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.
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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
Yah, the yihua irons are not the best with high thermal mass... I have always wondered if I can stick a sheet of metal around the element on my unit to make it actually touch the sleeve of the tip...
+mikeselectricstuff basically to keep the alu at a temp below solder melting point but close enough to make adding an iron send the part you're trying to (de)solder get hot enough?
I wouldn't trust such a thin layer of fiberglass to insulate the mains from that aluminum backplate. I guess the case is grounded so it should be safe.. I guess..
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
An easy way to remove components from Al. or copper based PCBs is use a fry pan on very low heat, or an electric sandwich maker. Then use a heat gun over the top to re-flow the board. If the PCB has thermal paste on the back, stick a sheet of Al. foil to it first so you don't get goop all over your kitchen utensils.
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.
What's up with the tons of heatsink compound? With PC's the rule is: "the less, the better", so why not with LED's? The heatsink compound is there only to facilitate the heat transfer between 2 metals parts (while filling the imperfections)
Get a standard clothes iron. Put it upside down in your lap, turn on. Place the PCB on the hot plate and let it soak the heat up. You should them be able to solder or desolder as normal.
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.
+electrodacus Where do you get your aluminum core PCBs made? Have you found an affordable source for small quantities? I have a project with a high current buck converter that's space-limited, so this kind of board would be helpful. Thanks.
FlyingShotsman The suppliers I used and the one I currently use are quite expensive for prototyping but medium to high volume prices are good. I pay about 250 to $300 for 3 to 5 PCS (small 10x9cm metal core boards single layer 105um (3Oz) copper. I only have the power connectors and the power parts on this board they can not do small spacing for small components with 105um (3Oz) copper. But I have 2x 120A going trough that board. On the last project I had 80A trough a 35um (1Oz) copper trace (it was wide and really short but still not bad). But if your buck is just 20 to 40A I think you better use two layer 70um (2Oz) FR4 it will cost less than a single layer 35um (1Oz) metal core board for prototype maybe even small volume. In small volume (few hundred) the 4 layer FR4 I use in the same project (same PCB size) costs about the same as the single layer 2.5mm aluminum core PCB with 3Oz (105um) copper. You can see the boards on my google+ page plus.google.com/+electrodacus
Thanks for the information. I appreciate the advice. I'm not pushing current >that< high, but the space constraints mean that I can't provide the PCB area recommended in component datasheets for thermal relief, so multi-layer boards, heavy copper and perhaps metal-core PCBs may be the answer. Are you able to share the name(s) of your supplier(s)?
+FlyingShotsman Yes the only reason I did not provided the name is that they are expensive for prototyping they are not specialized in prototyping they have good price for low or medium volume production. I pay around $1000 when prototyping my SBMS there are a few PCB's in there but I have no choice since I need to know exactly how the final PCB will look like I can not prototype with a different lower cost supplier. Here is the one I worked on for the SBMS4080 a bit less expensive than this last one I work with www.epegpcb.com/contact.jsp write to Michael the email address is there
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.
+davida1hiwaaynet In an application like that, the lighting probably counteracts a small percentage of the inductive load power factor. But the lighting will be a tiny amount of the whole load. How reliable are the LED lights?
+bigclivedotcom It does counteract some of the lagging PF from the motors. When a few small motors are online along with the lighting, we see a perfect unity power factor. Often on older offshore drilling facilities, the main load of the whole power plant is early type SCR drives for DC motors. These generators are designed to operate at 0.7 power factor because of the horrid way in which the SCR drives chop up the sine wave. Most of the facilities I work on are brand-new. They have been using an ATEX rated LED fixture with the round circuit board and surface-mount LED's. They seem to be reliable - unless shoddy installation techniques allow water to ingress at the cable gland. Then they fail quite rapidly. When they fail, they often start flashing off and on, or certain LED's go dark. I will post a link to the actual lights they used after this comment. Scroll down to the "Champ" version. That's what was on the facility - maybe a slightly older version with slightly differently-styled heatsink fins.www.cooperindustries.com/content/public/en/crouse-hinds/products/lighting/led_luminaires.html
+davida1hiwaaynet The large arrays of SMD LEDs seem to be a popular approach. It sporeads the heat over a larger area and allows long series strings. The water ingress issue is always a problem with LED fixtures. It can even find its way along the inside of the cables when the gland is otherwise tight. If it pools in the bottom of the fixture it can corrode the tracks quickly due to the DC.
All of this talk of electronics has got me thinking about this off-topic question: if you daisy-chain extension leads, but have nothing plugged in except the proceeding extension lead to any of them except the last one, and lets say that is 10m long, is that the same as having 1 extension lead with a 10m cable?
Nearly bought one of these lamps from B&Q, There own Blooma brand, Till I saw the reviews on them. The majority of them were failing within a year. there not cheap either. Going to stick with the old halogen lamps.
Could you heat the aluminum on the back of the circuit board to prevent the heat sinking while soldering (or desoldering)? Thanks for the videos and looking forward to the next...
Those housings look like they'd be perfect for some 12 volt 5050 white LED car light panels. I've got some in the interior lights of my car and they're stupidly bright (it was cheaper to order the LEDs from Ebay than actually buy new incandescent bulbs!)
Milliohmmeter? (I've seen some cool designs for those recently, including one from Scullcom here on RUclips.) Or just cut the one pin that's shorted, on only one chip, and re-test. That way you only have one pin to resolder if you picked the wrong one.
Just rewatched this video and I had an idea. High power less have a hundred chips in a ten by ten array but if they were all linked together in a chain of a hundred could 3 chips be used to switch the first 20 on then ten or row at a time? Would that result in low dissipation and more of the rectified synwave being used
Are these lights actually rated for 240V? 20 chips at three LEDs each is 60 LEDs total vs the reference design's 72, that's an extra 36V the chip needs to drop in current-limit mode during about 110 degrees of each half-cycle. That's an extra 1.6W for those final stage current-limited drivers to get rid of on top of the original design's 4W. (Well, 0.8W and 2W each with two chips sharing load.)
Speaking of weird failures in lights I made a capacitive dropper but it's very odd, the LEDs glow really dimly until I switch it off, take the LEDs off (Open circuit), turn it on, turn it back off, put the load back on, and then the LEDs glow brightly and properly until a few on/off cycles and it starts to glow dimly, So odd because when I would change the capacitor it would still glow dimly, changed the load and the load still glows dimly, change the resistors/take them out and still glows dimly.....? but when I do the procedure mentioned above it would work. Any ideas?
Is it possible to replace the individual LEDs that has the black spots (or maybe just remove the burned LEDs and bridge with a short wire to get the light working again)? How does one go about figuring out what LEDs are used on flood light such as these?
Hi Bigclivedotcom. This may seem like a newbie question, but why are capacitor dropper ballasts not used more by the main LED lamp makers and only seem to be used by cheap chinese ones? one common failure of LEDs is the complex electronic ballasts and at face value capacitor droppers seem more reliable. maybe a video going thru the pro's and con's of the different types of LED Ballasts might be a good idea? love your videos!
+Dana Vixen Philips have used capacitive droppers in their lamps, but they are better suited to low wattage lamps and not the really high current LEDs.
Bigc what are your thoughts on these smart ic floods (50-100w) are they worth the effort or should we stay with the internal driver cob style. love your vids
I'm a bit wary of them as previous teardowns of lights with those chips that switch in sections of LEDs to ride the sinewave have been prone to chip and then LED failure.
I'm sure it's been asked before, however.. The clips-and-close-to-turn-on mains terminal block you use. What is the name of that and any idea where to buy them? It would be an upgrade from my lead with croc clips on the end. :)
I have two LED PIR floodlights on the front of the house. One is a 10 watt and the other a 20 watt. Different physically - not the same manufacturer. Just recently the 10w stopped working altogether and the 20w is just glowing a bit. It's appeared to have happened during the very low temperatures we just had recently. So I'm thinking that may have had something to do with it. Anyone got any thoughts?
So its possible that the chips didnt meter the current correctly because they were stacked, ignoring the chip manufacturers data perhaps? Your reactive dropper does work :-D perhaps use two series capacitors at double the value to share the load, maybe :-)
+zx8401ztv pretty much any semiconductor in parallel can have issues with load sharing. Diodes if forward voltage of one goes up more current goes into to the one with lower forward voltage. same with MOSFETS if one gets a higher RDS value.
+Josh C Its an easy mistake to make isnt it, on linear power supplys the output transistors have identical resistors in the emitter's to make them more or less equal, so one dosent do all the work BOOM!! lol :-D. Ordinary leds are the git, parallel any two leds and one will allways hog the current ha ha :-D
even leading product manufacturers do it though just a gamble in my opinion but saying that it is some time not possible to find a device capable of doing the job but that can be worked around sometimes by clever design.
I think the only way your going to solder/desolder a PCB like that, is to use a hotplate......... Or in my case a cheap electric hob from RS ("for food preparation" my a** :p ).
Wouldn't just cutting the one bad pin and lifting it let you test which chip was good\bad? Personally i have a strong dislike for led's that strobe like that (i know the camera makes it more obvious), they give me headache's.
I'm frequently amused by the Chinese manufacturers' total misunderstanding of how to properly use thermal grease. They seem to believe it's a magical substance that can bridge several-millimeter-wide gaps, if only you glob enough of it onto a PCB or component. The way it was applied here, it created a thermal barrier. The stuff is meant to be applied in a thin film, between well-mated, smooth surfaces, to bridge microscopic surface imperfections. You should never apply so much that it reduces metal-to-metal contact at the component-to-heatsink interface. It really takes very, very little to be most effective. The Chinese overuse of the stuff is particularly funny given how much effort they put into cutting cost; they make their products worse >and< waste money.
...Is it just me or is the bridge rectifier in the wiring diagram at 1:40 and the larger diagram at 1:50 connected so that it blows the ass out of itself for half the AC waveform?
Chips used instead of cap dropper for better power factor. I'm looking for a decent PIR LED floodlight that will last 10 years. Most on the market are IP44 which isn't high enough. Even IP65 ones appear to have poor design on the PIR with many opportunities for water entry. Anyone make an IP66 PIR floodlight?
Could I send you a power bank for a autopsy? I got this 20K mAh powerbank for £10 I charged it once then drained it to 0 basically (Went on a long trip) when I went to charge it, it wouldn't accept it. I tried many cables but I think it's my fault as I used the one it came with.
Glebs Litvjaks Scrap it, I can smell kinda burning from 1 chip beside the mini usb, and it would be cheaper just to buy a new power bank but Thank you so much for your help! :) have a nice night/day
OK, thank you. Are you familiar with this type (or is it a similar setup)? I am wondering if it could be converted to 12V DC. www.aliexpress.com/item/LED-FloodLight-100W-60W-30W-15W-Reflector-Led-Flood-Light-Spotlight-220V-110V-Waterproof-Outdoor-Wall/32557157680.html Someone posted a couple pics: g01.a.alicdn.com/kf/UT8I0cQXAlaXXagOFbXp.jpg g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/UT8DE.SXphXXXagOFbXo.jpg
Seems like a poor design to me, probably just an excuse to use up excess LED stock with newer style COB LEDs being used (such as the ones in the £3 10w floods, I like those!!), but, it's china, they'll make anything it seems... :P
+BigCliveDotCom Do you take requests? I've been watching you teardown and diagram LED circuits for a while, and still trying to grasp running COB LEDs without an LED driver, just a high wattage resistor. If one has a 10W COB LED(3x3) with the following ratings: Forward Voltage (VF): DC 9-12V and Forward current (IF): 1050MA. I know that running the LED on 12V with a 3.9Ohm resistor works, but I don't know how to calculate that it will. I know the answer resides in V=IR. How would you explain this? I did a quick Google search, and it appears in not the only one confused.
+Rich Booth Deduct the LED voltage from the maximum possible supply voltage (allow at least 14V for a vehicle) and that is the voltage you have to drop across the resistor. Then divide that voltage by the required current (1A) to get your resistor value. So 14V minus the LED voltage of around 10V (may vary a bit) gives 4V to drop, divided by 1A equals 4 ohms. Nearest standard value is 3.9 ohms. For the resistors power dissipation multiply the current by the voltage dropped across it. So that's 1A times 4V equals 4W power rating plus a good margin for a longer resistor life. The resistor cam be mounted inside the case to share the LED heatsink, but mounted well away from the LED.
+bigclivedotcom That definitely explains it and takes the mystery out of it. Thank you for taking the time to craft such a detailed response. It is amazing how efficient, powerful and versatile LEDs are (they are not your grandfather's straw hat LEDs).
About the flickering measurement. I did a similiar experiment and ended up using a "real" photodiode as the capacitive effect of the solar cell made measurements inaccurate. The blogpost is in german - english only via google translate - but the pictures should explain themselves: www.zerobrain.info/fotokatastrophen/2015/10/17/led-flimmern-vermessen-gemessen-was-flickert-denn-da
+Zerobrain Indeed, use a photodiode such as BPW34 instead of the solar cell. It has a much higher bandwidth and will allow you to see the light waveform in much more detail.
Probably poor design. Just because a TO-220 transistor may be able to dissipate 100W, doesn't mean that it can under most circumstances! Transistors usually have a maximum rated power dissipation like that, which is measured with the transistor at 25C ... try keeping the transistor die at 25C! It's VERY difficult to do!
+bigclivedotcom I just bought a "100 Watt" version of this design, and made a 1200 Frames Per Second video that (sort of) shows how the CYT3000A LED driver switches in and out the several banks of LEDs. My half-arsed analysis of what can be seen is in the description under the video. It can be seen at the following link: ruclips.net/video/9mSptMbGDnk/видео.html
Are you trying to help the Chinese engineers? lol Keep in mind that even though a chip is labeled something such as "CYT3000A" it very well might be a counterfeit inferior chip in these cheap devices. Thanks for the video though, one might conclude that since they both failed in exactly the same way that they might just be engineered to fail!
I think the newer version of these units are much smaller. Here is a link to the cheapest unit i could find... (Note: It's the 10w unit) www.ebay.com/itm/10W-20W-30W-50W-100W-LED-Flood-Spot-Lamp-Outdoor-Garden-Landscape-Yard-Lights-X1/162730908039?hash=item25e3849987:m:mrDh_UKTBZexp4UjS35jrJw
+bigclivedotcom From your, AvE's, and others' vids, all the ebay led chips seem *really* subpar. Is there any manufacturer that makes reliable products?? Also, RIP to your printer's ink pots ;)
+TheJohn8765 I think the best LEDs are reserved for high volume manufacturers. There's no shortage of ink. I use a continuous ink feed system with 100ml tanks of each colour filled with cheap eBay ink.
bigclivedotcom Oh, have you had good luck with ebay ink? I've been thinking about a continuous fill printer, but I didn't want to use main brand sell-your-organs price ink.
+TheJohn8765 Yeah, I'm not a photography enthusiast, so I just use cheap sets of four 100ml bottles of the ink that is supposedly for "Epson" but often come labelled "universal". My old Canon was the easiest to fill, but the Epson printers sometimes need a bit of encouragement. Mainly involving cleaning the printhead physically when they spew out too much ink when the replacement cartridge system is installed and also cheating the printer into accepting the new self-resetting cartridge chips. Epson are the worst for trying to keep their lucrative ink market. Photo paper printout looks absolutely fine although it can fade in direct sunshine (just print another), and the bulk ink lets you print without guilt.
+Glebs Litvjaks Plus it relies on the chip switching thresholds being the same. Then there's the safety issue of relying on that PCB for primary insulation coupled with so many Chinese products having no working earth connection.
This video description in Chinese English: I had to take in addition to sending these lights, see if I can find anything wrong. Does anyone have a 10W LED light very thin plate due to the wide range of half a watt SMD LEDs and power consumption. If you like my video, you can support the dollar coffee and biscuits intersection of www.patreon.com/bigclive
6:00 Proves the conspiracy is real! You first pronounced aluminum properly, then had to "correct" yourself to say it fancy/silly/complicated/British/wrong with the added vowel & syllable. WHY!? Almost as silly/bad as pronouncing "Vodker" instead of the correct/not silly Vodka. Queens of Drama!
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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. :)
Did you put a load on the cell? If not, its own capacitance probably explains it not going to zero
+mikeselectricstuff No, that's probably it, since it was straight on a scope probe. Oh well, I know now.
Holy crap mike. Man we need another X-ray tear down! Or any kind of big tear down. Love both of y'all's channel. From NC USA...
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.
Apply a regulated current to the chip (LED's shorted). Crank up the current until the shorted one gets hot enough to feel.
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
You need a Metcal or JBC iron to solder ali. PCBs.
or a hotplate
Yah, the yihua irons are not the best with high thermal mass... I have always wondered if I can stick a sheet of metal around the element on my unit to make it actually touch the sleeve of the tip...
+mikeselectricstuff basically to keep the alu at a temp below solder melting point but close enough to make adding an iron send the part you're trying to (de)solder get hot enough?
+mikeselectricstuff A 50W Weller TCP with a 6mm bit would be my weapon of choice.
+Dan T Ah yes, the fume extraction version.
+Dan T oddly enough lead fumes really aren't airborne in solder, as long as you wash your hands after soldering you should be fine
I wouldn't trust such a thin layer of fiberglass to insulate the mains from that aluminum backplate. I guess the case is grounded so it should be safe.. I guess..
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
Couldn't you have removed the 0 Ohm link to isolated the chips and identify the shorted one?
An easy way to remove components from Al. or copper based PCBs is use a fry pan on very low heat, or an electric sandwich maker. Then use a heat gun over the top to re-flow the board. If the PCB has thermal paste on the back, stick a sheet of Al. foil to it first so you don't get goop all over your kitchen utensils.
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.
What's up with the tons of heatsink compound? With PC's the rule is: "the less, the better", so why not with LED's? The heatsink compound is there only to facilitate the heat transfer between 2 metals parts (while filling the imperfections)
Well, true. But thermal compound = money. So why waste it? :)
Get a standard clothes iron. Put it upside down in your lap, turn on. Place the PCB on the hot plate and let it soak the heat up. You should them be able to solder or desolder as normal.
Aluminum castings tend to come out a different size than the mold. If they took the dimensions from the mold the screws will not quite line up.
For testing which chip was the bad one, could you have tried just lifting the one output leg of the chip of the board?
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.
+electrodacus Where do you get your aluminum core PCBs made? Have you found an affordable source for small quantities? I have a project with a high current buck converter that's space-limited, so this kind of board would be helpful. Thanks.
FlyingShotsman
The suppliers I used and the one I currently use are quite expensive for prototyping but medium to high volume prices are good.
I pay about 250 to $300 for 3 to 5 PCS (small 10x9cm metal core boards single layer 105um (3Oz) copper.
I only have the power connectors and the power parts on this board they can not do small spacing for small components with 105um (3Oz) copper. But I have 2x 120A going trough that board. On the last project I had 80A trough a 35um (1Oz) copper trace (it was wide and really short but still not bad).
But if your buck is just 20 to 40A I think you better use two layer 70um (2Oz) FR4 it will cost less than a single layer 35um (1Oz) metal core board for prototype maybe even small volume.
In small volume (few hundred) the 4 layer FR4 I use in the same project (same PCB size) costs about the same as the single layer 2.5mm aluminum core PCB with 3Oz (105um) copper.
You can see the boards on my google+ page plus.google.com/+electrodacus
Thanks for the information. I appreciate the advice. I'm not pushing current >that< high, but the space constraints mean that I can't provide the PCB area recommended in component datasheets for thermal relief, so multi-layer boards, heavy copper and perhaps metal-core PCBs may be the answer. Are you able to share the name(s) of your supplier(s)?
+FlyingShotsman Yes the only reason I did not provided the name is that they are expensive for prototyping they are not specialized in prototyping they have good price for low or medium volume production. I pay around $1000 when prototyping my SBMS there are a few PCB's in there but I have no choice since I need to know exactly how the final PCB will look like I can not prototype with a different lower cost supplier. Here is the one I worked on for the SBMS4080 a bit less expensive than this last one I work with www.epegpcb.com/contact.jsp write to Michael the email address is there
+electrodacus Thanks!
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.
+davida1hiwaaynet In an application like that, the lighting probably counteracts a small percentage of the inductive load power factor. But the lighting will be a tiny amount of the whole load. How reliable are the LED lights?
+bigclivedotcom
It does counteract some of the lagging PF from the motors. When a few small motors are online along with the lighting, we see a perfect unity power factor.
Often on older offshore drilling facilities, the main load of the whole power plant is early type SCR drives for DC motors. These generators are designed to operate at 0.7 power factor because of the horrid way in which the SCR drives chop up the sine wave.
Most of the facilities I work on are brand-new. They have been using an ATEX rated LED fixture with the round circuit board and surface-mount LED's. They seem to be reliable - unless shoddy installation techniques allow water to ingress at the cable gland. Then they fail quite rapidly. When they fail, they often start flashing off and on, or certain LED's go dark. I will post a link to the actual lights they used after this comment. Scroll down to the "Champ" version. That's what was on the facility - maybe a slightly older version with slightly differently-styled heatsink fins.www.cooperindustries.com/content/public/en/crouse-hinds/products/lighting/led_luminaires.html
+davida1hiwaaynet The large arrays of SMD LEDs seem to be a popular approach. It sporeads the heat over a larger area and allows long series strings. The water ingress issue is always a problem with LED fixtures. It can even find its way along the inside of the cables when the gland is otherwise tight. If it pools in the bottom of the fixture it can corrode the tracks quickly due to the DC.
All of this talk of electronics has got me thinking about this off-topic question: if you daisy-chain extension leads, but have nothing plugged in except the proceeding extension lead to any of them except the last one, and lets say that is 10m long, is that the same as having 1 extension lead with a 10m cable?
Hey Big Clive, id love to see you take apart an electronic breathalizer. thanks for the videos!
Nearly bought one of these lamps from B&Q, There own Blooma brand, Till I saw the reviews on them. The majority of them were failing within a year. there not cheap either. Going to stick with the old halogen lamps.
Get it right bigclive, it is Aluminium.
Love your vids.
Could you heat the aluminum on the back of the circuit board to prevent the heat sinking while soldering (or desoldering)? Thanks for the videos and looking forward to the next...
Hi great video just the right balance between theory & practical
Did you remove the surface mount fuse to fit the 680nf capacitor ?
THANKS FOR THE SOLER CALL TRICK ON THE SCOPE
These are selling in he US (120v, 10w) for $1.99 free shipping on eBay, couldn't help to buy a few to play with
Those housings look like they'd be perfect for some 12 volt 5050 white LED car light panels. I've got some in the interior lights of my car and they're stupidly bright (it was cheaper to order the LEDs from Ebay than actually buy new incandescent bulbs!)
+MegaWayneD Oh that's a good idea. I have some of those panels.
Milliohmmeter? (I've seen some cool designs for those recently, including one from Scullcom here on RUclips.) Or just cut the one pin that's shorted, on only one chip, and re-test. That way you only have one pin to resolder if you picked the wrong one.
What do you think about these in the 12V version? Would they have a better reliability?
remove the earth cable if it has one plug it in to the mains and chuck it in the bath with the baby
baby baby baby babyyy!! stick the babyy in the electric water, and make them shit their pants 50 times a second
Would like to see the math on the capacitive dropper.
Just rewatched this video and I had an idea. High power less have a hundred chips in a ten by ten array but if they were all linked together in a chain of a hundred could 3 chips be used to switch the first 20 on then ten or row at a time? Would that result in low dissipation and more of the rectified synwave being used
Are these lights actually rated for 240V? 20 chips at three LEDs each is 60 LEDs total vs the reference design's 72, that's an extra 36V the chip needs to drop in current-limit mode during about 110 degrees of each half-cycle. That's an extra 1.6W for those final stage current-limited drivers to get rid of on top of the original design's 4W. (Well, 0.8W and 2W each with two chips sharing load.)
Speaking of weird failures in lights I made a capacitive dropper but it's very odd, the LEDs glow really dimly until I switch it off, take the LEDs off (Open circuit), turn it on, turn it back off, put the load back on, and then the LEDs glow brightly and properly until a few on/off cycles and it starts to glow dimly,
So odd because when I would change the capacitor it would still glow dimly, changed the load and the load still glows dimly, change the resistors/take them out and still glows dimly.....? but when I do the procedure mentioned above it would work. Any ideas?
Is it possible to replace the individual LEDs that has the black spots (or maybe just remove the burned LEDs and bridge with a short wire to get the light working again)? How does one go about figuring out what LEDs are used on flood light such as these?
It depends on the type of LEDs. Some are multi-chip designed specifically for these modules.
I've learned a great deal from your videos. Keep it up!
All I know is I bought one and its knackered after one year,,technology !!!!
Hi Bigclivedotcom. This may seem like a newbie question, but why are capacitor dropper ballasts not used more by the main LED lamp makers and only seem to be used by cheap chinese ones? one common failure of LEDs is the complex electronic ballasts and at face value capacitor droppers seem more reliable. maybe a video going thru the pro's and con's of the different types of LED Ballasts might be a good idea? love your videos!
+Dana Vixen Philips have used capacitive droppers in their lamps, but they are better suited to low wattage lamps and not the really high current LEDs.
I like those enclosures, cast aluminum? Be a nice case for making my own floods with proper Philips LEDs and a smarter driver :)
Bigc what are your thoughts on these smart ic floods (50-100w) are they worth the effort or should we stay with the internal driver cob style. love your vids
I'm a bit wary of them as previous teardowns of lights with those chips that switch in sections of LEDs to ride the sinewave have been prone to chip and then LED failure.
I'm sure it's been asked before, however..
The clips-and-close-to-turn-on mains terminal block you use. What is the name of that and any idea where to buy them?
It would be an upgrade from my lead with croc clips on the end. :)
+Electra Flarefire It's called a quicktest.
Those cases could be okay for a homebrew project like a guitar effects pedal :-)
just put the heatsink on a hotplate the solder will slow with a heatgun
Hi! Great video,where did you find the datasheet?
Um ! what to do with those cases ? I know you could make some Led lights....Your way. Nice one Clive.
I have two LED PIR floodlights on the front of the house. One is a 10 watt and the other a 20 watt. Different physically - not the same manufacturer.
Just recently the 10w stopped working altogether and the 20w is just glowing a bit. It's appeared to have happened during the very low temperatures we just had recently. So I'm thinking that may have had something to do with it.
Anyone got any thoughts?
So its possible that the chips didnt meter the current correctly because they were stacked, ignoring the chip manufacturers data perhaps?
Your reactive dropper does work :-D perhaps use two series capacitors at double the value to share the load, maybe :-)
+zx8401ztv pretty much any semiconductor in parallel can have issues with load sharing.
Diodes if forward voltage of one goes up more current goes into to the one with lower forward voltage.
same with MOSFETS if one gets a higher RDS value.
+Josh C
Its an easy mistake to make isnt it, on linear power supplys the output transistors have identical resistors in the emitter's to make them more or less equal, so one dosent do all the work BOOM!! lol :-D.
Ordinary leds are the git, parallel any two leds and one will allways hog the current ha ha :-D
even leading product manufacturers do it though just a gamble in my opinion but saying that it is some time not possible to find a device capable of doing the job but that can be worked around sometimes by clever design.
New circuit board + a couple of 14400 cells...? 🤔😁
Hard to tell exactly what how much room you've got in there...
Clive, what type of scope do you have? Mine old CRT scope just let out the smoke today ... thus time for a new one. Any recommendations?
+Richard T It's an Owon I got because it was a basic unit with a big screen.
+bigclivedotcom It cannot possibly be any more basic than my 1989 CRT model :) Cheers!
could you preheat the board to help the sodden floe
I think the only way your going to solder/desolder a PCB like that, is to use a hotplate......... Or in my case a cheap electric hob from RS ("for food preparation" my a** :p ).
Wouldn't just cutting the one bad pin and lifting it let you test which chip was good\bad?
Personally i have a strong dislike for led's that strobe like that (i know the camera makes it more obvious), they give me headache's.
Wow today everything is quite crappy...
Hey Big Clive, love your work man! I have similar LED flood light that are AC too, and I'd like to run them 24v DC - is that possible??
You may be able to get a new LED array/driver that allows use at lower voltage.
i acutually seen the black spots on them leds before you said it . i learned that from you brother hehehe
I'm frequently amused by the Chinese manufacturers' total misunderstanding of how to properly use thermal grease. They seem to believe it's a magical substance that can bridge several-millimeter-wide gaps, if only you glob enough of it onto a PCB or component. The way it was applied here, it created a thermal barrier. The stuff is meant to be applied in a thin film, between well-mated, smooth surfaces, to bridge microscopic surface imperfections. You should never apply so much that it reduces metal-to-metal contact at the component-to-heatsink interface. It really takes very, very little to be most effective. The Chinese overuse of the stuff is particularly funny given how much effort they put into cutting cost; they make their products worse >and< waste money.
Bought 6 50watt, 20 10watt, 2 300watt, 1 500 watt.
All but the 500 watt have failed within 12 months.
Such a shame full metal housings 👎🏽
...Is it just me or is the bridge rectifier in the wiring diagram at 1:40 and the larger diagram at 1:50 connected so that it blows the ass out of itself for half the AC waveform?
+Lierofox Yup.
+bigclivedotcom ...And that diagram was made by the chip manufacturer? Terrifying.
Chips used instead of cap dropper for better power factor.
I'm looking for a decent PIR LED floodlight that will last 10 years.
Most on the market are IP44 which isn't high enough. Even IP65 ones appear to have poor design on the PIR with many opportunities for water entry.
Anyone make an IP66 PIR floodlight?
youtube REALLY needs to sort out the auto generation of captions. If you want a good laugh Clive watch a video with them on
Could you not break a track to one of the chips instead?
YEP I HAD A 50W IT DIDNT LAST 2 WEEKS THE BLACK SPOT OF DEATH WAS THERE..
Build a capacitor dropper with the circuit board and remove both chips...... or he did oups lol
Could I send you a power bank for a autopsy? I got this 20K mAh powerbank for £10 I charged it once then drained it to 0 basically (Went on a long trip) when I went to charge it, it wouldn't accept it. I tried many cables but I think it's my fault as I used the one it came with.
Glebs Litvjaks I don't know anything about electrical work, I just enjoy these vids, so you know I'll leave it :P
Glebs Litvjaks Thank you for the help, and I might start learning, as my dad has a degree in electrical engineering I might learn something of him :)
+Glebs Litvjaks Right the thing is torn apart and nothing is labeled, How would I check that the input Mini usb is working/how to fix it?
Glebs Litvjaks I can get a multi meter tomorrow, but will Twitter do?
Glebs Litvjaks Scrap it, I can smell kinda burning from 1 chip beside the mini usb, and it would be cheaper just to buy a new power bank but Thank you so much for your help! :) have a nice night/day
I find it funny, that they complicate things TO MUCH...
Can these types of lights be converted to run on 12V DC?
Not this type. It has a high voltage series array of LEDs.
OK, thank you. Are you familiar with this type (or is it a similar setup)? I am wondering if it could be converted to 12V DC. www.aliexpress.com/item/LED-FloodLight-100W-60W-30W-15W-Reflector-Led-Flood-Light-Spotlight-220V-110V-Waterproof-Outdoor-Wall/32557157680.html
Someone posted a couple pics: g01.a.alicdn.com/kf/UT8I0cQXAlaXXagOFbXp.jpg
g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/UT8DE.SXphXXXagOFbXo.jpg
You can buy other types of LED floodlights on eBay that are designed for 12V operation. But not the type shown in the video.
Yeah, it's just that they (12V) are more expensive and there are not as many design choices.
Seems like a poor design to me, probably just an excuse to use up excess LED stock with newer style COB LEDs being used (such as the ones in the £3 10w floods, I like those!!), but, it's china, they'll make anything it seems... :P
+BigCliveDotCom Do you take requests?
I've been watching you teardown and diagram LED circuits for a while, and still trying to grasp running COB LEDs without an LED driver, just a high wattage resistor.
If one has a 10W COB LED(3x3) with the following ratings: Forward Voltage (VF): DC 9-12V and Forward current (IF): 1050MA. I know that running the LED on 12V with a 3.9Ohm resistor works, but I don't know how to calculate that it will. I know the answer resides in V=IR. How would you explain this? I did a quick Google search, and it appears in not the only one confused.
+Rich Booth Deduct the LED voltage from the maximum possible supply voltage (allow at least 14V for a vehicle) and that is the voltage you have to drop across the resistor. Then divide that voltage by the required current (1A) to get your resistor value. So 14V minus the LED voltage of around 10V (may vary a bit) gives 4V to drop, divided by 1A equals 4 ohms. Nearest standard value is 3.9 ohms. For the resistors power dissipation multiply the current by the voltage dropped across it. So that's 1A times 4V equals 4W power rating plus a good margin for a longer resistor life.
The resistor cam be mounted inside the case to share the LED heatsink, but mounted well away from the LED.
+bigclivedotcom That definitely explains it and takes the mystery out of it. Thank you for taking the time to craft such a detailed response. It is amazing how efficient, powerful and versatile LEDs are (they are not your grandfather's straw hat LEDs).
Why not design a pcb for them and do it properly, ulike the examples you have shown?
About the flickering measurement. I did a similiar experiment and ended
up using a "real" photodiode as the capacitive effect of the solar cell
made measurements inaccurate. The blogpost is in german - english only
via google translate - but the pictures should explain themselves:
www.zerobrain.info/fotokatastrophen/2015/10/17/led-flimmern-vermessen-gemessen-was-flickert-denn-da
+Zerobrain Indeed, use a photodiode such as BPW34 instead of the solar cell. It has a much higher bandwidth and will allow you to see the light waveform in much more detail.
Too much thermal compound can be as bad as not having any.
Probably poor design.
Just because a TO-220 transistor may be able to dissipate 100W, doesn't mean that it can under most circumstances!
Transistors usually have a maximum rated power dissipation like that, which is measured with the transistor at 25C ... try keeping the transistor die at 25C! It's VERY difficult to do!
+bigclivedotcom I just bought a "100 Watt" version of this design, and made a 1200 Frames Per Second video that (sort of) shows how the CYT3000A LED driver switches in and out the several banks of LEDs. My half-arsed analysis of what can be seen is in the description under the video.
It can be seen at the following link:
ruclips.net/video/9mSptMbGDnk/видео.html
2:37 in schematic, bridge in short position.
You must reuse those fixtures!
+mminc81 I'm already thinking up uses.
Are you trying to help the Chinese engineers? lol Keep in mind that even though a chip is labeled something such as "CYT3000A" it very well might be a counterfeit inferior chip in these cheap devices. Thanks for the video though, one might conclude that since they both failed in exactly the same way that they might just be engineered to fail!
capacitors are just too darn expensive for china
I think the newer version of these units are much smaller.
Here is a link to the cheapest unit i could find... (Note: It's the 10w unit) www.ebay.com/itm/10W-20W-30W-50W-100W-LED-Flood-Spot-Lamp-Outdoor-Garden-Landscape-Yard-Lights-X1/162730908039?hash=item25e3849987:m:mrDh_UKTBZexp4UjS35jrJw
I do not like those. not at all
+Proyectos LED No. Nice concept, but the chips seem a weak point.
+bigclivedotcom From your, AvE's, and others' vids, all the ebay led chips seem *really* subpar. Is there any manufacturer that makes reliable products??
Also, RIP to your printer's ink pots ;)
+TheJohn8765 I think the best LEDs are reserved for high volume manufacturers. There's no shortage of ink. I use a continuous ink feed system with 100ml tanks of each colour filled with cheap eBay ink.
bigclivedotcom Oh, have you had good luck with ebay ink? I've been thinking about a continuous fill printer, but I didn't want to use main brand sell-your-organs price ink.
+TheJohn8765 Yeah, I'm not a photography enthusiast, so I just use cheap sets of four 100ml bottles of the ink that is supposedly for "Epson" but often come labelled "universal". My old Canon was the easiest to fill, but the Epson printers sometimes need a bit of encouragement. Mainly involving cleaning the printhead physically when they spew out too much ink when the replacement cartridge system is installed and also cheating the printer into accepting the new self-resetting cartridge chips. Epson are the worst for trying to keep their lucrative ink market.
Photo paper printout looks absolutely fine although it can fade in direct sunshine (just print another), and the bulk ink lets you print without guilt.
it looks like an unnecessarily complicated way of running LED's
I don't really like this design
+Glebs Litvjaks Plus it relies on the chip switching thresholds being the same. Then there's the safety issue of relying on that PCB for primary insulation coupled with so many Chinese products having no working earth connection.
This video description in Chinese English:
I had to take in addition to sending these lights, see if I can find anything wrong. Does anyone have a 10W LED light very thin plate due to the wide range of half a watt SMD LEDs and power consumption.
If you like my video, you can support the dollar coffee and biscuits intersection of www.patreon.com/bigclive
power wasting failling crappy dodgy led lights.
6:00 Proves the conspiracy is real! You first pronounced aluminum properly, then had to "correct" yourself to say it fancy/silly/complicated/British/wrong with the added vowel & syllable. WHY!? Almost as silly/bad as pronouncing "Vodker" instead of the correct/not silly Vodka. Queens of Drama!
i have no idea what you say but its darn interesting .