More LED problems

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LIALLEGHENY
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Re: More LED problems

Post by LIALLEGHENY »

Notice where your power supply is made.....CHINA.....this is what our country gets for outsourcing everything.....low quality, cheap s..t, that doesn't work properly or last long. AND. Where is the UL rating or has that gone out the window as well?

Nyle
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Greg_Lewis »

LIALLEGHENY wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 11:03 pm .... AND. Where is the UL rating or has that gone out the window as well?

Nyle

Good question. It runs warmer than I think it should.
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Bill Shields
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Bill Shields »

120F is not too hot for many power supplies. Ever touched the PS on your laptop? Especially if running from 220 V?

Now now now...let us not bash China. I am concerned about USA manufacturing not anti-anything in specific

Ever tried to purchase a laptop computer built in USA?
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I've sent a message to the supplier so we'll see what they say. Google maps shows the business is located in an industrial warehouse in So. Cal., so I'd presume they're closed for the weekend. From what it's doing, Bill's suggestion that it's a voltage regulator problem sounds like the answer.

A funny footnote: My sweetheart barely knows a volt from a bolt, but when this first started she said it was the power supply. Now she's chuckling and saying that I need to listen to her diagnoses more often! :lol:
Greg Lewis, Prop.
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LIALLEGHENY
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Re: More LED problems

Post by LIALLEGHENY »

OK Bill, to be fair I can't only bash China, I have to bash corporate American companies as well, as they are the ones that put profit for their shareholders before quality and the consumers. They are the ones that opened the door to having so much of what we buy be made in China. I'm not going to go any further with this as it enters into politics, which I hate discussing and is forbidden here.
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Bill Shields
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Bill Shields »

I totally agree with the concept of not relying on 'outside suppliers'.

Business would say 'global economy' and 'it would not sell if made here - would cost too much $$$'.

I get similar suggestions about things from my wife...so know from whence thou cometh
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Steggy
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Steggy »

LIALLEGHENY wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 11:03 pm Notice where your power supply is made.....CHINA.....this is what our country gets for outsourcing everything.....low quality, cheap s..t, that doesn't work properly or last long. AND. Where is the UL rating or has that gone out the window as well?

It does have a CE rating, which is the European equivalent of a UL listing in the USA.

That said, Chinese wall-wart power supplies are notorious for behaving badly. I can't begin to count how many computer peripheral problems I've encountered that were caused by NFG wall-warts.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Greg_Lewis »

BDD:
Good point about cheap wall warts. I paid $12 for this thing including shipping. So if we start subtracting, we can take off perhaps $3 for shipping. So retail value would be $9. Now let's stipulate that the wholesale cost would be half that, $4.50. Of that, what would be the manufacturing cost? Two bucks?

Most of the power supplies I saw were more money than this one, and more robust looking, some that had cooling fins or even a fan. So I got what I paid for, sort of. At least I'd like it to work out of the box. We shall see what they say about it. If they send another, OK. If they send a refund, I'll temporarily scuttle my Scotch ancestry* and spend the money for a better quality one.

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Harold_V
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Harold_V »

When I installed LED's under the kitchen cabinets, one of the issues I faced was eliminating noise that was picked up by our sound system. The power supplies that are so commonly available transmit unwanted sound, I discovered. To eliminate that problem, I built my own power supply, which consisted of a transformer I purchased (one of several in one lot) off eBay, along with a rectifier (also eBay). The resulting voltage was on the high side, so I even removed a few turns of the windings from the transformer secondary to lower the output voltage. The power supply, which was installed in a can, along with a tiny muffin fan, operates for hours on end daily and has been 100% reliable---all without transmitting any noise to the stereo system.

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Greg_Lewis
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I may end up with that, Harold. I went with this because I just wanted to get this project over with. So far it's taken three times longer than I figured.
Greg Lewis, Prop.
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Our motto: "That looks about right."
Celebrating 35 years of turning perfectly good metal into bits of useless scrap.
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Re: More LED problems

Post by jcfx »

Businesses with a warehouse address means that they're fulfillment warehouses, there's a huge one in Dover NJ
the actual business could be anywhere in the world.
Learned that buying a rotary broach on a whim ( price was too good to be true ), total piece of junk.
Hopefully you'll have a better experience getting a replacement power supply.
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Bill Shields
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Re: More LED problems

Post by Bill Shields »

Many of the power supplies use high frequency drivers on toroid transformers to get the current rating...very noisy

Which is why a radio shack filament transformer and rectifier.

A couple of volts difference on the output should not be a concern . The led lights actually running less than 12 v -> as such they have their own voltage regulator systems built in.

The actual voltage drop varies with color...but if you have 5 volts available...
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