Subject: [Shop-talk] LED light bulbs in garage door operators

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:17:53 +0000 (UTC)

LED light bulbs in garage door operators.

The 75-watt conventional rough-service incandescent bulb in my garage-door opener burned out.  Since one wants a vibration-resistant bulb, I replaced it with a 17-watt LED unit that gives the light of a 75-watt incandescent.

The opener started working intermittently.  Sometimes it would open but not close with the remote, sometimes it would close but not open.  Sometimes it worked from inside the garage, sometimes only from outside.  Only consistent thing is that the hardwired doorbell button in the garage always worked.  All the wireless remotes including the keypad on the outside of the garage acted goofy.

Took the bulb out completely.  Everything worked fine.

Put in an ordinary 75-watt that was handy.  Everything worked fine but the bulb burned out fast.

Put in a new rough-service incandescent bulb.  Everything works fine.

Obviously, I don't want to use LED lights in this operator.  Somehow the circuitry in a multi-LED bulb does weird things with the radio in the operator.  Anybody else ever see this effect? 

Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1973 Triumph Stag LE22439UBW "uncle jack", Sapphire Blue
2004 Suburban 8.1, Sport Red, the only automatic of the bunch
2005 Lotus Elise, Bordeaux Red Pearl
2007 Saturn Ion 3 2.4, Berry Red
[email-masked]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier
http://www.flickr.com/groups/triumphtransamerica
http://www.mnautox.com
http://www.mntriumphs.org
_______________________________________________

[email-masked]
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive

---

From: Darrell Walker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:51:29 +0000 (GMT)

Just one data point (well two, as I have two openers), several years ago I
put a CF bulb in my garage door opener, as I didn't have a regular bulb.  I
expected it to fail quickly, but when it didn't, I replaced all of them (each
opener has two).  They have been going fine for at least five years.  They are
screw drive openers, so perhaps smoother than a chain drive, though based on
the noise they make (they are probably 20+ years old), the probably still
vibrate quite a bit.  Incandescent bulbs, even rough service, tended to last
less than a year.

-Darrell

[email-masked]

---

From: "Randall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 09:55:06 -0700

> Obviously, I don't want to use LED lights in this operator.  
> Somehow the circuitry in a multi-LED bulb does weird things 
> with the radio in the operator.  Anybody else ever see this effect? 

Not all LED "bulbs" are created equal.  Since LEDs are low voltage DC
devices, the "bulbs" include switch mode power supplies that usually run at
pretty high frequencies (to reduce the size of the inductor involved).

Obviously, the bulb you got is radiating interference.  A better made, or
even just different, bulb might radiate less and work better.

Randall

[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 17:26:35 +0000 (UTC)

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darrell Walker" <[email-masked]>

> opener has two). They have been going fine for at least five years.

Where do you live?  Here in Minnesota it gets too cold for CF bulbs to start reliably.

> Incandescent bulbs, even rough service, tended to
> last
> less than a year.

I must have gotten a good one, then.  It had been in there for over a decade.

At a couple of bucks a pop for rough-service bulbs, I'm sticking with them.

[email-masked]

---

From: Darrell Walker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 17:55:28 +0000 (GMT)

On Aug 13, 2013, at 10:26 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

Where do you
live? Here in Minnesota it gets too cold for CF bulbs to start reliably.
 
Pacific Northwest.  And the way my house/garage is built (living space above
and on one side, essentially underground on two more sides), it rarely gets
below 45 in the garage.

-Darrell

[email-masked]