COB LED X5 help-- one goes out after two seconds

O

OCCo.

Member
Hey everybody I have a generic chinese-made COB X5 1500W light. When I turn it on, at first all of the 5 cells light up but after about 2 seconds one of them goes out and doesn't come on again (always the same cell). I tried searching online and in the forum here but wasn't having much luck finding anything. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot these or is it just dead and not fixable? Thanks guys

Pic attached of the type of unit I am talking about.
COBlight.jpg
 
At minimum, you'll need to be able to disassemble the fixture to gain access to the wiring to check if it's a driver or one of the 'cobs'. They normally use modular wiring connectors so you may be able to plug the questionable driver into a known working cob.
 
OCCo. said:
Hey everybody I have a generic chinese-made COB X5 1500W light. When I turn it on, at first all of the 5 cells light up but after about 2 seconds one of them goes out and doesn't come on again (always the same cell). I tried searching online and in the forum here but wasn't having much luck finding anything. Does anyone know how to troubleshoot these or is it just dead and not fixable? Thanks guys

Pic attached of the type of unit I am talking about.
View attachment 4354055
Click to expand...
My guess is its the power supply or something related. I bet its a 1 driver for 1 cob setup and 1 crapped out, maybe overheating or something. Wont work after it heated up for 2 sec.

If it was the actual cob then it should light up at all and most likely looking burnt.

Youd need to open it up and see what you got or send it for repair under warranty or similar.

Not sure if its worth it, maybe better just run the 4 remaining.
 
This may be a "driverless" driver on board chip. Maybe check the screw tightness on the "cob" chip that is acting odd. Open that baby up and give us a real picture of it. The generic one doesn't help.
 
Thanks for the replies everybody. At first it would turn on for 2 secs and then go out. Now, it doesn't come on at all. I don't know if it was every working normally before or not, I bought this from a guy who said he got it at a fundraising auction and he didn't know anything about it other than that. Even if it only works for 4 lights though would still be worth it to me as it was only $60CDN but would like to get all 5 working if I can.

I switched the wiring with another cob and now this one lights up but the other doesn't. So I guess that means its not the cob. I have attached some pics of the inside. Would I need to replace that driver, or could it be something else then?

Light1.jpg Light2.jpg Light3.jpg
 
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Sorry about the first pic, I tried to turn it around so it looked better but it looks upside down. Here is a bigger one. So what does everyone think, top notch light or what? Hahah :-)

Light1.jpg
 
Sounds like you do have a defective driver. It uses a 50w constant current led driver for each cob. says that the designed output voltage should be between 27 and 36 volts @1500mA. You can do a google search for a driver with those specs and see what pops. Because that's such a low cost fixture I'd be hard pressed to sink much money into repairing it.
 
In order to make sure its the driver you can also check if you can connect the troublesome cob to one of the other drivers. If it lights up no prob then just chuck the broken driver.

If you buy new driver and find a deal buy a couple, you might have more broken drivers soon. Another version would be getting a quality meanwell driver for the 5 cobs.
 
Do the specs have to exactly match the voltage? I found some 50 watt drivers that look like this one but output voltage in the 20-40 volt range. Also I have seen reference to one color versus 3 color drivers, and tune. Do I need to be concerned about that. I found what looks like an identical pic of my driver with exact voltage specs etc but it's from a site in Argentina and i dont even know if I could order it from them. This site wont let me post a link but it's a site called mundoled They say the manufacturer is ATEC but I cannot find any other info on them.
 
Thanks for the suggestion Dandy. I managed to find one on aliexpress for $13CDN shipped, will just take a month to get here. Looks just like the ones i have and same specs. I know its probably not the best quality but I don't want to put alot of money into this right now. Maybe later I will get a better light but for now, this is better than the CFLs and i plan to put these outdoors if the weather would stay nice. This lamp is for the rainy cloudy days while they are still small.

One last question hopefully you guys can answer for me. Is it safe to run the light with just the 4 working cobs? Is there any problem with just plugging it in without the 5th one working. Should i leave it plugged in to the driver, or should i leave it unplugged, or does it not make any difference?
 
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