And if you haven't checked out Jeff's website it is well worth it. GREAT
site Jeff!
www.ac0c.com
On 12/2/2013 7:43 PM, Jeff Blaine wrote:
Gary is on the money, you could say.
Those little generic T5 LEDs have a manufacturer's side cost basis in
the 1-2 cents range. And the price competition is murderous. The
hang-up to cost reduction is the packing materials cost - not the
actual LED chip cost.
73/jeff/ac0c
www.ac0c.com
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
-----Original Message----- From: Gary K9GS
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2013 10:17 AM
To: rfi@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RFI] LED Christmas Light RFI -> LED lead corrosion
Welcome to the world of low-cost consumer electronics. I would imagine
the LEDs used in Christmas lights are about the cheapest ones
available. I just did a quick check. A 60 LED string of lights can be
bought at Target for $7. That works out to ~$0.12 per LED.
The low cost consumer LEDs used in these types of products are likely
using steel in the leads to save cost. That's why they are so cheap.
One other possibility is if the leads were gold plated. You cannot
electroplate gold directly on to copper. You have to use an
intermediate metal on the copper and then plate the gold on to the
intermediate metal. Typically, the intermediate metal is nickel which
IS slightly magnetic. But I highly doubt that's what we're talking
about here :)
Remember, these types of LEDs with leads are designed to be indicators.
They're not designed for lighting applications like you'd find in high
performance lighting applications. Those types of LEDs are usually
surface mount parts and are MUCH brighter. But for illuminating things
like meters in amplifiers what you're using are perfect.
On 12/1/2013 9:58 PM, Kim Elmore wrote:
Now THIS is interesting. Up until now, I have used the classic series
strings and have always suspected that corrosion occurred during
storage. Yet, I could never find much evidence of corrosion because
the lamp leads are copper and the socket material is brass.
I recently replaced incandescent lamps in my amplifier meters with
white LEDs. As I was cleaning up, I noticed to my astonishment that
the clipped parts of the LED leads are magnetic. I remembered
thinking that whatever they were, they sure were surprisingly tough
to cut... If the leads are some sort of ferrous material (likely mild
steel) that has been copper plated and then tinned to make soldering
easier, the corrosion you see is easily explained.
It's also interesing that they depend on the (poor) PIV ratings of
the LED series string for string AC operation. If this is how they
manage the LED strings, then these will be very RF quiet though they
may not last long as outdoor lights if this is the common
construction practice.
Kim N5OP
On 12/1/2013 6:30 PM, John DeGood wrote:
My father-in-law WA3GNU has 3 strings of LED holiday lights at his QTH.
They consist of 60 LEDs per string: each string is divided into 2
halves
with each half consisting of 30 LEDs in series with 3 x 735 ohm
resistors (sealed in heatshrink tubing) connected directly across the
120 VAC line and protected by a pair of fuses in the plug. Given this
circuit topology, I would not expect RFI problems and WA3GNU has not
noticed any.
When we took them down last year they were all working, but all 6
halves
of the 3 strings were dark when we attempted to return them to a third
season of service this week. Troubleshooting, I discovered that
approximately 25% of the LED lamps had suffered corrosion failure in
which one lead was broken due to corrosion. Many of the remaining LEDs
with both leads still intact showed obvious evidence of serious
corrosion in progress.
These LED lamp strings are constructed identically to miniature
incandescent holiday lamp strings, with the LED leads simply inserted
through a pair of holes in a small keyed plastic base and then bent
back
against opposite sides of the plastic base to serve as the contacts.
The
plastic base is then inserted into a keyed plastic socket such that the
LED leads press against a pair of flat contacts which appear to be made
of brass or a similar metal.
I hypothesize the corrosion resulted from the combined effects of
moisture, dissimilar metals (LED leads vs. socket contacts), and DC
current (the series LED string acts as a rectifier). A few of the LED
lamps showed no evidence of corrosion: I hypothesize they might by
chance have been positioned such that they did not get wet. Thus, this
corrosion failure mode might not occur in a dry indoor environment.
John NU3E
On 12/1/2013 3:51 PM, Kim Elmore wrote:
Does anyone have experience with RFI from LED Christmas lights? Are
some better than others? All bad? No problems?
Kim N5OP
"People that make music together cannot be enemies, at least as
long as the music lasts." -- Paul Hindemith
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73,
Gary K9GS
Greater Milwaukee DX Association: http://www.gmdxa.org
Society of Midwest Contesters: http://www.w9smc.com
CW Ops #1032 http://www.cwops.org
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