I had most of my LED globes replaced about 1 year ago ..... had several failures.

Anyone broken open ones of these globes?? (I'm curious the see the circuits). Any nasties? Gases?? Plastic rather than glass etc??

No gases inside. The glass is very thin and breaks easily. The LED modules still work as they are sealed with some sort of clear rubber that acts as a lens in some cases. Some brands are using plastic now and these are much better.

I bought a batch from Aldi early last year and so far four have failed after about 20-30 hours. These were the standard 'globe' shape with a bayonet cap. I broke one open which was simply a matter of inserting a knife blade under the translucent plastic cap and twisting. With the cap off I could see an array of surface mount LEDs stuck on an aluminum plate (which I assume acted as a heatsink). Two wires, red and black, ran from the back of the plate to a encapsulated power supply. I cut the wires off where they entered the 'goop'. Connecting 12V to the wires made all the LEDs light up. I then dug into the potted power supply and exposed some of the components. This released a very strong burnt resistor smell so I deduced that the failure was due to the power supply overheating. Given the way it was potted there was obviously no way that the heat could escape or radiate away. Very poor design. I will not buy any more from Aldi.

Andrew

so far four have failed after about 20-30 hours

Hopeless! I'd be taking them back to Aldi along with the receipt and complaining.

I once bought some long life halogen bulbs from ALDI and those were indeed long life.

Not surprised there.

A simple filament of appropriate metal will surely outlive a bunch of underrated overworked cheaply made bunch of over priced electronic components crammed into a tiny sealed space.

And all to save the planet from mythical man-made overheating.

The winners: Bankers and carbon credit traders.

The losers: Us.

^ not to mention the RFI.

Sadly the receipt was on thermal print paper which has faded away. I am happy with the concept of LED lights simply because they do slightly reduce my power bill and I bought the Aldi globes to try because they were cheaper than others I had seen. (The old parable about horses and hay comes to mind as I type!) I have seen Siemens made lights that had a finned metal base which in hindsight was most likely to dissipate heat. GTC's comment about RFI still applies however.

'BringBackTheValve' is also correct as overall the old incandescent globes were the least polluting and required less energy to manufacture. Sadly neither the pollies who were conned into banning them nor their political minders had any understanding of what it takes to make compact fluorescent lights and LEDs. Also there is no disposal plan for the mercury in CFLs nor the lead and plastic in LED globes; it all just goes into landfill to leach out over time. The old incandescent globes being mostly glass were far more benign in that regard. (I have also found PCB in the remains of a capacitor in a Chinese made CLF that blew up inside a table lamp causing much excitement for my wife who was knitting and the cat which was napping!)

The other point is the actual life of both of the new types is much less than the hours claimed (lab conditions?) which was used to justify the forced change. The same error is found in the claims for solar panels which are likely to be mandatory for all new buildings soon. There are no recently published figures that state the initial conversion efficiency and how it drops off sharply over five years. (Does anybody have data on panels 5+ years old? I recall reading a Telecom/Telstra study into using solar panels to power remote installations and the point it made was that they would all need replacing at the 5-year mark.) Then there is all the energy required to manufacture the panels and the massive amount of pollution associated with the manufacturing process that never gets a mention.

Andrew

Sadly the receipt was on thermal print paper which has faded away.

Don't you just love those thermal paper receipts? I make a practice of photocopying important ones, that is where the cost price justifies a warranty claim if necessary.

I'd still lodge a complaint via their customer service line. If nothing else it might save others from the same experience -- although it has to be said that Aldi does buy/stock such items on some weird basis (presumably based on their own bulk buys).

QUOTE: We are always happy to hear from our customers, so please feel free to contact our Customer Service Department with any questions, complaints or queries you may have:

ALDI Customer Service Number:
13 ALDI (13 25 34)

Got LED open .... but because I wasn't sure, I did it 'remotely' .... also read 'agriculturally' ..... Next one will be very easy as per Relayautomatic. No glass, very tough plastic.

4 to 5 cms disc with many small LED's feed by small circuit board. Haven't had time to examine it properly, but is not encased, some larger discrete components eg small transformer, a couple of electrolytic caps, other caps ..... all on top ..... with many surface mounted components on bottom of board. No obvious failure mode.

No obvious failure mode

No telltale burn odour?

Filament globes are garbage now. They burn out with monotonous regularity and are worth about as much are the food scraps they are put out with. These days I don't see any point in claiming warranty with something so cheap - just stop buying the crap to begin with and buy LEDs to begin with.

I have stayed with halogen bulbs which seem to give reasonable life and are a good colour range like the incandescent bulbs.

Even have a supply of Aust' incandescent bulbs enough to see me through if I want to use them.

The kitchen is equipped with a fluro tube and one of the modern quick start types which erupts RFI like anything. So have to switch it off when running AM radios.

To many horror stories with LED's and RFI is an issue as well.

As mentioned the whole LED changeover was a joke, the incandescent was cheaper to make, although drew more power through its life had little disposal issues with adverse chemicals.

What will happen to landfills in a hundred years time your guess is as good as mine.

Generally don't have many lights going at night, just one or two where and as needed.

Hi GTC,

No, no burn odour .... but .... connection between circuit board and LED disc simply fell off when I picked it up ... looks like a 'cold' or 'dry' joint ... shoddy workmanship is probable. Sometime over the next few days, I will test the circuit board.

Next LED I pull apart will be done from the top ... ie. I will 'surgically' ... remove top section of globe and check the wire connections to the LED's before doing anything else.

I must admit I prefer incandescent globes, I find that they last as long as halogen and fluoro's, occasionally ones a dud but overall they keep going for ages, but in radio's the filament globes look good and are original, often radio's I restore have original ones still working fine!

I don't see any point in claiming warranty with something so cheap

Neither do I. I mentioned warranty in the context of expensive items.