19 October 2013 - This is one of the most educational and simple to understand teardown videos I've seen in a long time. I actually own some of these bulbs. I was curious about how they were made. Thank you kindly!!
Sheets are made by using a press to both cut and score the sheet then the top flex board is stuck to the sheet, then the solder paste and LEDs are placed then reflowed. Then cut the board with another press and you have the boards. Test and mark. To get made in USA all they need to do is assemble the parts together as assemblies, then have local packaging suppliers. All made in PRC but just the last part in USA.
With the light distribution you can also note that the GLS lamp will have different levels as you rotate around the axis, as the filament ends make less light in an arc. The Cree will have regular patterns around the same axis, but should be closer to even.
Cree just redesigned this and the 40 watter. It's got a smaller globe, different heatsink, and now only has 10 LED's instead of 20 ( one row instead of two)
Really nice video. You're right, it's very nice to work with big brand capacitors because you can get datasheets for them and that is sometimes very important. Keep up the good work.
I really like your tear downs. Would it be possible to have a more consistent format to them? Like in the Switch tear down you check for flicker, in the Cree 60 you do not. To get the most out of your video's it needs to be apples to apples companions. So test the same stuff on all the bulbs you rip apart. The geek in me loves the video's especially when you get down into the components and their rated life spans. GREAT stuff.
The two inductors can't really be a common mode choke, as they're wound on separate cores. For the inductors to act as a common mode choke, they need to share a core. The magnetics don't work otherwise.
***** Yeah,i bought one today and noticed the same thing and i also saw only one row of led's. I think they applied the silicone inside the glass. I plan on buying another one to take apart and see what is else is different.
Just tested one of these on a cheap dimmer I bought at Home Depot. The bulb buzzes a lot more than the other bulbs by Feit I tested so bear than in mind when using it indoors on a dimmer. I tested a Feit with a similar price and it the buzzing was half as loud. Interesting stuff.
Very good tear down and explanation. I was going to buy one myself and take it apart but now I don't need to. Can you explain the temp measurement part some more? What were you measuring? the inside air or a particular component or the heatsink or the MCPCB board the LEDs are mounted on? Also, would there be a huge temp difference if you measure the temp on the large cap vs measuring the surrounding air temp?
Great video+teardown! About the short lifespan electro cap. Most mid- to high-end computer motherboards have switched to solid caps, which have much longer service life. I don't think they cost THAT much more than high-quality typical/liquid electros, like the Nichicon.
Love this stuff even if I don't understand a lot of it. It's great even for those of us who don't really know what you're talking about on the technical aspects. There are some things that are easily understood, such as the actual quality of the components. It's really helpful to know what something is actually made of.
My Cree LED 60W warm light started to blink after just one month of usage (~4h/day). I will look for the receipt, maybe I still have it. I had it tested it (installed) along side a Incandescent and a Halogen bulb, the Cree had the most pleasant light and I was expecting it to last the longest, maybe just mine had a defect.
Respectfully, I think your numbers are all wrong. The Manufacturer's sheets show values in degrees Celsius, your meter is apparently setup in Fahrenheit. I don't think you measured 80C off of the bulb, or the solder would be melting. (176F...)
It would have been nice to see the actual teardown like with the Philips bulb to see how were the LEDs placed inside. Was it like decagon prism? With nothing on "top"? (facing away from the socket)
I'm thinking of taking a few of these 800 lumen LED bulbs apart to make my own headlights. I figure I could unroll two in such a way as to only produce around 1,000 lumens from the regular headlight bulbs and around 1,600 lumens for the bright lights. What are the current and voltage outputs from the circuit that feeds the LED arrays?
Interesting it seems to life span of the bulb is dictated by the life span of the capacitor. I wonder could you repair a failed one by replacing the caps.
I have 2 failures out of 41 bulbs purchased. The two failures had less than one hour of use. When I returned the bulbs to Home Depot they now (Nov 12, 2014) ask if the bulb was used in an enclosed fixture. But they refund the money no matter what you tell them.
Can you confirm if these are the CREE XT-E LED? Should be about 3.5mmx3.5mm. If so, they are high voltage LEDs @ 12v, 24v, & 48v available. Since each can give out 100lm and they have so many, looks like they are under driving them for efficiency and to keep the heat down maybe? For the price of one bulb, you can de-solder these and put them to use in other projects. At about $2.39 ea on digikey, seems worth it to buy a bulb and remove the LEDs =D =D =D
OK teardown of an LED Bulb... I have noticed that my LED light bulb gets Quite Hot, does it really Save Energy ? Where is all the Heat Coming from ? My 7.5 Watt bulb gets as hot as a 30-40 Watt conventional Edison Bulb? John
I'm a BIG fan of CREE LED bulbs... singing their 'praises' to friends and family. Well, after getting my hands on about 50+ customer returned Cree LED bulbs (of which only about 10 are actually bad), it seems the biggest single point of failure is the AC Neutral wire that simply gets lightly smooshed by the screw-in bulb base when it's attached to the plastic housing. IMHO, Cree eliminated one too many hand operations - a single solder point. If this wire had been left long enough to protrude from the metal threaded base, enough to bend over the top lip and solder there, over 75% of the failed bulbs I went through would have not failed. The symptom is a flickering bulb that will go out randomly, and touching it can bring it back on... depending on which direction you 'lean' the bulb while it's screwed-in tight. I found the simplest way to repair those is to create a small, sharp indentation through the metal base right on top of that wire. The wire position in the base is very repeatable and predictable, so with a small flat-blade screwdriver against the upper lip of the base, and a moderate 'whack' with the handle of a larger screwdriver (it doesn't take much), it dents the metal just enough to make a much better connection than their "slip it over and crimp" friction connection. The small screwdriver blade tip creates a fairly sharp dent that makes for a high point-of-contact pressure on the bare wire below the metal, against the plastic base inside.
a1hardwood I mainly use a good dose of caution... ;-) SAFETY FIRST!... as (Crazy Russian says) Use leather work gloves! First I use an Xacto knife and carefully cut down into the glue as much as possible. Then I use a heat gun (of hot hair dryer), and once the globe is hot, it will soften the glue. Using a pair of leather gloves (for heat and glass breakage protection), slowly twist/rock it back & forth. It will eventually begin to separate. JUST BE CAREFUL as you take the globe off! The individual LED tops are a soft rubber-like (silicone?) material, and are VERY easy to tear off by even a slight bump when you remove the globe. The LED will usually still work, but it will be producing UV light (don't look at it!). The white phosphor stays on the silicone top that gets knocked off. I have successfully used a tiny dab of clear silicone to re-attach the top if you do knock any off. After removing the globe, if you intend to go further, I usually go ahead and remove the LED "board" from the tower. It really just slides up and off... but push it up from the bottom with the blade of a screwdriver... don't pull from the LED end! (Some newer ones have a plastic insert in the top of the tower that may need to be removed first.) To remove the main heat sink from the plastic base, you need to dig out any of the glue that's down inside the 3 snap-down retainer holes. Then you can pry the locking tabs inward (I think), while gently prying the heat sink away from the plastic base.
it broke off in my hand. im ok.i finally got it apart and literally fell apart. the solder job was done with not enough solder. but without a dome its probably not worth fixing
beforebefore - I think the issue you describe is what is affecting four of my CREE bulbs. I would love to try to replicate your repair, but hoping you can provide a little more guidance. (1) It seems the repair you describe can be done without taking the bulb apart at all. Is that right? (2) "The wire position in the base is very repeatable and predictable" => Can you help me figure out what this position is? Thanks!
Aha! Well, by breaking one of the four bulbs (not originally intended) I think I discovered what the location of the wire is. Following your instructions on that location seems to have "fixed" these bulbs -- at least for now. I hope they stay fixed! In case others are interested in the location: the exposed plastic section which has the CREE logo and other writing has two seams (opposite each other). On my bulbs, the location of the wire is approximately at the location of one of those seams => the one closer to the large CREE logo (just to the right of the logo when looking at the logo straight on, not near the disclaimer text). Using a screwdriver and hammer to carefully create an indentation in the metal just below the plastic at that seam seems to have addressed the issue! If anyone else is having the same issue and needs help, reply here, and I may be able to post a few photos somewhere. Cheers!
Has anyone done enough longevity testing to confirm the claimed extremely long lives (100K hrs!) and frequency of infant failures? The price isn't very attractive if the infant failures are too frequent. Nice video.
Do you have a video on how the basic electronics run an LED Bulb? I see this bulb has a rectifier and capacitor, but is there a transformer? Is the capacitor part of some kind of passive low-pass filter for smoothing the DC current? And if so what kind is used (Butterworth filter, Chebyshev filter, Bessel filter)?
No videos on the power converters specifically ... there are lot's of data sheets and app notes at the various vendors. If I recall the Cree is a non-isolated design which uses an inductor and it was based on an ST controller. The filters tend to be simple one-pole low-pass filters.
The 100W-equivilent CREE are very, very dangerous. I have one that literally "blew up" over a family room chair, spilling shards of glass all over the place, and leaving 110V electrodes in the fixture, making it dangerous to unscrew from the cieling. I can't think of a more dangerous bulb. I paid $21 each for two of these. One if the engineering failures here, is the failure mode. They do shatter, even though they are supposed to be unshatterable.
I HAVE REPLACED MY CFL LIGHT BULBS WITH LED BULBS. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LED LIGHT TUBES & RINGS CONSTRUCTED WITH CAPABILITY OF BEING USED IN FLOURESENT FIXTURES.
i installed about 30 of these bulbs in my garage and they lasted about 3 months. they all went out within a 2 week period. i thought leds were supposed to last years not months. maybe a bad batch.
Do you know if these bulbs are ok to use in a fully enclosed fixture? Most led bulbs state explicitly if they are or are not usable in a fully enclosed fixture, but the Cree packaging and specs don't mention anything.
Yep, you got me there....gave up after the first few minutes of the heatsink talk. Thanks for the indirect answer to my question though. #t=10m00s for anyone else who wants to know
Might be time for another set of Cree tear downs. They released a newer, cheaper design with a drastically reduced warranty to match. www.cree.com/News-and-Events/Cree-News/Press-Releases/2014/October/New-Cree-LED-Bulb
+elecronupdate I'd like to tear down my failed 100W cree (lasted a mere 25 hours, but that's another story) to find the point of failure. One thing your teardown doesn't show is how you managed to disassemble without too much damage. What's your recommended technique?
+Chris Koch (jazzjunkie) Saw, spudger, dental-pick and a lot of careful disassembly. work slowly and carefully, remove the top 1st, remove then the emitter 2nd, saw the base in half (just through the side walls), use spudger and pick to remove potting compond. wear glasses, use gloves.
***** Good info, thanks! I take it the dome is real glass under its spongy coating? That alone makes the whole thing much riskier. I want to try a heat gun on the glue, but that coating…
Use 6562 to do this? Dare u Cree. It is dimmable and I bet it use OCP to cut the power. Anyone hear the buzz during dimming? Yes, u will. The thing is non isolated design... Cheaper than flyback. The cap is short life I guess.
I bought one of this couple of months before and the first one was a defect because the glass cover was misshaped and the replacement is on my table. That is the only LED bulb from Cree. Yesterday, i came across the teardown video of this bulb. i have to say, Cree is really crazy to cut down the cost of the bulb... first, the bulb has 20 LED chips in series, 4 LED dies per chip, so 80!!!! LEDs in series. Consider 2-3V per LED, that is >200V. I don't know, how they got UL approval and how they make sure over life the heat sink metal wont conduct high voltage to their customer. Usually, other big brand designs use isolated and low voltage LED array output
19 October 2013 - This is one of the most educational and simple to understand teardown videos I've seen in a long time. I actually own some of these bulbs. I was curious about how they were made. Thank you kindly!!
Sheets are made by using a press to both cut and score the sheet then the top flex board is stuck to the sheet, then the solder paste and LEDs are placed then reflowed. Then cut the board with another press and you have the boards. Test and mark. To get made in USA all they need to do is assemble the parts together as assemblies, then have local packaging suppliers. All made in PRC but just the last part in USA.
With the light distribution you can also note that the GLS lamp will have different levels as you rotate around the axis, as the filament ends make less light in an arc. The Cree will have regular patterns around the same axis, but should be closer to even.
Worked on the component for this product when I worked at Cree. It's XT-E HEW High Voltage (12V).
Cree just redesigned this and the 40 watter. It's got a smaller globe, different heatsink, and now only has 10 LED's instead of 20 ( one row instead of two)
Really nice video. You're right, it's very nice to work with big brand capacitors because you can get datasheets for them and that is sometimes very important. Keep up the good work.
I need to download this video, and sure, I have done!
Really good film for LED popular science
I really like your tear downs. Would it be possible to have a more consistent format to them? Like in the Switch tear down you check for flicker, in the Cree 60 you do not. To get the most out of your video's it needs to be apples to apples companions. So test the same stuff on all the bulbs you rip apart. The geek in me loves the video's especially when you get down into the components and their rated life spans. GREAT stuff.
Interesting breakdown of the LED ligh bulbs I am planning on getting for home.
The two inductors can't really be a common mode choke, as they're wound on separate cores.
For the inductors to act as a common mode choke, they need to share a core. The magnetics don't work otherwise.
Cree should add one more led on the top of the bulb to help improve the light output.
***** Yeah,i bought one today and noticed the same thing and i also saw only one row of led's. I think they applied the silicone inside the glass. I plan on buying another one to take apart and see what is else is different.
I'd love to see a breakdown of one of the dimmable LED bulbs.
Just tested one of these on a cheap dimmer I bought at Home Depot. The bulb buzzes a lot more than the other bulbs by Feit I tested so bear than in mind when using it indoors on a dimmer. I tested a Feit with a similar price and it the buzzing was half as loud. Interesting stuff.
Very good tear down and explanation. I was going to buy one myself and take it apart but now I don't need to. Can you explain the temp measurement part some more? What were you measuring? the inside air or a particular component or the heatsink or the MCPCB board the LEDs are mounted on? Also, would there be a huge temp difference if you measure the temp on the large cap vs measuring the surrounding air temp?
Very nice review.
Great video+teardown!
About the short lifespan electro cap. Most mid- to high-end computer motherboards have switched to solid caps, which have much longer service life. I don't think they cost THAT much more than high-quality typical/liquid electros, like the Nichicon.
I'm seeing a lot of cold solder joints.
very good video! Thanks Ben
I have one of these bulbs and the base gets very hot to point were the adhesive is melting that secures the bulb to the base.
Love this stuff even if I don't understand a lot of it. It's great even for those of us who don't really know what you're talking about on the technical aspects. There are some things that are easily understood, such as the actual quality of the components. It's really helpful to know what something is actually made of.
My Cree LED 60W warm light started to blink after just one month of usage (~4h/day). I will look for the receipt, maybe I still have it. I had it tested it (installed) along side a Incandescent and a Halogen bulb, the Cree had the most pleasant light and I was expecting it to last the longest, maybe just mine had a defect.
thanks for this video. I learned a lot
Respectfully, I think your numbers are all wrong. The Manufacturer's sheets show values in degrees Celsius, your meter is apparently setup in Fahrenheit. I don't think you measured 80C off of the bulb, or the solder would be melting. (176F...)
So it could potentially fail so that live line voltage exists on the heat sink?
+Jacana Productions when you test an led you should use an LED dimmer not a "cheap" dimmer. they are not always compatable
I remove my glass cover and use in enclose glass fixtures, it runs much cooler and increases the lumens
Terrible idea... This exposes dangerous voltages.
Very true, not UL listed anymore, but being the E.E.'s we are...
Once again, awesome video! This Cree is built way better than the Philips. This might have changed my mind on which bulbs to buy.
Great Video! How did you disassemble the glass globe???
It would have been nice to see the actual teardown like with the Philips bulb to see how were the LEDs placed inside.
Was it like decagon prism? With nothing on "top"? (facing away from the socket)
I'm thinking of taking a few of these 800 lumen LED bulbs apart to make my own headlights. I figure I could unroll two in such a way as to only produce around 1,000 lumens from the regular headlight bulbs and around 1,600 lumens for the bright lights. What are the current and voltage outputs from the circuit that feeds the LED arrays?
Interesting it seems to life span of the bulb is dictated by the life span of the capacitor.
I wonder could you repair a failed one by replacing the caps.
I have 2 failures out of 41 bulbs purchased. The two failures had less than one hour of use. When I returned the bulbs to Home Depot they now (Nov 12, 2014) ask if the bulb was used in an enclosed fixture. But they refund the money no matter what you tell them.
Can you confirm if these are the CREE XT-E LED? Should be about 3.5mmx3.5mm. If so, they are high voltage LEDs @ 12v, 24v, & 48v available. Since each can give out 100lm and they have so many, looks like they are under driving them for efficiency and to keep the heat down maybe? For the price of one bulb, you can de-solder these and put them to use in other projects. At about $2.39 ea on digikey, seems worth it to buy a bulb and remove the LEDs =D =D =D
dude, that's awesome. very good review. i couldn't stop watching and listening. thanks
Thanks for an excellent review. What frequencies does the LED drive section run at? I notice chokes and other inductors on the PCB.
any ideas on humidity susceptibility?
OK teardown of an LED Bulb... I have noticed that my LED light bulb gets Quite Hot, does it really Save Energy ? Where is all the Heat Coming from ? My 7.5 Watt bulb gets as hot as a 30-40 Watt conventional Edison Bulb? John
I'm a BIG fan of CREE LED bulbs... singing their 'praises' to friends and family.
Well, after getting my hands on about 50+ customer returned Cree LED bulbs (of which only about 10 are actually bad), it seems the biggest single point of failure is the AC Neutral wire that simply gets lightly smooshed by the screw-in bulb base when it's attached to the plastic housing.
IMHO, Cree eliminated one too many hand operations - a single solder point. If this wire had been left long enough to protrude from the metal threaded base, enough to bend over the top lip and solder there, over 75% of the failed bulbs I went through would have not failed.
The symptom is a flickering bulb that will go out randomly, and touching it can bring it back on... depending on which direction you 'lean' the bulb while it's screwed-in tight.
I found the simplest way to repair those is to create a small, sharp indentation through the metal base right on top of that wire. The wire position in the base is very repeatable and predictable, so with a small flat-blade screwdriver against the upper lip of the base, and a moderate 'whack' with the handle of a larger screwdriver (it doesn't take much), it dents the metal just enough to make a much better connection than their "slip it over and crimp" friction connection. The small screwdriver blade tip creates a fairly sharp dent that makes for a high point-of-contact pressure on the bare wire below the metal, against the plastic base inside.
can you tell me what i should use to remove the glue that holds the glass on the heat sink
a1hardwood I mainly use a good dose of caution... ;-)
SAFETY FIRST!... as (Crazy Russian says) Use leather work gloves! First I use an Xacto knife and carefully cut down into the glue as much as possible. Then I use a heat gun (of hot hair dryer), and once the globe is hot, it will soften the glue. Using a pair of leather gloves (for heat and glass breakage protection), slowly twist/rock it back & forth. It will eventually begin to separate.
JUST BE CAREFUL as you take the globe off! The individual LED tops are a soft rubber-like (silicone?) material, and are VERY easy to tear off by even a slight bump when you remove the globe. The LED will usually still work, but it will be producing UV light (don't look at it!). The white phosphor stays on the silicone top that gets knocked off. I have successfully used a tiny dab of clear silicone to re-attach the top if you do knock any off.
After removing the globe, if you intend to go further, I usually go ahead and remove the LED "board" from the tower. It really just slides up and off... but push it up from the bottom with the blade of a screwdriver... don't pull from the LED end! (Some newer ones have a plastic insert in the top of the tower that may need to be removed first.)
To remove the main heat sink from the plastic base, you need to dig out any of the glue that's down inside the 3 snap-down retainer holes. Then you can pry the locking tabs inward (I think), while gently prying the heat sink away from the plastic base.
it broke off in my hand. im ok.i finally got it apart and literally fell apart. the solder job was done with not enough solder. but without a dome its probably not worth fixing
beforebefore - I think the issue you describe is what is affecting four of my CREE bulbs. I would love to try to replicate your repair, but hoping you can provide a little more guidance.
(1) It seems the repair you describe can be done without taking the bulb apart at all. Is that right?
(2) "The wire position in the base is very repeatable and predictable" => Can you help me figure out what this position is? Thanks!
Aha! Well, by breaking one of the four bulbs (not originally intended) I think I discovered what the location of the wire is. Following your instructions on that location seems to have "fixed" these bulbs -- at least for now. I hope they stay fixed!
In case others are interested in the location: the exposed plastic section which has the CREE logo and other writing has two seams (opposite each other). On my bulbs, the location of the wire is approximately at the location of one of those seams => the one closer to the large CREE logo (just to the right of the logo when looking at the logo straight on, not near the disclaimer text). Using a screwdriver and hammer to carefully create an indentation in the metal just below the plastic at that seam seems to have addressed the issue!
If anyone else is having the same issue and needs help, reply here, and I may be able to post a few photos somewhere. Cheers!
These bulbs run so dang hot!! be very careful were you use them.
Hey, where is that chart of temperate vs. lifetime? It's not in the main PW spec sheet.
Have you measures for par (umole/s)?
First barcode on the LED array PCB decodes to: 021310000810-26
The second on the AC/DC converter decodes to: 011311000395-02
Why? Because I can.
So how can they tell how long it will last?
they seriously dislike the cold and humidity, at least in ohio, they go out and will not turn on.
Has anyone done enough longevity testing to confirm the claimed extremely long lives (100K hrs!) and frequency of infant failures? The price isn't very attractive if the infant failures are too frequent. Nice video.
Look carefully at the packaging at the beginning of this video: 25K hours expected lifetime, not 100K hours.
Do you have a video on how the basic electronics run an LED Bulb? I see this bulb has a rectifier and capacitor, but is there a transformer? Is the capacitor part of some kind of passive low-pass filter for smoothing the DC current? And if so what kind is used (Butterworth filter, Chebyshev filter, Bessel filter)?
No videos on the power converters specifically ... there are lot's of data sheets and app notes at the various vendors. If I recall the Cree is a non-isolated design which uses an inductor and it was based on an ST controller. The filters tend to be simple one-pole low-pass filters.
The 100W-equivilent CREE are very, very dangerous. I have one that literally "blew up" over a family room chair, spilling shards of glass all over the place, and leaving 110V electrodes in the fixture, making it dangerous to unscrew from the cieling.
I can't think of a more dangerous bulb. I paid $21 each for two of these.
One if the engineering failures here, is the failure mode. They do shatter, even though they are supposed to be unshatterable.
Did you remove the silicone over the glass? That's there to prevent this very thing.
Glad I bought this bulb for less than $5..It's kind of crap since it started to flicker on its own..I think CFL bulbs last longer than LED..
So, would this work in europe, on 220V?
I HAVE REPLACED MY CFL LIGHT BULBS WITH LED BULBS.
I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LED LIGHT TUBES & RINGS
CONSTRUCTED WITH CAPABILITY OF BEING USED
IN FLOURESENT FIXTURES.
i installed about 30 of these bulbs in my garage and they lasted about 3 months. they all went out within a 2 week period. i thought leds were supposed to last years not months. maybe a bad batch.
Do you know if these bulbs are ok to use in a fully enclosed fixture? Most led bulbs state explicitly if they are or are not usable in a fully enclosed fixture, but the Cree packaging and specs don't mention anything.
dude did you even watch the video? sure you didn't... cause you wouldn't ask questions which were covered in that video...... duhh....
Yep, you got me there....gave up after the first few minutes of the heatsink talk. Thanks for the indirect answer to my question though. #t=10m00s for anyone else who wants to know
Might be time for another set of Cree tear downs. They released a newer, cheaper design with a drastically reduced warranty to match. www.cree.com/News-and-Events/Cree-News/Press-Releases/2014/October/New-Cree-LED-Bulb
NJRoadfan Indeed, the 4flow does look interesting... a teardown video will be soon up on this very bulb.
+elecronupdate I'd like to tear down my failed 100W cree (lasted a mere 25 hours, but that's another story) to find the point of failure. One thing your teardown doesn't show is how you managed to disassemble without too much damage. What's your recommended technique?
+Chris Koch (jazzjunkie) Saw, spudger, dental-pick and a lot of careful disassembly. work slowly and carefully, remove the top 1st, remove then the emitter 2nd, saw the base in half (just through the side walls), use spudger and pick to remove potting compond. wear glasses, use gloves.
***** Good info, thanks!
I take it the dome is real glass under its spongy coating? That alone makes the whole thing much riskier. I want to try a heat gun on the glue, but that coating…
+Chris Koch (jazzjunkie) safety glasses, and a hammer better choice
+Chris Koch (jazzjunkie) safety glasses, and a hammer better choice
Use 6562 to do this? Dare u Cree. It is dimmable and I bet it use OCP to cut the power. Anyone hear the buzz during dimming? Yes, u will. The thing is non isolated design... Cheaper than flyback. The cap is short life I guess.
I bought one of this couple of months before and the first one was a defect because the glass cover was misshaped and the replacement is on my table. That is the only LED bulb from Cree. Yesterday, i came across the teardown video of this bulb. i have to say, Cree is really crazy to cut down the cost of the bulb... first, the bulb has 20 LED chips in series, 4 LED dies per chip, so 80!!!! LEDs in series. Consider 2-3V per LED, that is >200V. I don't know, how they got UL approval and how they make sure over life the heat sink metal wont conduct high voltage to their customer. Usually, other big brand designs use isolated and low voltage LED array output
yep LED lamps life will be limited by the electrolytic caps in the driver electronics. 25000 hours life my *ss........