Cheap LEDs; a cautionary tale
Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 2:01 am
About 6 months ago I bought a dozen or so LED wedge base bulbs; 110's, etc. Generic bulbs from fleabay, but with the (really unnecessary for my purposes; interior lights aren't monitored) resistor to fool the CANBus. I replaced the perfectly good incandescents in the dome light, footwells, trunk, center storage place, and license plate.
Yesterday I finally realized what was bothering me when I got in the car; it was dark! no footwell lights, dome light, etc.
As it happens, of the 7 or 8 bulbs I replaced, all but the two in the center storage had physically broken in half, with the pieces rattling around. The failure mode was a blob-y solder joint where the base joined the diode array. Curiously, the two map lights that I had replaced with focused LED wedge base bulbs were still fine; totally different construction, entirely enclosed in a plastic shell.
I guess the moral is, get the good ones, not the cheap ones. Or something like that. I totally didn't expect this.
Yesterday I finally realized what was bothering me when I got in the car; it was dark! no footwell lights, dome light, etc.
As it happens, of the 7 or 8 bulbs I replaced, all but the two in the center storage had physically broken in half, with the pieces rattling around. The failure mode was a blob-y solder joint where the base joined the diode array. Curiously, the two map lights that I had replaced with focused LED wedge base bulbs were still fine; totally different construction, entirely enclosed in a plastic shell.
I guess the moral is, get the good ones, not the cheap ones. Or something like that. I totally didn't expect this.