EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03 LED light

[momaka]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

They claim almost 20 years now on some of these ones

But 20 years -WHERE is the main question here. 20 years in the landfill? - Ya, I can see that!

Also keep in mind, it wasn't the LEDs fault for the failure, it was a small SMD resistor that should've been bigger.

Well, it could also be that the SMD resistor burned out because the LED started to draw more current as it approached its (short) end of life.

Like I said, a lot of my cheap 12V strips nearly doubled their current use after a few months of 8-12 hours per day operation. I wouldn't be surprised if an LED or two in those chip LEDs shorted out and drew a massive current through the resistor. Though the only way to know for sure is to buy one of these bulbs and measure the current going through the resistor. With:
W = R * I^2, you can easily find out how much power the resistor is dissipating and whether its power rating was chosen properly or not.

Most cheapo LED strips have 3 single chip LEDs in series, if we do the math 3.2V x 3 = 9.6V! And they say these are made for 12v.

Actually, most white and blue LEDs drop a little less than 3V at low power. As you start pushing more current through the LED, then you might see the voltage drop raise to 3.2-3.4V.

That's why I am able to run mine on a 9V power supply (SMPS, regulated - not some linear transformer outputting 16V unloaded ). And at 9V, the LEDs seem to be running quite happily! (Though I will admit there are a few LEDs in the strip that don't quite fully light up until I give the strip a little over 10V - but that's a manufacturing variation to be expected with these cheap LEDs. You sure as heck won't see that from high quality LEDs.)

The resistors on my LED strip are 39Ω each and there's only one resistor per set of three LEDs.

Gee, and I thought the 150 Ohms resistors in my strips were bad enough.

39 Ohms is insane, actually. At 12V operation, there will be approximately 3V for that resistor to drop. So at 39 Ohms, you are looking at 1/13 of an Amp, or 77 mA passing through each LED! That's 230 mW of power dissipation per LED. I doubt those Chinese LEDs can handle that. Heck, mine burned out with the 150 Ohm resistor (that's a little less than 60 mW per LED at 12V operation).

[kc8adu]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

or if a bad tube is rectifying.
the ballast WILL overheat!

the only way a ballast can overheat is if a starter welds closed.
rare - but i'v seen it.

[RukyCon]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

The resistors on my LED strip are 39Ω each and there's only one resistor per set of three LEDs.

[stj]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

they do have a resistor with those leds though.

[RukyCon]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

Most cheapo LED strips have 3 single chip LEDs in series, if we do the math 3.2V x 3 = 9.6V! And they say these are made for 12v.

[jazzie366]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

LEDs will always have shitty life if they are overdriven with current or run too hot. Typically the former causes the latter, but now always! Sometimes an LED can fail simply from being over-driven with current.

I myself was disappointed with LED life way back a few years ago when a friend and I set up lighting for his workshop with a bunch of those flexible 12V white LED strips (the cheap rolls you can find everywhere on eBay and elsewhere online). Driven by a spare PS3 power supply, the strips were getting nice, regulated 12V power (about 12.3V IIRC when I measured it a few times) and so they ran absolutely cool to the touch - even the individual LEDs themselves. Nonetheless, most of the LED strips lost a substantial part of their brightness after just three months of being powered 8-12 hours per day. A lot of them even managed to blow a hole through a few of their LEDs.

So then I took one brand new LED strip home and one of the "bad/weak" ones to compare them. The weak strip was pulling almost 2x the amount of current compared to the new strip. Thus, it looks like the LEDs in the bad strip were starting to get leaky or short out. But why? The new strip was drawing only 10-15 mA of current per LED at 12V. Didn't seem like much.

As I couldn't find the maker of the LEDs, and thus not able to find a datasheet, I just took the new strip and tried running it on 9V. The strip seemed only a little less bright than at 12V, but it was drawing substantially less current - about 1/5 less.

So I think the LEDs in a lot of these strips and light bulbs are just over-driven so that the manufacturer can get away with using less LEDs. Combine that with a hot-running bulb, and it's no surprise that LED bulbs don't last.

So that's why your LED bulbs are bound to get poor life when left to run 24/7. The really expensive bulbs may have better, more efficient LEDs (Cree, for example) and with better heatsinks. But the cheap LED bulbs - forget it! I wouldn't trust the life rating on their box for squat. 10 years? Sure, if you never use the thing. Then again, you can claim that a Pinto is the safest car in your lot - after all if you never drive it, you'll never get in a collision and the statement would be true indeed.

As for what I use (in terms of lighting)?
- I have a decent stash of incandescent and halogen-incandescent bulbs. Should easily last me the next 10 years, if not more. I don't use CFLs at all, as I find the UV-rich light too harsh on my eyes. The only CFLs we have in the house is one set with 2 T8 bulbs in the garage and a desk lamp (with a specialty CLF and linear ballast) that I use for my work area (which I almost never turn ON, as I work during the day most of the time, and I have a big window with plenty of natural light).

They claim almost 20 years now on some of these ones

Also, those cheap LED strips are 100% the reason you had problems. I've sourced cheapo led bulbs that I could sell for 50 cents each and make a profit, and they lasted 6 months at best? They all ran not too hot, they just died easily thought because of heat and overcurrent. However, this circuit was running under 50v likely. There were 6 LEDs iirc. I'm guessing no more than 30v, so 6V per chip. Assuming these are multi-chip LEDs (I will microscope them to confirm this) They can be dissipating 3v or less per chip. I've yet to see non multi chip leds that can take over 3V.

If these are 3 chips or more, the dissipation will be very low. That also helps with color temperature, which on these was very good.

However, if that's true then they are going to run only slightly warm each, however combined with the shitty heatsink these had, it'll probably run a little hot. However, they're not being driven hard if that's the case and therefore should have a decent life.

Also keep in mind, it wasn't the LEDs fault for the failure, it was a small SMD resistor that should've been bigger.

[momaka]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

LEDs will always have shitty life if they are overdriven with current or run too hot. Typically the former causes the latter, but now always! Sometimes an LED can fail simply from being over-driven with current.

I myself was disappointed with LED life way back a few years ago when a friend and I set up lighting for his workshop with a bunch of those flexible 12V white LED strips (the cheap rolls you can find everywhere on eBay and elsewhere online). Driven by a spare PS3 power supply, the strips were getting nice, regulated 12V power (about 12.3V IIRC when I measured it a few times) and so they ran absolutely cool to the touch - even the individual LEDs themselves. Nonetheless, most of the LED strips lost a substantial part of their brightness after just three months of being powered 8-12 hours per day. A lot of them even managed to blow a hole through a few of their LEDs.

So then I took one brand new LED strip home and one of the "bad/weak" ones to compare them. The weak strip was pulling almost 2x the amount of current compared to the new strip. Thus, it looks like the LEDs in the bad strip were starting to get leaky or short out. But why? The new strip was drawing only 10-15 mA of current per LED at 12V. Didn't seem like much.

As I couldn't find the maker of the LEDs, and thus not able to find a datasheet, I just took the new strip and tried running it on 9V. The strip seemed only a little less bright than at 12V, but it was drawing substantially less current - about 1/5 less.

So I think the LEDs in a lot of these strips and light bulbs are just over-driven so that the manufacturer can get away with using less LEDs. Combine that with a hot-running bulb, and it's no surprise that LED bulbs don't last.

So that's why your LED bulbs are bound to get poor life when left to run 24/7. The really expensive bulbs may have better, more efficient LEDs (Cree, for example) and with better heatsinks. But the cheap LED bulbs - forget it! I wouldn't trust the life rating on their box for squat. 10 years? Sure, if you never use the thing. Then again, you can claim that a Pinto is the safest car in your lot - after all if you never drive it, you'll never get in a collision and the statement would be true indeed.

As for what I use (in terms of lighting)?
- I have a decent stash of incandescent and halogen-incandescent bulbs. Should easily last me the next 10 years, if not more. I don't use CFLs at all, as I find the UV-rich light too harsh on my eyes. The only CFLs we have in the house is one set with 2 T8 bulbs in the garage and a desk lamp (with a specialty CLF and linear ballast) that I use for my work area (which I almost never turn ON, as I work during the day most of the time, and I have a big window with plenty of natural light).

[jazzie366]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

we all need a vice-of-knowlege!
specially with crap small psu's

Yes, we most certainly do

[RukyCon]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

we all need a vice-of-knowlege!
specially with crap small psu's

I have a cheap power supply powering some LED strips, three days later and the PCB is turning brown.

[stj]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

we all need a vice-of-knowlege!
specially with crap small psu's

[jazzie366]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

if you look at big clive on utube he strips a lot of this stuff,
you may see the chip, and he finds the datasheets with schematics!

I've been subbed to bigclive for awhile! I love him and his spudger (we all know he loves saying that word).

[stj]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

if you look at big clive on utube he strips a lot of this stuff,
you may see the chip, and he finds the datasheets with schematics!

[jazzie366]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

that's far too hot, read led datasheets for the temp/life curves.

Well after opening one up, I can see why it ran that hot!

The heatsink looked like a mini pie tin, NO THERMAL COMPOUND at all. What cause the fault? A 1/4 watt SMD resistor going high resistance after cooking itself. Also, there was no white sticky paste to hold things down. I found this out as when I hit it once with the hammer, the choke broke off completely. The bulbs are majorly overpriced as well. There are probably 1$ in components on the circuit board, even less when ordered in mass quantities.

There are 6 leds in series as was to be expected.

Here's a list of components:

Caps: Aishi NB series, 130C 50v 330uF and NB series 50v 10uF
Small choke labeled "5.0"
Main choke labeled: "KI.0<127>0.8"
Some inrush resistors and fusible link
An 8 pin chip labeled, "1696-20C"
And a 10S10 rectifier.

Now, there are a bunch of SMD components that I am not going to label, but the one that caused the failure is unreadable. However, it's circuit board spot is labeled, "R1" could you imagine that?

I'll upload some pictures later.

[stj]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

that's far too hot, read led datasheets for the temp/life curves.

[jazzie366]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

Holy shit this thread blew up. Well I'm gonna add something else about the lightbulb:

For the one that buzzes, it has less than 20 hours of use. It's in a craft room for my mother that she uses in the daytime only.

The one that doesn't buzz but takes a bit to come on is on almost 24/7 as it lights a dark part of my bedroom (my bedroom has only one window, so unless it's morning to noon the sun doesn't cut it).

I'm thinking of tearing one apart this week to see what's actually gone wrong.

However I have my suspicions. There's a large manufacturer of LED bulbs in china called Anern. They make UL, CE, etc compliant LED bulbs for very cheap. I ordered samples from them ages ago. They worked good for about the same ammount of time and then did the same thing. The most common thing I saw happening was that there was one LED that went high resistance, as it was a series circuit. The problem being they got too hot. However, they never got too hot to touch, 140 degrees was the peak temp I got off of them. So I'm wondering, is 140 too hot for LED bulbs? Cause a lot of other ones even from good brands seem to run around there.

[RukyCon]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

There's a chance that they just moved F15T8 production to Indonesia in or close to 2013 and I think I got one of those in 2014 or 2013, and it looked good until it suddenly started flickering! Then one day in 2014 or 2015, the ballast was blazing! The ballast seemed to be over-amped literally at the same time the ends of the tube were getting real black! Then it looked like the ballast shut down due to overheating or the like!

I think they moved lamp production to Indonesia before the 2010's and moved it back to the US around 2014 IIRC. The move to china was more recent being around 2016 to this year.

I remember that before one of my lamps failed the ballast started buzzing like it was getting over powered.

Also, beware of suspicious looking ones, maybe I got one that resembled a Deal Extreme counterfeit, meaning that they were possibly made in PRC even when it said "Indonesia". There appeared to have been real suspicious looking ones sometime before 2017 or at least before 2016...

The ones that are suspicious:

GE F15T8 tubes with bad information printing, looks like a typewriter malfunction!

All of the lamps that i got look real but i've seen really cheap lamps with good looking print [and they also lasted longer than the GE Indonesia lamps. ]

[stj]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

the only way a ballast can overheat is if a starter welds closed.
rare - but i'v seen it.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

I remember at some point GE moved their F15T8 lamp production to indonesia and in the process the lamps lives were shorten by over 70%!! Going from a normal life span of 3 years to less than 6 months and that's on old magnetic gear. They did move production back to the US with all newer lamps being OEMed by Sylvania but recently they moved lamp production to china. Not sure if lamps lives were shorten so i guess that's something we will have to see.

There's a chance that they just moved F15T8 production to Indonesia in or close to 2013 and I think I got one of those in 2014 or 2013, and it looked good until it suddenly started flickering! Then one day in 2014 or 2015, the ballast was blazing! The ballast seemed to be over-amped literally at the same time the ends of the tube were getting real black! Then it looked like the ballast shut down due to overheating or the like!

Also, beware of suspicious looking ones, maybe I got one that resembled a Deal Extreme counterfeit, meaning that they were possibly made in PRC even when it said "Indonesia". There appeared to have been real suspicious looking ones sometime before 2017 or at least before 2016...

The ones that are suspicious:

GE F15T8 tubes with bad information printing, looks like a typewriter malfunction!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

lol - philips do the 10year bullshit.
read the small print - it's 10years of use at x-hours per day!
they usually only do a year or 2 running 24/7

Yes, Phillips has models with that bullshit. I forgot to tell the folks that! Oops.

But for a lot of their models, says that they can do 13 and that for their recessed versions, much longer, 20+.

In fact, even with a Phillips flood LED light bulb recently, just purchased on July 28, 2017, IIRC, it suddenly silently failed within only 1 week! Just won't come on anymore! Even when the year rating was 20 or the like, IIRC...

Like that cheapo CFL in December, 2010, IIRC, no pop or the like...

I really hope that LEDs dropping like flies won't be the norm! Like with some traffic signals! I heard that there was a big thing about that kind of bullshit with LED traffic lights! I hope that was just a late Bush Jr. era and early Obama era thing...

[RukyCon]

Re: EcoSmart 5csbr650stq1d03

I remember at some point GE moved their F15T8 lamp production to indonesia and in the process the lamps lives were shorten by over 70%!! Going from a normal life span of 3 years to less than 6 months and that's on old magnetic gear. They did move production back to the US with all newer lamps being OEMed by Sylvania but recently they moved lamp production to china. Not sure if lamps lives were shorten so i guess that's something we will have to see.