Teardown, autopsy and hack of dead SMD LED floodlight.

I was sent these two lights to take apart and see if I could find what had gone wrong. They are 10W LED floodlights with a very slim profile due to the use of a large array of half watt SMD LEDs on a PCB with their mains power supply.

[PrimarySenpai]

Only started watching since the DANGEROUS 100W LED video but you have quickly become one of my top youtubers to watch. Keep up the good work.

[Nerfyy]

I almost never know what you are saying because I know absolutely nothing about circuits and whatnot, but I love watching your videos, they are very interesting.

[vmailtk]

Thank you for this, I don't have to throw away my 2 failed lights. Mine were advertised as 20W but were running at 10.2W

[oriole]

I've soldered/desoldered probably hundreds of opamps from various multilayer boards with no space around them because of other passives. Not wanting to use a heat gun for various reasons, my method is just to dump some flux onto the pins, cover them all with solder, use a soldering tool that has a flat angled tip to lift one side of the IC, leaving the solder on the iron, then doing the same for the other side. For re-seating the same IC, I just use some flat pliers to flatten and angle the pins correctly. If you put the IC into an alligator clip on a holder (by the IC body of course), you can run the soldering iron underneath the pins while gently brushing them from the top with a wire brush tool to remove all solder bridges and clean the pins up without bending them. Very quick process. I've done this many times on 48 pin SSOPs (0.5mm pitch) with 0 issues. The keys are careful inspection with a magnifier, using good flux, and being sensible about temperatures. Flooding the chip with solder means that you have to work quickly. If it's not working out, let the chip cool etc. This method also totally avoids lifted pads when executed correctly, since you should require very little torsion to lift one side of the chip once the solder is all melted.

Also IR printouts, scope printouts, eBay printouts... it looks so wrong but feels so right haha.

[DjResR]

I had trouble with fixing one of the LED bulb with the same 5630 emitters (one chip version though), every time I replaced an LED, another one failed. I ended up gutting the switching power supply and replaced it with small 220nF capacitor dropper circuit with a bridge rectifier. Nice repair.

[TinkerbatTech]

I bought some of the $4.00 10W ones you'd messed with a while back, with the 9 led chip and about 8.5W draw. Sure enuff, the LED is really well balanced, all chips come on at very low current evenly, and the work great! Same B.S. with the ground wire tucked neatly out of the way, and a bit short. Pulled it thru the cord a bit further, and fastened it down. Nice beasties. P.S. Added to your Patreon group. Keep up the good work and 'splosions! Stu

[MrDubje]

About soldering on his type of pcb: heat it up with a paint-stripper from the back and use tweezers to get components off or on the pcb. Just don't forget to hold the pxb with pliers or similar or you will burn your hands while holding it. :)

[davidahiwaaynet]

Hi Clive. I commission Caterpillar generators for the offshore Oil & Gas industry. We have virtually all LED and electronic ballast fluorescent lamps on the new-build platforms.  I notice that with ONLY lighting loads running, the power factor is quite leading (capacitive) but the actual load is so small that the generator doesn't care. Once you start a few HVAC compressor motors or other inductive loads, the power factor of the entire facility is still lagging. Power factor of lighting load on a facility with a few megawatts of motor loads and a few kilowatts of lights is a non-issue.

[bjtaudio]

The idea of the smart chip flood light and running the leds directly from the 240v mains, is all great but, the smart chips have been failing and blowing up the led chips...for higher reliability the cap dropper and smoothing cap is a better idea. excellent video, good work.

[therealjammit]

Apply a regulated current to the chip (LED's shorted). Crank up the current until the shorted one gets hot enough to feel.

[philmerrifield]

youtube REALLY needs to sort out the auto generation of captions. If you want a good laugh Clive watch a video with them on

[Danni-]

thanks clive i was going to send you a 20w version of these as i bought a box load and they seem to last 2 weeks to 6 weeks. A real shame as they give a really good light. could you ether show the capacitive dropper circuit in more detail so i can blatantly copy it or a reperpouse of the case with some better internals. exelent videos and love your sense of humour. Dan

[JohnGotts]

I've learned a great deal from your videos. Keep it up!

[firestarterrulzmk]

Hey Big Clive, id love to see you take apart an electronic breathalizer. thanks for the videos!

[God-CDXX]

THANKS FOR THE SOLER CALL TRICK ON THE SCOPE

[mikeselectricstuff]

Did you put a load on the cell? If not, its own capacitance probably explains it not going to zero

[zendell]

Depending on clearance area, you could easily swap for a different LED setup and put the control circuit behind the reflector. You could alsp make make a small stand out of tube steel, and store some 18650 batteries in the stand to make them portable and rechargeable.

[MegaHelen]

Get it right bigclive, it is Aluminium.
Love your vids.

[mikeselectricstuff]

You need a Metcal or JBC iron to solder ali. PCBs.
or a hotplate

[electrodacus]

I use metal core PCB in my project and the ones with a single layer use Teflon as isolator between the aluminium and the copper tracks. They have excellent thermal transfer and allows for high current applications not really possible with simple FR4 type boards. Is not just helping with the cooling of the components but also the excellent cooling of the copper tracks.
Not sure why there are not more people using this for high current applications not just LED's.