fixing an expensive LED light
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- čas přidán 26. 10. 2022
- One of the oldest and most expensive (Philips AmbientLED 2011 vintage) LED lights in my house stopped working. Time to explore, and maybe try to fix it.
A bit of background on the light itself: www.led-resource.com/2011/06/...
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This isn't the only way to do it.
It's probably not the best way to do it.
But it's how I did it. - Věda a technologie
Little flip chip is a protection device, which is basically a zener diode and a SCR, one each direction, so that if all the LED's go open circuit the SCR is triggered on each power cycle to short out the entire LED module, so the rest of the series string keeps on working. Yes Phillips made them well, as they wanted a flagship device that would showcase their technology, made when they were able to make every single part, from the plastics to the electronics, and the metal spin cast housing, in house.
Those Philips bulbs are absolute troopers, I had two in outside lights that were on 24/7, I think they lasted a good 9-10 years before the PSUs gave up the ghost. Those LEDs were LUXEON Rebels, by the way (as far as I know, LumiLEDs still make them)
7:00 and that goes along with the recall notice 'a wire has come off'
This lamp was the US$10 Million winner of the US Dept of Energy "L-Prize" in 2011. The remote phosphor was the only way to meet the criteria that required meeting certain performance including light output, light distribution and colour maintenance over life. Most GLS replacement lamps throw the light DOWN, rather than all round like a GLS (A-type) lamp, hence the sideways-firing LEDs and side diffusers.
The DoE tested it as reaching 93.4 lm/W, 97.1% lumen maintenance at 25,000-hours and a CRI of 93. Nothing even got close to those numbers back in the day, and the remote phosphor was the only way to achieve acceptable performance over life.
That level of performance isn't even reached by modern-day retail consumer lamps, however the cost has dropped so much that it doesn't really matter any longer.
Can't really agree on that high CRI and high efficiency claim. I replaced mine because they were pretty dim and the light looked like crap.
Always good to see something that would have been tossed into the salvage parts bin get a second chance to do its original job. Excellent
The LEDS used in these lamps are actually ultraviolet emitters that excite the yellow phosphors in those three covers that will emit white light. Not sure which type of UV they emit but another CZcamsr used this lamp minus the phosphor covers to activate the RetroBright system used to "bleach" older yellowed computer plastics and plastic housings. More than likely they emit UVA similar to the black light tubes common in the sixties and seventies.
UK That was a nice little video. I have the reputation as a very good bodger. That does not mean second rate, it just means I hate waste. I'm at about 80% for LED's and 65% for garden lights. I have a 300W soddering (U.S. viewers) iron that doesn't give a dam what substrate the connections are on. The real old pre Roman ale had no hops - filthy stuff, really smooth without. Regards
PS. Please don't leave the Commonwealth we need you now more than ever I fear.
Really cool video. I have one of those lights somewhere. They were indeed expensive but seeing how much effort was put into it, I’m ok with that. I rather pay extra for over engineering then just marked up garbage that looks expensive.
Another early adopter here - I have the same model from that same timeframe. Still running strong, although it's in a fixture that doesn't get used too much. Seeing the engineering that went into it makes me feel a bit better about the fact that I also spent an arm and a leg for it back then.
This bulb is insanely overengineered. $30 seems like a decent price for such quality. Shame they goofed up with those joints. I believe the recall bulletin is describing exactly the same failure mode.
I’m fascinated by those bright LEDs. I’ve been playing around with the 3v COB LEDs, even made a night light with two of them.
For some reason, I pictured WHITE LIGHT WHEN LIT, projected in reverse on the wall.
Same device, same faulty wire. Thank you for the video, it helped me repairing mine ! The only repairable LED lamp in the world i guess. 🙂
I have two of the same type of bulbs that have been the longest lasting LED bulbs. They are probably around 15 years old and get used intermittently every day. They were the first LED bulbs that I purchased.
Not like most other LEDs that I have that seem to last 4 to 7 years and sometimes as little as 2 years. They perform pretty much the same as when they were installed, never any flicker.
Good video POS, very impressed with your repair, most of us would have chucked the bulb out. You are the true environmentalist.....
Clipping the plastic covers back on so the broken bit doesn't show anymore = hiding the crime.
Quite a bit different construction than the cheapy led lights. I tried to fix a cheapy this afternoon by solder bridging after removing the dead led. Lol, it worked but the rest of the led's seemed very dim after the repair. I likely messed up because it was my first time taking one apart and trying to fix it. Still, it was a fun diversion for a few minutes 👍
The leds look like philips luxeon rebel chips emitting royal blue color which are designed for remote phosphor applications (the yellow covers) this was done since early white leds degrade because of the older phosphors being exposed to heat. Moving it away from the led chips extended the phosphor life. The pcbs where the led chips are mounted to are indeed some kind of ceramic can't remember off the top of my head maybe alumina? Very thermally conductive used for high performance circuits that need to dissipate heat. Today mostly used aluminum or copper backed pcbs for ease of manufacture.
Yes, not UV / near UV. The royal blue is 440 to 450 nm.
"She's built like a tank Jim"
It's crazy how many different ways led light bulb are made. Always a surprise when you open one up!
Philips use to use a phosphor cooting in the "yellow" plastic that reacted to tbe blue/near UV LED's to create white light. A lot of early "white" leds used that process.
Looks like your one suffered the loose wire, even though it wasn't necessarily in the recall list.
Glad to see the broken plastic is hidden.
those dots aren't dies, they tie the top layer to a mid plane to keep the current density the same over the big die. cree has a lot of lights like it, the less complicated ones (like pure red) have fingers, those LEDs might have been like 2$/ea at the time
Thanks for the info.
I had a few of them, and I kicked myself when I threw them away and afterwards Adrian Black showed that they make pretty good 400nm light sources after removing the phosphor. I threw them away as their light quality and efficiency wasn't on par with modern LED bulbs anymore.
I also happen to have one of these since aprox 2012. I live in Europe with 220v and this lamp gets really scorching hot. In fact it gets so hot that the yellow plastic now has started to get brown from scorching, my guess is that the UV +heat is breaking the plastic down over time(planned obsolescence?). But it is still shining just fine in my architect lamp. To my surprice the bulb was so heavy I had to modify and adjust the springs in my architect armature so that it would stay up like it did before with a "normal" incandescent(60W) bulb. Sadly mine was not in the recall. Great tear down video now I know how to reapair it when the time comes. Thanks. IKEA has a new bulb series out recently SOLHETTA that are very good for resonable price. Perhaps a candidate for another tear down and compare video.
It's so well designed. Nice easy fix.
Thanks for posting this interesting repair!
I bought one LED-light from Philips a couple of years later and it still works. Also around the same pricepoint but probably less interesting inside from nowadays-looks. Nice to see how everyting evolves for sure.
Ha I have a set of those same Philips LED bulbs still going after 10 years! I've moved house with them 3 times.
5:04: Me, shouting at the screen: "Unplug and slide out at the top!"
The thing in the video: Crack!
nice video and repair🙂
Nice.....9:00 staring straight into the UV emitting LED's.....
That looked an awful lot like the issue with the recalled bulbs... The fact that the pad was still there means it was just a damn cold solder joint from the factory.
But yeah, lot of design went into it. They needed to though. Good white leds were still not common so they went with the almost blue leds. If no more wires come loss it will probably keep working wayyy past it's economical life span. Because those leds will degrade, probably quite a bit. Even compared to brand new, 13W for 800lm isn't efficient by today's standards. But it it ran quite it bit it will probably not output near 800lm any more. And that's actually quite a problem because it's a trap for the unknown. They keep working, they keep drawing 13W but the light output might be halved.
Good job! Fun video, thanks for sharing!
These LED lamps may have been developed before it became the standard to make white LEDs by coating blue LEDs with yellow phosphor.
I wouldn't be surprised if they keep their target color temperature of 2700 K much longer than those modern LEDs where the phosphor degrades over time.
No, there were plenty of White LEDs at that time. This lamp was the US$10 Million winner of the US Dept of Energy "L-Prize" in 2011. The remote phosphor was the only way to meet the criteria at that time as it required certain criteria including light output, light distribution and colour maintenance over life. The DoE tested it as reaching 93.4 lm/W, 97.1% lumen maintenance at 25,000-hours and a CRI of 93.
If a person is familiar with electronics in general, they can actually repair most LED bulbs these days. Not much to them inside... Thumbs Up!
I've fixed a few.
The ones I failed at had the driver entirely potted, or used a type of LED I didn't have a convenient replacement for.
Pretty cool
Looks like this could have been the reason for the recall.
looks like it was designed for a high bay or something where you could get a part to lock into the flutes to change the bulb from the floor ???
Nice lamp. You can tell it's pricey just by lookin', it's shaped like a crown. It would have been nice to see the guts. Maybe in a bunch of years we'll get a chance.
If/when it finally dies properly, it's coming back to the work bench
What was the thinking behind bolting it back to a HUGE heatsink BEFORE re-soldering the wire??!? Also, definitely lots of UV coming out of those things to excite the yellow plastic to light...
No, the phosphor is converting blue light to white. UV LEDs are far too expensive and inefficient for this application.
These LEDs are UV effectively
Goto bigclive youtube, i think he took one apart, but i know connor wolf did also and explains that the hello lens are comprised of a special phosphorous to change blue led to white....
Grate video just wondering if you could recycle it would the manufacturer rebuild them. If we are concerned about the environment we should be able to rebuild them what do you think.
I can't imagine any company would do that unless forced to.
They would probably prefer to sell you a new one, since that would be more profitable.
Can you find some fluorescent items and see if the bare LEDs make them glow?
The yellow tops of white LEDs glow like crazy if you shine a UV LED toy at them. The yellow plastic on this lamp was a cunning choice they made before the white LEDs were freely available. These days the phosphor is all in the little yellow dot that covers the LED so you save a lot of phosphor.
@@KallePihlajasaari - No, white LEDs were common at the time this lamp was made. However this lamp was the winner of the US$10 Million content by US Dept of Energy called the "L-Prize". The remote phosphor was the only way to meet the entry criteria, which required certain performance including light output, light distribution and colour maintenance over life.
@@johncoops6897 Ahh, the large phosphor area did seem odd. I was not aware of the contest or the time-line. The current trend for LASER excited small phosphor spots in automotive headlights seems a new spin with separate cooling of the laser and phosphor while maintaining the spot size small.
@@KallePihlajasaari - Yeah, it's come back around. The main advantage is that the phosphor is kept away from the incredibly intense heat of the LED die. There is no way of getting enough light output to make a car headlight from a point source LED, hence the use of remote laser.
@@johncoops6897 Agreed about the first bit but not the last sentence. Because that is just false. I believe you actually know that. Many cars have headlights made up with ordinary phosphor coated LEDs. Although they use a few in car headlights, single chip white LEDs producing lumens way more than a single headlight have being around a long time.
thanks for the video, may it last for another 10 years !
maybe you find an "unrepairable" some time, would be nice to take a look at the power supply.
..and IDK if you make any money with your videos, but it probably is a good way to make this light "save" a 100 bucks. :D
(it should be pure 435nm blue.. no UV)
Can't tell if the spudgering detached that wire. But how would it have popped off otherwise? Maybe a poor joint and thermal cycling?
hard to tell.
Maybe some weak solder joins from the factory? It would also explain the recall (though, this one didn't seem to have the right markings t be affected by that recall)
Just a guess still, but it was not working, he soldered the wire then it worked.
Both you and Big Clive came up in my feed with LED videos. I admit to dithering for a moment, then remembered you have beer.
Anyone else immediately suspect UV LEDs when told the yellow plastic (now confirmed to be loaded with phosphor) gave off white light? I wonder if that plastic is available by itself in experimenter quantities...
Need Clive's livestreams for potential of Jägermeister and various Dodastreamed (is that a verb?) liquids...
@@michaeltempsch5282 I have no patience for streams by anyone, even Clive's. As for the Soda stream I'm still waiting for him to feed it some Bailey's.
Bet you were just waiting for this to break so you could tear it apart without guilt.
JST connectors, machine screws, thermal pads, 3 separate ceramic PCBs, radiator on the electronics, and precise fit and finish on the molds ... just ... wow.
Bet they don't make them anymore. Can't have user-repairable stuff.
All failed due to a cold solder joint. Probably done manually with child slave labor.
They don't make them anymore because nobody wants to pay $30 for an LED bulb.
These aren't more user-repairable than modern LED bulbs.
Good bye
5:55 Spared no expense?? Bull..... YOU payed for it....Expenses enough....