LED WTF

[TelfordDorr]

Had to post this, as it illustrates what bad design does to what otherwise would be a good product.

Being a neon person, I've always laughed at some of the exaggerated and misleading advertising which occurred when led sign lighting was first introduced, as it made what otherwise was a technically reasonable product look like crap. Now that the market is beginning to sort itself out into real products and wanna-be crap, and the wanna-be's are slowly fading away (no pun intended), I'm seeing less and less of the technically stupid sales methodology.

Still, every once in a while, some product pops up that makes you wonder.

In this case, someone gave me a "100 LED" flashlight.

Nice idea; nice unit. I've grown to like it, as it's really bright, especially on NiMH batteries (uses 4 AA cells).

However, being typical China made consumer cra stuff, after a while it fell apart internally, so I was forced to take it apart for a little rework and redesign. Seems the battery contact assembly was only held in place by a dollup of hot glue, which was easy to fix (a bigger dollup). The big surprise was how it was wired: the LED were neatly soldered onto a fairly nice circuit board - but all in parallel! Two 26 gauge wires left the board and went to the battery socket / switch assembly. Inspection showed that the unit essentially connected 100 paralleled LEDs directly across 6 volts worth of battery. No series resistor (other than the wires and the internal resistance of the battery). No current limiting circuitry of any kind. I mean, what the hell were these people thinking? Obviously, they don't have a clue how an LED works, or what it's requirements are. Or didn't care. They treat LEDs as if they were light bulbs! Amazing!

This is the kind of crap which gives an otherwise viable technology like LED a bad rap. Sorry to see it happen....

Rework into a correct configuration would be way more work that it's worth, so I guess I just run it to the point of failure, then move on....

[Erik Sine]

Now that the market is beginning to sort itself out into real products and wanna-be crap, and the wanna-be's are slowly fading away (no pun intended), I'm seeing less and less of the technically stupid sales methodology.

Once in a while they still pop up, but it's chipper!

http://www.thesignsyndicate.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3781