Cree LED Bulb Flickering Problem

I love LED bulbs because they should theoretically last forever and use the same watts as a CFL. However, when they start dying after a year or two, you begin to question whether you should have been buying $10+ light bulbs. I currently have 7 Cree 60W lightbulbs that have issues. 6 of them are the TW series where it's supposed to show true colors. You can tell that type of bulb (on the right) by the purplish color of the glass as well as the larger heatsink fins around the base.

I contacted Cree on their facebook page after seeing so many other people complain about the same issue and seeing a positive response from Cree. So after a few emails, they are sending me all new replacement bulbs and they didn't ask for receipts or anything. They told me to dispose of the bulbs. I thought maybe they would want them back for failure analysis but I'm sure they know what the problem is already.

So thinking it would be neat to reverse engineer the bulb, I was going to take one apart but thought for sure someone has already done this on youtube. Sure enough they have. In the comments of that video, someone explained how most of the failures are due to a loose wire near the base of the bulb. They explained how you can take a flat head screwdriver and dent the metal right near the wire to make a better connection. So considering I had 7 bulbs with nothing to lose, I started hammering away. I managed to resurrect 4 of the 7 bulbs. I'm not sure how long they'll last but at least they are working for now. If you look closely at the bulb on the right, you can see a burn mark where the bulb failed. That is pretty much where the wire is. Most of the bulbs have the wire in the same place.

Now if you get a bulb where the LEDs are glowing dimmly, well this fix didn't work for those. This fix is for when the LEDs are flickering and then completely turn off.
Here's a picture of the glowing LEDs.

WARNING: Graphic post - Clogged drain

Every year or so, the water in the sinks drain very slowly. Inevitably the issue is hair getting clogged in the stopper mechanism. I've seen these stick drain cleaners for a few bucks so I thought I'd try it. The old way would be to remove the p-trap and clean out the drain with an old toothbrush.


Here you can see what I fished out. Overall the tool works pretty well. All I had to do was fish out the hair and clean off the stick. Total time was ~5 mins versus the old way of ~15 mins and there's no need to get a bucket, remove the p-trap, clean the drain, empty the bucket, etc. It's so easy, the kids might enjoy "fishing" out the clog.

Smart water controller

Here's my latest upgrade to the house - Solarsync for Hunter irrigation systems. It's a smart controller for the water irrigation system. It basically measures the sun intensity and adjusts the watering amount automatically. It also will shut off the water if it has rained recently. The one thing it doesn't do is adjust the watering intervals. It only adjust the amount of time the water is on.


I ran the wire behind the gutter so you can't really see it except for the small transition to the down pipe.


In order to get the snake the wire to the controller, I bought these fiberglass poles that are used for snaking wires. Picked these up at Harbor Freight tools for $8 which is a lot less than if you were to buy them from Home depot.


Here you can see the tip of the pole. I've attached the wire to the end so I can pull it up through the pipe.


Here you can see a close up of the pole in the pipe. Thanks to Chuck for helping snake the wire too.

Vitamix blender

We replaced our Blendtec blender with a Vitamixer from Costco that we bought during black friday for $350. The problem with the Blendtec was that the jars kept leaking at the seal. We had one jar replaced by Blendtec but the replacement actually locked up. After googling the problem, I found a lot of other folks had the same complaints. I haven't seen the same complaints for vitamix so I thought I'd try that one out. As usual, Costco was great with returning the Blendtec no questions asked. The one problem with the vitamix though is that it doesn't fit under the cabinets. :)

Great Customer Service

I recently noticed a tear in my hydration pack. Since I didn't want to return it to Costco, I submitted a warranty claim with geigerrig.com. They emailed me back saying that they'd be sending me the latest pack version because they didn't have mine in stock anymore.


I was expecting just the pack and not the water bladder as well but they actually just sent me the entire backpack and system. I didn't need to show them any receipts or mail anything back. In addition to the great customer service, the water bladder is a great design. The bladder itself can be inverted and placed in the dishwasher. All the other camelbacks or hydration systems usually develop some kind of mold or require way too much care to keep clean and free of any buildup. I highly recommend the geigerrig system. I also recently emailed the customer service about my bike pump and how one of the pieces broke off. They also just sent me an entire new pump since the existing pump was no longer in production. Again, no receipts or returning the old one. So the moral of the story is remember to try customer service or a warranty claim for an item that you probably would have just purchased a new one of.

Now you see them, now you don't

We are almost done with our Bedroom makeover and one of the remaining pieces was mounting the TV on the wall. We picked up the framed console table at Crate and Barrel. It's nice but has an unfortunate design element. There's a reinforcing piece of wood running the length of the top in the shelf. As a result, the height clearance is only 2.5" instead of the 3.5" in the front. So in order to not have to cut into the furniture, we bought a Tivo premiere to replace our Tivo HD. The Tivo premiere just fits.


Here you can see the full motion arm. It took a while to find one that would sit close against the wall (only 1.3") and yet swings out over 24".


I bought a combo surge protector outlet and wire management unit from Home Depot that will go right behind the TV. Also, right behind the console table, I put in a wire outlet so I can pass the HDMI cables behind the wall and right to the Tivo and DVD players.


Here's the finished work.


You can see the outlet box and the HDMI cables going into the box and running in the wall down below.


Nice and flat!

Surround sound

With sabbatical coming to an end, we've been busy trying to finish all the projects we had planned during our time off. Installing in ceiling speakers however, was not one of them. We had an energy audit done and as a resulted added installation to our attic along with some other improvements. Since I didn't want to be climbing in the attic after the extra insulation was put in, this project moved quickly to the top of the list. Here's one of the speakers before getting installed.


Here's the speaker after getting wrapped in quilt batting. This is to prevent any insulation from coming in contact with the speaker.


Bought some speaker cable from monoprice. Definitely the cheapest price for wire.


Here are the four runs before fishing them through the wall and up in to the attic.


I only had to make one cut in the wall so that I could drill through a 2" x 4" fire blocking.


Here are the two new surround speakers in the family room.


Here are the new outdoor speakers over our patio. Total time spent was probably ~7-8 hours which included fishing the speakers wires through the wall and up through the attic.

Solar System

We finally got our solar panels up and running. We have a 6.24kw system that should offset around 40% of our energy usage. The system consists of 26 Centrosolar 240W panels. 20 of the panels are on the front of the house while another 6 are on the south side. Since we are on SRP's time of use program, the best financial return is when you have the panels facing Southwest. Since the panels are facing 2 different orientations, we installed an Aurora Power One 6000 that could handle 2 independent strings.


Here you can see the other 6 panels on the south roof.


This is the roof mounting system. You can see how the mounts attach to the roof and then go under the tile so you don't need to cut holes in the tile. Here you can also see the jacket that will allow the wires to go into the attic.


Here you can see all the roof tiles put back in place with only the mounts showing.


Now the rails are attached.


Here's the inverter mounted inside the garage.


Here are the solar meter and the utility disconnect in case anyone needs to disconnect the panels from the grid.


Finally here's our daily energy output for the last few weeks. We've been averaging around 34kWH a day. We typically consume about 100 to 140 kWH a day.

New Toy

We recently upgraded our camera to the Nikon D5100 (body only). Our D40 has served us well but has started to show signs of trouble. We and many others were getting a shutter release error where you can't use the camera. Although people claim the WD40 trick works, we figured it was time. Usually a good whack does the trick but not always.


The new camera takes video and has a live monitor so you don't always have to look through the eye piece. It also has 11 auto focus areas which means it should focus a lot better than the D40's 3 areas. The megapixel's also increases from 6MP to 16MP. The high ISO performance works really well making it a lot easier to catch Lauren's and Cole's indoor soccer matches.

Cutting the cable

We recently cancelled our cable TV service since we mostly just watch network TV. In order to get good over the air (OTA) reception, I installed this HDTV antenna in the attic. The antenna has received a lot of good reviews but if you don't believe me, you can read another review here.

Rocketship

Despite the fact that this looks like a rocket ship, it is not a toy. It's a blower for cleaning dSLR sensors. It's very similar to those nose bulbs the hospitals give you for your newborn. You squeeze it and it blows out air. Our photos had 2 distinct spots on certain photos.


Here you can see the dust on the sensor. You can capture this by adjusting your aperture to 22 and taking a photo of a white background. The 2 large dust particles were causing our spots.


Here's the after picture with most of the spots gone. There are a few more but normally you'll never see those in photos.

Bad idea

For the parents that can't say no. :)

Life restored to normal

Our Tivo HD unit died recently. There's nothing that puts the kids faster into a whining mode than telling them they can watch TV but not have one of their shows available. Here I purchased a 2 terabyte upgrade off of Ebay. There are a few aftermarket sites that sell hard drive upgrades such as Weeknees.com. There price was $400 for a 2 Terabyte HD. Instead I looked at Ebay and found several "reputable" sellers that were selling them from anywhere between $111 to $150 for a 2 Terabyte HD. I bought mine from this seller.



Replacing the HD is quite easy. You need a torx screw driver but after removing the cover and then another 8 screws, you put in your new HD and then reverse the process. The HD came with instructions on how to do the install.


Here you can see the old 160 GB HD and the new HD. Our HiDef recording capacity went from 20 hrs to 320 hrs.

Toy helicopter

Picked up this remote control helicopter at Costco for only $20. It uses 3 channels so you can go up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. Much better than those Air Hog 2 channel helicopters that you can't really control which direction it goes.

Peace and quiet

To prepare for our upcoming plane trip, we bought the kids each their own headphones. These are specifically made for kids by Kids Gear and they have a lot of positive reviews on Amazon. After Wednesday, we'll let you know how well they work. On a side note, we had ordered these from Amazon at 10:46pm using the super saver free shipping and they arrived the next day at 2:28pm. It's a good thing we didn't pay for upgraded shipping and I guess it helps that we have an Amazon distribution center in Phoenix.

No bars at home....

Every since we moved we haven't had good cell phone coverage at home which is a problem when you don't have a land line. AT&T recently released their 3G Microcell ($150) which provides 3G service in your home and routes the calls through your Internet connection. We've had it for a month and so far so good except sometimes when making a call we hear the other person pickup without hearing the phone ringing.

Watch out Dole!

Slicing fresh pineapples is a pain. You have to make so many cuts and then you have to remove the eyes etc. so I bought this pineapple slicer/corer. I wasn't sure it would work when I bought it but after using it, I'm glad I bought one. You cut off the top of the pineapple and then just turn the slicer into the pineapple. The slicer removes the core and slices the pineapple as you turn it.


Then you just pull the pineapple slices out. If you wanted to do a fancy presentation, you could fill the empty pineapple with some food.


Perfect pineapple slices just like out of a Dole can. :)

Telephone or Network.....

Our new house was wired with Cat5 wiring throughout the house but unfortunately they were all connected for telephone lines. Who uses a land line these days? Since we don't have a need for a telephone, I converted the wires to be network lines by adding some connectors and plugging them into the router.


Here's the Ethernet cable crimper I had to buy in order to put the connector on. It's surprisingly easy to do. One problem I ran into is that there are 2 standards for how you arrange the wires in the connector. You can see the standards here. I wired one outlet with the wrong standard but it still worked fine. I'm not sure why but as long as it works, I'm not complaining.


Here's a before picture of our network panel.


Here's the after picture.

New house = New projects

We moved into a new home right before Christmas. While the house is an upgrade in many respects, it also has lots of things that need changing. The thermostats are some of them. The house had these non programmable thermostats which might work if you are home all day but we needed something you could program.


I installed two Honeywell visionPRO 8000 touchscreen thermostats. I bought these off eBay for the price of a lower model at Home Depot or Lowe's. The nice thing about these is that you can set the fan to a circulation mode (turns the fan on 3x/hour) to help keep the rooms the same temperature.

Prime lens

I got a new prime lens for my birthday. It's a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX. You can read a review here. It's normally out of stock but Ritzcamera recently got them in stock. Basically it lets in a lot more light so that the shutter doesn't have to stay open as long.


Here's an example of a ceiling fan with the new lens. This was taken with a shutter of 1/20s, ISO of 720 and F1.8.


Here's a picture taken with our 18-200mm zoom lens with the same shutter of 1/20s, ISO 800 and F4.2. You can see how much darker the image is.


Here's a shot using the zoom lens but this time changing the shutter to allow more light in. The shutter is 1/4s, ISO 800 and F4.2. Notice the camera isn't able to stop the fan blades because the shutter is open so long.