Philips led downlight repair

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floatingkiwi

38 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#252842 13-Jul-2019 17:52

Hi All

I have a house full of philips led downlights, DN052B, and they are failing one after the other. It's the usual LED failure with flickering and then going dim. It must be the driver.

So, I pulled the thing apart and checked the led bank, which seems fine, running at about 20V pulling 0.5A. I de-soldered and tested the caps, N mosfet and diodes. I can see some indication of heat on the yellow transformer but have no idea what it is as the printing returns no hits. There is also the small current shunt double diode which appears oK too (looks like a small transistor at corner of board). Any ideas? What is the usual failure mode?

bfginger

1330 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 191

#2278004 16-Jul-2019 23:53

Sadly that series is rated for only 15,000 hours which is on the lowest end for a downlight. My experience of Philips LED bulbs has been they last not too much longer than 240v halogens so the real world for those downlights may be more like 10,000. They may be fixable but then something else is going to break... it may be a case of electronics repair whack a mole.

LEDs with top build quality should last 50,000 hours so I don't think anything less than 30,000h is tolerable for fixtured lighting. Any rating less than that may mean it's being overdriven or underengineered. Putting downlights behind a quality dimmer and underdriving them should extent the lifespan.

floatingkiwi

38 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#2278066 17-Jul-2019 08:51

Yes, the mode of failure seems to be driver component failure, not the led bank. If I can add beefier or higher temp rated components I might be able to save these things.