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Warning about 5V LEDs

3K views 23 replies 9 participants last post by  Arne 
#1 ·
I was very happy to begin with. Now however, I've had one fail so bought spares for both turn and tail lights. So far, three have failed within a few days of use out of eight total. Both 1156 and 1157 bases are involved.
 
#3 ·
From less than one hour to sometime within 10 hours.
 
#5 ·
#8 ·
I had one Luxeon go out of five and two Eagle Eye 5s out of three.
Ouch. No trouble here yet. Must have been a bad lot.

I've had 4 of the yellow ones from SuperbrightLEDs in my blinkers since November 2007.
 
#7 ·
Two never got past a second test before installation. It had to be early electronic part death syndrome.
 
#9 ·
That's good to know. Maybe the ones that pass the initial phase will last a very long time.
 
#10 ·
I had the 3 watt yellows in the blinkers for about 6 months before the 5 watt ones became available. No trouble there either, but you've got me wondering if the two red 5 watters I've got sitting on the shelf are going to be okay. I bought those in April 2008 and haven't used them yet.
 
#11 ·
strange, you musta got a bad bunch. I've had 4 amber 5W in all 4 signals for about a year. Still kickin.
 
#12 ·
I haven't had a problem with an amber Luxeon yet, only the center light on a red 1157, the center red on an Eagle eye 5, and an amber Eagle eye 5 with a center and one ring LED.
 
#13 ·
Might

Might wanna check your voltage. LED's tend to be very touchy about over-voltage. Supposedly the supporting electronics will take care of this, but I have my doubts. Vibration is not supposed to be a problem, but I kinda wonder if an intermittent connection (dirty connector, slightly loose socket or connectors) might give transient voltage spikes that kill the LED's. The low current is sort of a win-lose situation, in that the low current is great for power conservation, but may not be enough to overcome a slightly loose or dirty connection. Hopefully this is just a bad batch, or statistical clumping of early-death samples. Have been tempted to jump on the LED bandwagon, but old Edison bulbs are cheap, easily replaced, and good enough, and they are relatively insensitive to power transients.
 
#14 ·
Might wanna check your voltage. LED's tend to be very touchy about over-voltage. Supposedly the supporting electronics will take care of this, but I have my doubts.
LEDs are sensitive to over-current rather than over-volatge. The only "supporting electronics" would be a current limiting resistor which is connected in series with the active devices (LEDs).

The problem would be bad LED devices or bad assembly process. The LEDs are surface mount devices.
 
#15 ·
I just found this thread again so I'll post an update. Superbright just had a bad batch of red 1157 5W Luxeons. The replacements they sent me have been going strong for months and over 5000 miles.
 
#17 ·
1156s replace the turn signal bulbs. 1157s replace the tail/stop light bulbs. Only the headlights are halogens. I replaced the headlights with HIDs. My Luxeon LEDs are still going strong BTW. It definitely was just that one bad batch that caused a problem in the past.
 
#21 ·
I have the same lamps as you. I'm on my second set. The first set died within the first hour, so I called the company, and was told that there had been a "bad batch". They immediately shipped me replacements at no charge. The base colour was different, but the led's were identical.

They honour their warranty anyway...
 
#22 ·
That's my situation exactly.
 
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