Anyone using LED home lighting replacement bulbs?

4-5 years is typically around breaking point for me and whether I'll invest on something with any risk, which a light bulb has (I've also had some CFLs die very fast, though that was a few years back, now they seem to do well and I'm rarely replacing them).

 

...yes but I know that, had the wrong voltage (9v vs 3v batt).

Guess I am basically trying to design my own light, since what I want does not exactly exist. The Philips LED bulb tear-down by FL was instructive. Here is a place you can buy the yellow phosphor diffuser like the Philips bulb.

Search result for : chromalit square Future Lighting Solutions - Making LED Lighting Solutions Simple

 

There is no "right" voltage for an LED without current control. An ideal LED operates like a cliff: as you increase voltage, no current flows. You increase voltage more, still no current. You increase voltage to the threshold and infinite current flows - poof goes your LED.

Real LEDs contain some resistance; likewise with whatever is supplying the current. Because of this you can carefully balance the voltage to make that internal resistance serve to control the current, but it's a bad idea. It forces you to tune each LED to each power supply.

Because of this, all practical LED circuits use some sort of current control. Simple ones use a series resistor. More sophisticated drivers use PWM and sometimes charge pumps. At this stage of development you cannot possibly design a DIY LED driver that is better than the commercial driver chips. If you want to build LED lights, focus your efforts on using commercial drivers.

Tom