Philips LED bulb teardown

[reagle]

The thing conveniently decided to stop working, so naturally I had to take it apart!
What sets this one apart from many others is a use of remote phosphor. The LEDs are blue and then a plastic sphere converts that into warm white light, emitted in all directions. Makes for a very incandescent-like look (when it works )
Edit- a few more pictures added
Full teardown is at http://kuzyatech.com/philips-8e26a60-led-bulb-teardown

[TheWelly888]

Those Philips must be very expensive - the "One Hung Low" brand of LED GU10 lamps I used tripped the lighting circuit breakers after only a short time. I cracked it open and there was only a tiny SM psu with a 105C capacitor and no EMI suppression at all in there. I'll dig the photos out if anyone wants me to.

[reagle]

Oddly enough, I bought it for $21 a year ago. Next gen ones are $17 at Home Depot!

[bilko]

The thing conveniently decided to stop working, so naturally I had to take it apart!

It looks like they are using their Rebel LEDS. How many hours did it run for before it failed ?
They quote 50,000 hours +
I've tested the rebels and not many make 3000 hours.
I think the 50,000 hours is when they are switched off 

[reagle]

Yes these are Blue Rebels. They mostly died from overheating- the bulb was in a light fixture outside and on all night for a year. So that's about 2900 hours.
The remote phospor sphere was semi-melted and LED lenses were all cracked but one. I don't think the LEDs were actually in happy thermal situation, so can't expect them to last much..Even the 130C caps are only 4000 hours rated by Rubycon

[FenderBender]

Those Philips must be very expensive - the "One Hung Low" brand of LED GU10 lamps I used tripped the lighting circuit breakers after only a short time. I cracked it open and there was only a tiny SM psu with a 105C capacitor and no EMI suppression at all in there. I'll dig the photos out if anyone wants me to.

Oh yeaaa sure!! Let's see it.

[FenderBender]

Is that gunk on the board from it dying or is that how it came from the factory.

None the less, good job Phillips. Looks good.

[bilko]

Maybe not so good Philips. They could have incorporated a thermistor to avoid the overheat problem. Poor design, but there again, well done  Philips for designing a product that will expire out of warranty and for the choice of cap that would have made that happened if the led didn't fail first.

I don't get how companies can quote 50,000 hours and then give a 12 month warranty. 5 years would be more appropriate.

[reagle]

The gunk in the driver board is probably from potting. The warranty was actually pretty nice- 6 years based on 4 hours a day .

[tom66]

You have to remember 4000 hours at 130C for an electrolytic is impressive.

At 110C that's approximately 16000 hours. Conventional electrolytic caps manage a peak of 8000 hours at 105C. And at an operating temperature of say 70C, that would easily meet the 50000 hour spec. Rubycon make good caps.

[bilko]

The gunk in the driver board is probably from potting. The warranty was actually pretty nice- 6 years based on 4 hours a day .

So Phillips actually replaced your lamp F.O.C. ?

[reagle]

Better- they  sent me a refund.
I called their support line, described problem, gave them some numbers off the bulb and receipt and had a check in my hands in less than a week.
So I get a new bulb and a teardown target- they did not want this one back!
as far as thermal control- I don't know how many companies actually implement that. Maybe Cree in their systems that correct color temps based on LED temperature.  In this case the driver is an NXP SSL2101T part, that's mainly concerned with driving an LED load and coexisting with dimmers. Didn't see any control loops there for thermals, plus it'd have to sense it based on the diodes's forward drop behavior change- the only signals connected are two lines to the LED string.

So Phillips actually replaced your lamp F.O.C. ?

[FenderBender]

Maybe not so good Philips. They could have incorporated a thermistor to avoid the overheat problem. Poor design, but there again, well done  Philips for designing a product that will expire out of warranty and for the choice of cap that would have made that happened if the led didn't fail first.

I don't get how companies can quote 50,000 hours and then give a 12 month warranty. 5 years would be more appropriate.

Good in comparison to what I've seen. Some of the crap CFL boards and one hung LED drivers. Of course it could've been better, but I guess these bulbs are already expensive to start with. Trying to convince my parents to screw the CFLs.Those thing are like mercury bombs. Real great for the planet, just like all florescents I guess...but still..

[T4P]

They aren't very expensive as suggested in an early thread ...
BUT
They suck at efficiency still, i remember reading somewhere about 80lm/W ?
Mind you! My CFL's are 68lm/W and is running 24/7 for a year already ...

[reagle]

Agree on CFLs- I've pretty much replaced all of them with LEDs. In many places I get better color rendering, instant on and overall uniform lighting. Kitchen had PAR30 CFLs  in recessed light cans. You'd walk in, turn the lights on and wait till they warm up. And then they'd all vary slightly in color.  Now I have Cree lamps in there- instant on and very much identical throughout. And no mercury- I hate the idea of a flimsy glass thing that if dropped spews that around.

[nukie]

The remote phosphor and the use of 'blue' led and mixed with small ratio of red led help Philips bulbs win the LED bulb challenge. The setup results in not only high lumens output but also high color rendition(RA) which is close to fluoro tubes.

Nichia makes high output, high RA LEDs easily kill Lumileds. Philips manage to pull it off without using competitor's LED in the bulb design.

In terms of LED tech, Philips has fallen behind since the day of Luxeon I

[SeanB]

If they just sent a cheque then they do know that the warranty about life is false, but think that few enough consumers will complain about short life, and have proof of purchase that is legible ( thermal print fades in a year normally) that refunding them is cheaper than redoing the design to actually make it last as long as the marketing claims. Would be interesting to see the class action suit for this one.

[RCMR]

I'm not so much of a fan of Philips lighting any more.

I used to use a 200W planet-warming incandescent bulb in my office when I wanted to shoot video.

It was great -- lots of light and in winter, even kept the place warm.

Unfortunately, the bulb died and when I went to replace it, I discovered that they don't make 200W incandescents any more -- the planet is already too warm apparently.

So I tried some 22W CFLs but they were not very good.

Then I noticed that Philips was pushing its EcoClassic halogen bulb in a 140W size which claimed to have a light output "similar" to a regular 200W incandescent.

Woohoo... the same light for 30% less power *and* I could actually buy one -- so I did.

What a load of BS.

The light output is around the same as a 22W CFL -- which is really about the same as a 100W incandescent.

There is no way on earth that this bulb comes anywhere near close to the light output of a 200W incandescent -- what a rip-off.

In fact, I did some subjective back and forth swapping between a 100W incandescent and this 140W halogen and found that I could *barely* notice the difference.  So it seems I was actually spending 40% *more* power to get about 10% more light than a 100W bulb.

Bugga!

[T4P]

The remote phosphor and the use of 'blue' led and mixed with small ratio of red led help Philips bulbs win the LED bulb challenge. The setup results in not only high lumens output but also high color rendition(RA) which is close to fluoro tubes.

Nichia makes high output, high RA LEDs easily kill Lumileds. Philips manage to pull it off without using competitor's LED in the bulb design.

In terms of LED tech, Philips has fallen behind since the day of Luxeon I

 .... http://www.nichia.co.jp/en/product/led.html?op=cond=type='NSPW510HS-K1' 170lm/w

If they just sent a cheque then they do know that the warranty about life is false, but think that few enough consumers will complain about short life, and have proof of purchase that is legible ( thermal print fades in a year normally) that refunding them is cheaper than redoing the design to actually make it last as long as the marketing claims. Would be interesting to see the class action suit for this one.

And some people actually photocopy every single receipt they have

I'm not so much of a fan of Philips lighting any more.

I used to use a 200W planet-warming incandescent bulb in my office when I wanted to shoot video.

It was great -- lots of light and in winter, even kept the place warm.

Unfortunately, the bulb died and when I went to replace it, I discovered that they don't make 200W incandescents any more -- the planet is already too warm apparently.

So I tried some 22W CFLs but they were not very good.

Then I noticed that Philips was pushing its EcoClassic halogen bulb in a 140W size which claimed to have a light output "similar" to a regular 200W incandescent.

Woohoo... the same light for 30% less power *and* I could actually buy one -- so I did.

What a load of BS.

The light output is around the same as a 22W CFL -- which is really about the same as a 100W incandescent.

There is no way on earth that this bulb comes anywhere near close to the light output of a 200W incandescent -- what a rip-off.

In fact, I did some subjective back and forth swapping between a 100W incandescent and this 140W halogen and found that I could *barely* notice the difference.  So it seems I was actually spending 40% *more* power to get about 10% more light than a 100W bulb.

Bugga!

Halogens are also about 10lm/W best case 20lm/W but that also applies to incandescents, but it's interesting to note that halogens have a negative coefficient
so they are best when cold, people still use it for it's colour but it is so hot ... you can stand 2meters away and still feel the heat

Well i have seen 100W CFL's before ... let alone 40W

[SeanB]

If you want a decent video light you buy a LED video panel, and use it. Costs a lot more than the 200W lamps, but lasts essentially forever. If you want a cheap light go to Home Depot and buy a halogen work light for cheap, and a few spare halogen lamps to go with it. Enough light to take photos with a welding glass in front of the camera lens.

[bilko]

If they just sent a cheque then they do know that the warranty about life is false, but think that few enough consumers will complain about short life, and have proof of purchase that is legible ( thermal print fades in a year normally) that refunding them is cheaper than redoing the design to actually make it last as long as the marketing claims. Would be interesting to see the class action suit for this one.

Good on Phillips for sending the refund. I know companies the install architectural lighting on bridges, viaducts e.t.c. They use led lighting because of the quoted 50,000 hours. If they have to organise closing roads, hiring cranes and cherry pickers to replace failed units I'm sure they will be back at the manufacturer's claiming costs.

[tom66]

A warranty penalises a company for producing a product which fails to last. It's good marketing too.

[bilko]

Many years ago I used to build and sell custom PC equipment for industrial automation. We were buying disk drives with 150,000 power on hours quoted (That's over 17 years). They offered 12 months warranty. I mentioned that they mustn't have much confidence in their products if they are only good for 12 months, after much discussion they extended the warranty to three years. 

[SeanB]

I would guess the industrial units are a lot more robust, and most likely well heatsinked. The LED streetlighting is a lot more reliable, there have only been a few total failures since they were installed for the WC in 2010, though there are a fair number of dead modules. Having 3 per fitting does help with the reliability, if you consider a failure as all 3 being dead.

I have LED indicators that i made, that are still running 10 plus years later, being on near 24/7/365. To get that though I used 2 39K 0.5W resistors in series and a reverse diode, and potted the whole lot in epoxy resin.

[bilko]

I would guess the industrial units are a lot more robust, and most likely well heatsinked. The LED streetlighting is a lot more reliable, there have only been a few total failures since they were installed for the WC in 2010, though there are a fair number of dead modules. Having 3 per fitting does help with the reliability, if you consider a failure as all 3 being dead.

I have LED indicators that i made, that are still running 10 plus years later, being on near 24/7/365. To get that though I used 2 39K 0.5W resistors in series and a reverse diode, and potted the whole lot in epoxy resin.

The HDD were standard, but shock mounted.
Which leds did you use and what current were you driving them with ?