Did your Globrite lights fail multiple times?

[Oceansailor]

I have 4 Pentair Globrite lights. 1 failed and was replaced under warranty and 2 just failed in the year after the warranty expired. Pentair sent me 2 lights as a courtesy which I will install soon.

Coincidentally, at the same time my Warrior SE cleaner failed just prior to the warranty expiration and Pentair sent a service company to look at the unit (service company confirmed the problem but has to check back with Pentair to see if they want to replace the unit or parts). While here, I mentioned the Globrite failures and the service company rep said he sees lots of failures within in a few years of the pool construction which he blames on the pool settling. He said once replaced he rarely sees problems with the replacements since the pool is no longer settling.

What has your experience been- should I expect continued failures every 2-3 years or do replacements really last longer?

 

[Bperry]

I have 4 Pentair Globrite lights. 1 failed and was replaced under warranty and 2 just failed in the year after the warranty expired. Pentair sent me 2 lights as a courtesy which I will install soon.

Coincidentally, at the same time my Warrior SE cleaner failed just prior to the warranty expiration and Pentair sent a service company to look at the unit (service company confirmed the problem but has to check back with Pentair to see if they want to replace the unit or parts). While here, I mentioned the Globrite failures and the service company rep said he sees lots of failures within in a few years of the pool construction which he blames on the pool settling. He said once replaced he rarely sees problems with the replacements since the pool is no longer settling.

What has your experience been- should I expect continued failures every 2-3 years or do replacements really last longer?

Did he explain how “pool settling” causes a light fixture to fail? Are your lights failing or the wiring that controls them?

 

[mknauss]

I replaced one after about 18 months (warranty) and the other after about 3 years (after warranty). They both failed again in about 3 years. So I am on my third set. After this set, I am trying something else.

They all failed at the seam that is where they press the lens on to the unit. This last set I used a bean of silicone over that seam. It is a hack I found on YouTube. Will see if it matters.

If you find the unit cracked, it is due to water entering through the seam and then the internals rust and swell.

 

[Oceansailor]

My Globrites, like many in other threads, failed by the plastic body cracking and allowing water intrusion. The theory is the settling process exerts a sideways pressure on the niche/body causing the cracking. I still think it is more of a design and/or manufacturing defect but curious to see what others have experienced.

 

[mknauss]

The seam failed by the lens and then water entruded, rusting the internals that then cracked the unit.

 

[Oceansailor]

The seam failed by the lens and then water entruded, rusting the internals that then cracked the unit.

This seems most likely and was what I suspected when I took the picture underwater. I will inspect it more closely when I remove it tomorrow. Since the crack appeared at the back of the unit, possibly beyond where it may protrude from the shotcrete pool shell, it may be plausible that the crack occurred first, followed by the rusting. The need to continually replace the lights every 3 years or so certainly is evidence against the settling theory.

 

[mknauss]

The need to continually replace the lights every 3 years or so certainly is evidence against the settling theory.

And I have a fiberglass pool. There is no settling. Our earth here in the desert is decomposed granite. It does not move.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Pool LED lighting is very poorly engineered like almost all LED lighting. The nichless designs are just as bad as the standard flooded niche ones. The major problem with ALL LEDs is proper thermal management. If you need to see a demonstration of that, go to any standard lamp in your house that supplies 120V AC to the bulb receptacle and put and LED equivalent into it. Run the LED bulb for 30mins or so. Then shut off the light switch and grab the base of the bulb where it screws into the fixture … you will most likely receive a 1st degree skin burn.

Now mentally take that light, seal it up tightly in plastic packaging and isolate it inside a PVC tube where no water or air can contact it. Imagine how hot the driver electronics will get.

LEDs fail not from the diode itself but because the driver electronics on the back of them get fried from poor thermal management. It happens to all LED bulbs and it’s why the claimed “50,000 hour Lifetimes” claims are total BS. The diode that emits the light will last 50,000 … the drive electronics, not so much.

I have halogen lights in my pool. They were installed 11 years ago and the continue to work. Same ones the day the pool was built.

LED pool lighting is a rip off … if LEDs are a must, then you simply have to accept their failure rates and be ready to buy the same light many times over (and pay to have it pulled and installed if that’s outside your comfort zone).

 

[Oceansailor]

Just to clarify, I don't think it is the pool itself that is settling. It is the backfill around the pool shell that settles. The hole dug is almost always at least a little bigger than the shell, including the plumbing areas, and requires some backfill. So in theory it is really the backfill settling and applying pressure on the protruding light niche/conduit that could cause the damage. That being said I agree the most likely cause is the water intrusion by the lens or by the cable connection causing the rusting innards to crack the case.

 

[mknauss]

@JoyfulNoise I agree they are poorly engineered. But the interesting thing is, I used to very rarely use the lights. Like a few times over their lifespan. This last set, it runs 3-5 hours EVERY night. And they are over two years old. So I would think if heat is the issue, running them alot would cause failure quicker. Yes?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

@JoyfulNoise I agree they are poorly engineered. But the interesting thing is, I used to very rarely use the lights. Like a few times over their lifespan. This last set, it runs 3-5 hours EVERY night. And they are over two years old. So I would think if heat is the issue, running them alot would cause failure quicker. Yes?

5 X 365 X 2 = 3,650 hours (max)

3650 / 50000 = 7.3%

My halogens run infrequently too, maybe 100 hours total for the entire swim season for the spa and pool lights. I’m not one whose pool is used as a backyard light show so usage is mainly for swimming at night or sitting in the spa. At one point early on I had my lights come every night for a few hours but I felt it was wasteful to do so and the ambient light from the landscape lighting was enough.

I think only getting 7-10% of the stated life out of bulb is pretty poor. These LEDs need to have their eletrical backplanes cooled either by air flow or by water contact or else the thermal load will kill the power drivers. Sure, some will fail out of the box or shortly thereafter but once they make it past a few months of use, they should come marginally close to their stated lifetimes … if they were engineered properly. It’s pretty clear ALL the major pool equipment manufacturers skimp a lot with these LEDs. Therefore the failure rates are going to be random.

As with all LED lighting, any savings you think you will gain from lower energy use will be eaten up by constant replacement costs. I like using LED lightening but none of it lasts any longer than traditional incandescent lights and, more often, they last a lot less ...