LED floodlights are very popular on eBay at the moment
They're cheap, and they seem to be quite bright
and they certainly do save a lot of energy
so let's plug this one in and just see how bright it is
Oh, that's pretty good, looks okay
The sensor works okay, but is it 20 Watt?
Well, let's bring in a power meter here and we'll plug it into the power meter
The power meter says the 20 Watt light is drawing 13 Watts
And I know that the passive infrared sensor here uses one of those Watts
So the actual power of the LED is 12 Watts
And you know what? I got lucky because many of these are actually just putting out 10 Watts to the 20 Watt LED
And I'm not sure why, they're just using a 10 Watt driver for a 20 Watt LED
And the same applies to...
The same applies to the smaller fixtures like this 10 Watt one
which is actually using a 3 Watt driver
The LED, the whole fixture actually draws about 4 Watts
but that's nowhere near 10 Watts, that's not even half the rating that you're paying for
I'm not sure if this is an economy measure or it's because they're overheating
Goodness knows, I'm guessing it's just to save money
Now, that's just the start of this story
I'm going to disconnect this now
from my little test setup which is completely non-compliant
I would have put a plug on this but it's not a very long lead, and also
you may have to cut the end off because this one came stripped with such zealousness
that it's through to the copper on every single wire where they've cut it
Now, let's look at the earth
So, I've got a meter here...
and we'll check earth continuity to the case
This is a simple continuity test here
[meter beeps]
And I'm going to be testing from the earth wire on to
[meter beeps]
any metal, exposed metal that's not covered in paint
[meter beeps]
So, it's the screws I'm going to test on to
So, here's the earth wire and the flex
[meter silent]
Nothing, no earth continuity at all, so let's open it up and take a look inside
The cover comes off with four screws
This short flex is annoying, it means that theoretically you have to try and put it into a junction box very close
but, in reality, it's not going to even reach -
Once you've got that bracket on a wall, the flex isn't going to reach anything
So that's going to result in people making pudding joints, which isn't a good result
or having floating junction boxes
So that's the four screws out
The cover lifts off, this little frame
[clank of metal]
and then glass is stuck to silicon
and will just lift off
It may stick to the silicon a bit but it comes off
Watch out for broken glass shards on the corners where they've chopped it
This starts off as a rectangular piece of glass and then they sort of smash off the corners
and sometimes they're a wee bit rough with them
So, inside we have the LED, a reflector and a ballast
so let's take the reflector off
This is usually held on by a screw at each corner, diagonally opposing corners
but I see they've got three screws in this one
This must be the luxury model
The reflector comes off to reveal the LED
and a floating earth wire not connected to anything
Sometimes they even just crop it off or sometimes they actually hide it by gluing out the way
Sometimes it's even got a little spate crimp in it, a ring crimp, but still not connected to anything
I'm not sure why they do this, it's really common in these floodlights
they just leave the earth floating
This is an aluminium case. It's conductive, it's a mains voltage light: it should be grounded
If you decide to ground one yourself then you can put a ring crimp on it and maybe clean up one of these pillars
make sure you're geting a good connection and sandwich it between the reflector
but I just don't know why they just leave these disconnected, it's really common
The LED is held on by two diagonally opposing screws
and there should be heat sink compound behind it
There is heat sink compound, I can see it squishing out the sides - that's a good result
Some of them they don't put much heat sink compound, some of them they put none
Here's the little ballast. It's the culprit here because this should be a big ballast
This should be a 20 Watt power supply and it's not even stuck down
They've tried sticking it down but it's obviously come off
This, as I say, should be 20 Watt but it's a 10 Watt supply
I just don't know why they're doing this
The first LED lights like this came out with proper ballasts, proper power supplies
but they don't have them now
A lot of them seem to be coming out with these half-rating supplies
I'm not sure if it's a thermal issue, because maybe they weren't dissipating enough heat from the back
or maybe the supplies were overheating inside the case
But, yeah...
So, just keep this in mind if you buy these that if you go for a 20 Watt you may not get a 20 Watt you may get a 10 Watt
If you go for a 10 Watt you may get a 4 Watt or less
And they almost certainly seem to just come with the earth disconnected
So, just know what you're buying