LED Flood lights / Easy Repair

[amtrakuk]

Its been a quiet morning at work so been watching Clive's channel on youtube. We all tend to agree that LED does have its floors but its just occurred to me how modular these Chinese LED floods are and how changeable the parts are. The LED COB tends to be held in with a couple of screws with a blob of thermal compound between the back of the COB and the case. A replacement 50 watt COB is under £2.50. The COB is relatively reliable. Apart from a few wires the only other thing is the driver.

Drivers these days for LED lamps (in all forms) are so simple. None of this High Frequency nonsense these days. Now they are a few smoothing capacitors, rectifier and a couple of resistors all of which can be got from Maplin. What seems to fail on the driver seems to be a low quality capacitor (hence the flashing you see some failed floods exhibit). I reckon open up the driver and you'll find a blown electrolytic capacitor. Replace with a better quality one and the lamp will be good for a few years. Because COB drivers don't use High Frequency these days they don't tend to over heat

Maybe instead of changing ballasts out its time to get the soldering iron out and replace a 50p capacitors?

[Kev]

The fitters that are the modern electricians would never do that and as for drivers they are all different and all work on different VA I don't look after one site where the voltage and current of the drivers are the same. As for the led flood lights they are corroding up so bad when they do fail in a couple years time you would think it's probably not worth wasting time and money fitting replacement COB to them because the fittings are made of cast pig metal shit and just end up white after a couple years.
One I fitted in 2013/14 is fucked already. Powder coat gone and bracket rusting. Not worth fucking around with

[amtrakuk]

Actually your right there Kev. Didn't think about the case quality, its exactly what's happened to the linear halogen flood on the front of my house. The lamp has blown and the base has rusted shut so the only cause of action would be to rip it off and chuck it. Maybe that's why the only come with a small pig tail on them, fit a IP rated plug and socket beside the fitting and so its easier to chuck it out when it blows.

[Kev]

That's actually a really good idea for led flood lights!

[AngryHorse]

It will be interesting to see how a `drivered` LED and a `driverless` one run together?, without a gear fail, just how long would a COB last on street lighting hours?

[Kev]

They do actually have a series of resistors and rectifiers built in to the led chip it's self. Just means if they fail the whole thing is in the bin!

[AngryHorse]

Ah, but look how long resistors and rectifiers last in neon indicator lights?, as long as its not drivers full of microprocessors and bollocks Chinese electronics they should do a bit better?

[amtrakuk]

I'm not sure there are rectifiers and resistors in the COB itself. The COB works on DC so the rectifier and voltage/current dropping is done in the "driver" which these days on lower power units are done using 4 diodes (or a rectifier pack) and 2 series capacitors to smooth out any flicker and high power resistors. From what I've seen they always fit a cheap at least poor quality Electrolytic capacitor. If only 1 of the two fail you get the flashing. Of both fail there is nothing. Stupid thing is the components to replace are under £5 for the pair. The COB itself is quite reliable if adequate heat sink compound is used.