The big ebay LED floodlight scam.

[BigClive]

While setting up a new workbench area I decided to make it camera compatible.  After deliberating for a while I chose LED floodlights as the new local lightsource and ordered a couple on ebay from a UK supplier.  Plus of course a random selection of others from other sellers as tends to happen.
The lights duly arrived, and I decided to do a mini teardown of one right there and then, catching the disappointment for your viewing pleasure.


As you'll see, they came up with some interesting techniques for case-grounding and reduction of thermal dissipation.

[nihilism]

Chinese Watts are approximately 50% of AU/US/UK Watts.

Maybe you could try running them off 480V or send them to Mr Photoninduction.

[bktemp]

When the "20W" LED is pointed towards the camera (at 8:50) there is some flickering in the image. It looks like there is no mains filtering capacitor in the LED driver and the LED current is modulated by the mains frequecy.

[wraper]

"I think that just a labeling error" 
I just couldn't stop laughing while hearing all those phrases trying to justify those floodlights.

[LoyalServant]

Maybe you could try running them off 480V or send them to Mr Photoninduction.

Might not make a big enough boom for him... 

[Excavatoree]

Maybe you could try running them off 480V or send them to Mr Photoninduction.

Might not make a big enough boom for him... 

It would if he connected it to his big-ass, high voltage capacitor.  (The one that makes things disappear with a huge BOOM!) 

[Kjelt]

What an incredible POS! Now it is just waiting for the driver with its Sunshine electrolytes to fail, big badaboom.
What did you pay for it? Even 4 pounds would be too much for this garbage. Stick to the A brands or why not build it yourself not with one 10W or one 20W led but with 10, 1W MP leds or 36 medium powered. At least you do not get many shades as need with video.

[Falcon69]

Hmm, I bought the 10w 12v dc RGB versions.  There are no ballasts in side.  I wonder if the electronics have tuned them down to the 4.3watts as yours are getting.

[Towger]

I thought those 10w RGB versions just used large resistors...
I have 20m of 600 5050 (double row) RGB Led strips, specs say 144w per 5m at 12. They draw 70w+ at 12v, 96w at 13v and so on.
Yep, Chinese watts are different from the rest of the world.

[dannyf]

Not sure. When you paid a Mercedes price, you expect to get a Mercedes. When you paid a Chevy price, you should expect a Chevy .

insisting on a Mercedes at a Chevy price is probably irrational, or at least unrealistic.

[cowana]

I tore down one of the 230v, 10W RGB floodlights recently.

It had a 12v (nominal) 600mA CC driver feeding the control board. The control board then used big resistors to limit the current through each string to 300mA.

This means the power is:
1 channel = 300mA (3W)
2 channels = 300mA per channel (6W)
3 channels = enters constant current at 600mA, resulting in ~200mA per channel (6W).

When powered off a normal 12v supply, it gives the full 9 or 10W with all channels on.

[Kjelt]

Not sure. When you paid a Mercedes price, you expect to get a Mercedes. When you paid a Chevy price, you should expect a Chevy .
insisting on a Mercedes at a Chevy price is probably irrational, or at least unrealistic.

A chevy with hotglued ignition wires?, no way, as he says in his topicname it is a scam, he probably paid for a 206 and got:

[David_AVD]

The only LED flood lights I've bought were 10W RGB units with DMX input and they did seem to draw approx 10W on full white.

I've never been game to buy the mains powered versions as I can just imagine the quality of the power supply and the earth bond.

[ignator]

This clearly is "Not as described" case.
Include a photo of the watt meter. And also include one of the 10 Watt power supply. Add a comment about it not complying to UK electric codes, as a bonding screw (or equivalent) is required for earthing, hot melt is not an approved alternative.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Did you measure the actual LED current/voltage ?- I wouldn't trust one of those power meters to be anywhere near accurate at low, non-PFC'd loads.

[dannyf]

-hotglued ignition wires?-

metaphorically speaking, yes.

it is like buying a Chevy and complaining that it does drive as a Mercedes.

[kingofkya]

Its probbly do to  the throw in whatever power conversion modules fits mentality. I have see a few with 7w to 20w labled on the converter because that makes sense with no adjustment screw.

 I have pretty much the same lamps as the first one but 10w marked with a bkprecision 2709B meter in line with the led I get around 7-8watts (can't remember specifics) on my 10watt lamp.

also on the bottom left and right there is a screw hole where that ground wire is supposed to go...

[BigClive]

Did you measure the actual LED current/voltage ?- I wouldn't trust one of those power meters to be anywhere near accurate at low, non-PFC'd loads.

As you'll see in the video I did ponder if it was an issue with the power meter not liking the load, so I plugged another older 20W LED floodlight in and it showed up as 20W.  Likewise with the 10W units.

They are also very visibly duller than a proper 10/20W light.

Then of course there's the label on the 20 watt lights driver that says 10x1W and 30V at 0.3A that kinda gives its actual rating away.

[cimmo]

insisting on a Mercedes at a Chevy price is probably irrational, or at least unrealistic.

If the vendor tells me it is a Mercedes and it isn't (regardless of the price) then he is committing fraud.

But I guess to you that's merely capitalism? Charging whatever the market can bear and tell any lies to make the sale??
You don't think there's anything wrong with that, do you?
(Remind me never to do any form of business with you.)

[wraper]

Did you measure the actual LED current/voltage ?- I wouldn't trust one of those power meters to be anywhere near accurate at low, non-PFC'd loads.

As you'll see in the video I did ponder if it was an issue with the power meter not liking the load, so I plugged another older 20W LED floodlight in and it showed up as 20W.  Likewise with the 10W units.

They are also very visibly duller than a proper 10/20W light.

Then of course there's the label on the 20 watt lights driver that says 10x1W and 30V at 0.3A that kinda gives its actual rating away.

As they do not have pfc, probably everything is even worse than you think if your power meter only measures apparent power, not real power. That might be like green floodlight actually is 10W, fake 20w is 5w and fake 10w is only 2.5w. IMO those led psus are quiet ineffective too. And on top of that LEDs used are of poor efficiency and produce a lot of heat while emitting not too much light.

[dannyf]

(Remind me never to do any form of business with you.)

You sounded like an expert of turning down a job that was never offered to you,

[LukeW]

I wonder what is actually inside the driver module?

I have seen some very nasty, cheap, 240VAC LED driver modules before that looked about the same size, and all that was inside them was simply a 0.47uF 250V polymer capacitor (China-X2 rated) a resistor and an antiparallel diode across the LED. Absolutely no galvanic isolation or proper current regulation at all.

Also, with regards to thermal interface grease you do not need just a big blob of thermal grease in the middle of the heatsink, especially if that blob only ends up covering about 1/4 of the contact area between the device and the heatsink. You don't need much grease, just a very thin smear. But it should be a thin smear spread out across the entire contact area between the device and the heatsink. Ideally, you want a device-to-heatsink contact as much as possible, with direct thermal conduction across the metal-to-metal contact (or epoxy, ceramic or whatever the device package is) in contact with the heatsink across as much mating flat area as possible.

But in practice the two surfaces aren't perfectly flat, although they should ideally be machined as flat as practical. Therefore there will always be minute surface imperfections that are filled with air, where the two surfaces don't quite touch. The purpose of thermal grease is to fill in those minute surface imperfections to create a perfectly flat surface on each of the two mating surfaces. This material has a higher thermal conductivity than air, so it's superior to an air gap, but its thermal conductivity is worse than metal, so it's better to have exposed metal as much as you can and only allow the grease to fill in the flat surface with a really thin amount, just where it's needed, and that's how thermal grease should be applied.

[BigClive]

The capacitive LED limiters are very common in LED lamps that use large series arrays of LEDs.  Even Philips uses capacitive dropper circuitry in some of their lamps.

My own preference with heatsink compound is to put a generous blob dead centre and then carefully apply the device and tighten it down so that the blob is spread out evenly in all directions filling all gaps and providing an even film between the two surfaces with no air pockets as might be caused by dabbing it on in multiple blobs or smearing it about in random spirals.  I like to see a bit squish out every side of a flat surface to prove that even coverage has been achieved and that excess has been displaced.

My biggest disappointment with the 20W fixtures originally referred to in this post are that they are actually well engineered cases and the LED is an absolutely standard style that can be changed if desired, as can the PSU.  So pushing these nice lights out with cost and safety cuts is just silly.

[Corporate666]

insisting on a Mercedes at a Chevy price is probably irrational, or at least unrealistic.

If the vendor tells me it is a Mercedes and it isn't (regardless of the price) then he is committing fraud.

But I guess to you that's merely capitalism? Charging whatever the market can bear and tell any lies to make the sale??
You don't think there's anything wrong with that, do you?
(Remind me never to do any form of business with you.)

That's a bit unfair... and I agree with dannyf.  He never said it was OK to misrepresent items, he simply said it's common with Chinese junk, and acting like we're surprised about it is being naively foolish.

There are countless people in this world who will tell you whatever you want to hear if it helps them get a sale.  Falling for it and blaming the seller is silly.  Like buying magic beans and taking no responsibility for the transaction when they fail to grow into giant beanstalks 

[Falcon69]

Exactly C666

I once had someone tell me to, 'Take it for  a spin!  It handles like a Ferrari'...but, it was a 10 speed bike!