As predicted this light had a rather ambitious power rating! If you enjoy this channel you can help support it with a dollar for coffee, cookies and suspicious Chinese downlights at:- www.bigclive.co...
Have you considered getting two different items off of one listing to compare? For example the '45W' and '15W' to see if they are actually different or just priced higher.
Probably pretty hot... Did you see the fins on the heatsink? They're shaped like the devil's trident! (The pitchforky-thing often depicted in cartoons)
I got the quick test and it works just fine for NA mains, just wire up a normal plug to it (it ships un wired, you have to do this either way). Then I just put a piece of black and white electric tape over the internal clips to match NA hot/neutral colors. Thanks Clive for the link in the other video with the US based distributor!
That's a similar driver to the flat panel LED light I asked you about a couple of months ago. It's a different chip than the ones I have, but everything else looks exactly the same. I put both ferrite cores and noise suppressors inline and it knocked the noise in the am radio quite a bit. That and relocating the radio to a different part of the kitchen. I was actually debating between getting these or the flat panel ones. I wanted a nice diffused light, and I thought these might show shadows from each LED, so I went with the flat panel.
To draw in more gullible buyers obviously, for example, those portable solar panels tend to be sold at their panel's max rating rather than what you can actually expect out of it, so it sounds more impressive and a better value to buy a 7W solar panel instead of a 4W or 5W solar panel and same with battery banks where they give you cell capacity or iphone charges instead of something meaningful, such as boost efficiently. That and confusingly LED lights tend to be sold at what their equivalent replacement would output, so in this case, they "could" be referring to it as a 45W replacement but probably not.
Hey, Clive, I believe the 45W rating represents equivalence of light output to a 45W incandescent bulb. That's the way compact fluorescent and LED bulbs are labeled for retail sale here in the US. I have a pack of "60W" CF bulbs whose actual power consumption (according to the fine print on the label) is only 14W.
It's ok to say that it's better running at 15 watts but I hope you leave these sellers the feedback they deserve for such ludicrous product descriptions!
no, if it was that bad, youd use a 45w bulb! its supposed to draw 45w, even at 15w this is about 100w or so performance (compared to old bulbs) so for its size, it really isnt a good product.
2:53 - I believe the US terms you are looking for are "sheet rock," "gypsum board," "plaster board," and "drywall." The most common being drywall and sheet rock. When looking at any product, I assume the wattage advertised is maximum rating - since it's that higher-number "wow factor" that sells to uninformed consumers. This is especially true with audio equipment, where wattage advertised is Peak, not RMS, and therefore not what the user will experience 99% of the time. Inquiring minds want to see this thing cranked up to full power - and then, if you want to crank it up some more, give it a go... FOR SCIENCE! :-) OR! You could try putting those color-changing LEDs you showed in an earlier video, in place of the originals, that might be a nice effect!
These bead leds are 1 watt the lying barstewards I have some 7 watt versions of that light as one led failed (after 5+ years) I have ordered some to replacement bead leads to replace the duff one which was easy to find as the other 6 still glowed.
Might be interesting to detach the finned heatsink, and reattach with some heatsink compound between the backplate and the finned section. Then run it with a decent PSU and see whether the LED backplate becomes too warm.If that was dissipating a "real" 45W, the device would be (roughly) equivalent to a 500W tungsten - a "pretty bright" ceiling light I'd have thought :D
No, LED wattage is only the upper limit. The correct wattage to use depends on the other variables, ambient temperature, airflow, heatsink surface area. Too many people don't understand that you should completely ignore the LED wattage as anything other than an upper limit. It is never something where you should think "it should get closer to that upper limit" because it never should. A good design uses higher rated LEDs no matter what the heatsink is. In other words this light runs the LEDs at a little under 1W each but would be an inferior design if it used 1W LEDs. In other words in this application, a downlight tends to be enclosed. That is the first limitation along with the available space for a heatsink. No matter how well engineered a product is, it still has to work within these two limitations. It could have a fan and intake/exhaust out the face, but then you have dust buildup and noise. It simply isn't needed as homes are designed with enough downlights to accommodate the typical ~ 65W / 700-odd lumens per light and provide adequate lighting.
Running LEDs full tilt boogie doesn't get you all that much more in light output. They aren't the same form factor or on the same base, but I have a reel of 5630 strip lights cut into meter lengths and run limited to their rated12 volts they draw 3.7 amps, so 45 watts. Limited to 2 amps, the rating of the power supply I had that fit the location, they draw 10.7 volts, ~22w. And the brightness difference was just slightly perceptible when switched between the two settings on the test supply. So I turned it down to 10.5 volts to give the power supply some margin and it draws 1.75 amps (18-ish watts) and you can't tell the difference from 10.7 volts, looking directly at them or at a surface a foot away. I've had the same experience running them on batteries. Running 18650s unregulated 3S, adding a parallel set to reduce voltage sag in the initial turn on doesn't give you either much more light, or double the run time, because they spend more time in the higher voltage region turning more of your precious battery life into heat.
Wouldn't need to be a perfect world. It's illegal, fraud, at least in the US, but greedy sales avenues like Amazon and eBay, willfully turn a blind eye, making them partners in crime. Ironically the fraud is so pervasive that we've all gotten used to it and just take that into account when choosing generic products.
The human eye has a logarithmic rather than linear response to light, so to that extent you are correct that you may not see a substantial increase in brightness from a doubling of current, but there is another factor. Heatsinking is critical. As LED die temperature rises, lumens per watt decreases. A particular budgetized design may run the LED dies quite hot to achieve a particular brightness level, especially when a strip light that needs to be flexible, or really in any case where a more substantial heatsink is more expensive than just lying about true output. If you have a conservative, well made design that keeps the LED dies below about 85C temp at whichever current you choose, there is a fair increase in brightness with increase in current to make it viable. Beyond that it can depend upon other factors including LED lifespan or power efficiency when running off batteries. However, generic LEDs may be a special case, in that they are so cheap that it can be more cost effective to use more LEDs at lower current per LED, to achieve the same light rather than better heatsinking,j which may or may not be more efficient since the compromise is the inferior heatsinking. On the other hand, if it is not strip lighting, generic LEDs may be a worst case because their efficiency tends to be so much lower, so for any particular brightness they need more heatsinking, yet they are used in low budget designs with poor heatsinking due to that budget, so the overall product may be seen as junk that has a short lifespan, but a high lumens:purchase-price ratio so long as you ignore the lower lumens:watt ratio as it corresponds to a higher power bill or shorter runtime on batteries. In other words I would never use a light that has generic LEDs for an overhead light that remains on several hours a day, nor for battery powered lights. Major brand LEDs like Cree, Philips, Osram, just aren't that expensive today in manufacturing volumes.
Hi Bigclivedotcom, could the seller be equating to a tungsten lamp? I.e. This unit is as bright as a 45watt? Just a guess as to the discrepancy in stated/measured wattages. Great channel!!
I'm all for under running LED's but c'mon.. 1/3rd the rated capacity? Would have liked to see at least 2/3rds with that chunky (if not poorly attached) heat sink on it.
Sheetrock, Gypsum Board, Drywall, Plasterboard.... All the same. In the States, we commonly call it Sheetrock, drywall or Gypsum Board (This term is less common though).
I always see you reviewing these LED lights that use way less wattage than they claim, but I haven't run into this problem myself when buying a few cheap crappy LED products off ebay. Have I been lucky or do you select a higher percentage of stuff that's over rated for videos?
Speaking of LED downlights, I figured the fine folks here would be the right ones to ask: If I just replaced a few halogen downlights with some brighter LED ones, but only realised after the fact that I'm not meant to have them on a dimmable circuit.. Think it's okay to just replace the dim switch with a normal one? There shouldn't be anything else in the circuit right?
Clive have you ever come up with any reasoning that explains the logic behind how the Chinese come up with inflated light wattage values? Or is they just don't care and just lie?
It appears you may have been sent the wrong unit, because a 15W model is listed. Or, it may be that everyone ordering a 45W unit gets a 15W. This is the reason I don't like ordering direct from Chinese sellers. Recently, I placed my first order with BangGood (due to seeing their products on BigClive's channel); part of my order was shorted. I filed the shortage on their MyOrders page. Their first attempt to resolve the issue was to refund me $2. But, then I would have to repurchase the items I already had paid for; nice try guys. Eventually, they did take care of me, though.
as this is the latest vid.. you may be monitoring this.. 😕 bug zapper rackets.. how to make a more effective version/breath life into one thats probably got dried up electrolytics.. or is it an oxidized mesh... #bloodyflies
$10? Last time I tried shipping something internationally, it cost me about $40 and that was a small package. USPS is great domestically but they're not the state-sponsored export driving engine that China Post is.
Clive's channel is so popular that when he has done that it drives the price for that specific listing through the roof and you wind up being better off looking elsewhere for the same exact product.
Corsair PSU is full of that heatsing compund, like, blobs of it just sitting on inductors and capacitors. I mean, jist like someone squished toothpaste above them lol. I have always thought it's due to idk some machinery fault or some individual having a bad day, but is there any purpose to putting that white stuff when there is no heatsink anywhere near? Intriguing I have to say. Also, what would be the difference between that stuff they use and normal PC thermal paste? I was going to use Cryopaste to cool down some of my components but then wondered if there's some better alternative and what are the pros and cons of using it.
GamleErik100 oh nice.. I'vee found that some of that is in fact rubbery by poking it woth my screwdriver but some of it is just the white thermal compound. Really weird.. it's interesting how they actually put the cables into tubes that click in place on the PCB so you can't cleanly desolder them, I guess it makes manufacturing easier and the whole structure more rigid. Btw are PCB traces special in any way? The ground plane on my PSU was all covered in solder but +12V was delivered only by two thin lanes, they were like a mm thick and the PSU is rated for continuous 36A on 12V rail. And it isn't some multi layer PCB plus the copper thickness is really low isn't it?
While we’re on the subject of LED lamps, I bought one of these www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291762121433 for use with a 12V lead-acid battery during power cuts. It’s advertised as 18W but, true to form, it only takes 0.7A at 12V so about 8.4W. So I did a Clive on it and opened it up and it has no driver but there are 12 strings each of three series LEDs plus one 22 Ohm resistor. So if the LEDs drop 3V each then there should be 3V across each resistor which gives 136mA per string and 1.6A total or 19.2W. Almost as advertised. It also has 18W marked on the aluminium plate. So why does it only take 8.4W? The answer is that the flexible leads supplied have a total resistance of about 2 Ohms which is roughly the same as the 12 resistors in parallel. So it halves the current and the power. Also the LEDs actually drop 3.2V at this current of 60mA. So it would be easy to increase the power level to the intended 18W by replacing the flex leads with heavier gauge wire but this would not be a good idea. As it stands the aluminium plate holding the LEDs operates at 80 deg.C so doubling the power dissipation would increase this to about 140 deg.C. This probably wouldn’t instantly kill the LEDs but they wouldn’t last very long. Even at 8.4W it looks quite good with its opal diffuser so at about £3 I think they are a good buy, it could be handy to keep one in the car too, but sorry Clive they are cold white.
Any thoughts on these driver units, should they be used or not in an actual installation, I have ones with CE marks but there probably fake. I am tempted to throw the driver in the bin and buy a reputable one.
I get under-driving LEDs for longevity - but advertising something as being more than 3X its actual power is just blatant fraud. If it had come out at around 40W I would have said well, close enough - but ~14W?! This is all too common with LED stuff - and the exaggeration seems to continually get worse as manufacturers compete for business.
Really things need to stop being rated in watts and use lumens instead, because even among the same technology (incandescent, CFL, LED) there can be very great differences in output for the same wattage. For example, I have a 6W CREE LED bulb and it gives off far more light than my LED I got on my favorite auction website that uses 11W.
You can't really depend on lumens, because that's a (frankly) theatrical designation for calculating light intensity at a specific distance in a specific spot. A 'spot' throw LED light, running at 1 watt, could produce _more_ lumens at 3 feet than a 'wash' LED running at 10 watts. (Also see 'candlepower') You would have to somehow come up with a set of tests for the various types of lamps (spot, flood, wash/bulb), the distance to use, and then you could try to calculate a good comparison - and the fraudsters would still lie.
So, could this guy be nicknamed the eBay Buster? because he takes eBay products and shows the world how they are not as they're described and Busting the seller?
+cekpi7 potentially yes. ive built a lantern with a 3w chip running from an 18650 cell and that emits far more light than these appear to. probably the driver is running these probable 1w chips in series
