your solar lights are:

1. NOT WATERPROOF. The water gets into the circuitry and rusts the boards or the LED leads – and they fail

2. The cover for the photocell is plastic, not glass – and it frosts up in the sun, dramatically reducing the life of the units.

I would willingly pay more for a set of lights that would last 5 years instead of one or two and I’m sure so would others. This is just BAD DESIGN – no other way of putting it. The cost of a little silicon seal and a piece of glass (the latter IS found on some of the solar cells you’ve sold in the past) would make a DRAMATIC difference to these products.

I hope this does not fall on deaf ears, forget refund offers, I don’t have the receipts and I’ve binned the broken units – over the years I must’ve bought at least a dozen different sets – if only they lasted I’d put a lot more in and have them ALL working.

We also bought a couple of the sets with the separate solar cell and a lead – nice glass front on the large solar cell but EXACTLY the same issue – they get soaking wet inside over the winter – and the circuits corrode – there really is no excuse for this.

Regards

Peter Scargill

Despite my own issues with Orange as a phone company, Maureen has her own longstanding account and continues to use them – the reason is simple – as an Orange mobile customer, for a while they were offering home broadband for a fiver, including free calls (VOIP phone) to /orange mobiles.  As our mobile phones don’t work in Wark, it’s handy to be able to call the kids on their Orange mobiles for free.

Before anyone is daft enough to go down this route however, consider this… originally we received an Orange modem with the deal – you have to use theirs, a large, ugly grey thing, otherwise the free calls don’t work (this is deliberate – you CANNOT use another modem and still get the free VOIP calls). It is without a doubt the crappiest modem I’ve ever owned both to look at and to operate, so much so that I realised some time ago, when it continually packed in at random but about once every few days, that the only way to keep it going was to fit a 24-hour timer and reset it every night. That seems to have done the job. Hardly ideal.

Last week we went to the Orange store and asked about an upgrade. Well, apparently when Maureen’s contract is up for renewal, she can also get the latest modem. I thought there might have been a ray of light here as the model on show in the Orange shop is a sleek black Netgear modem…. that is until I looked at the reviews on Amazon – Orange, true to form have done it again.

Take a look at these reviews… not hand picked but straight off the page. Pretty much says it all, really… this is the new modem – not the old!!! I can see a move elsewhere coming on.