OT: LED lighting fires

nailshooter41 · 2013-04-24T16:04:10+00:00

Out on a large job yesterday I ran into a lighting specialist for a well known company here. He was discussing the merits of different lighting solutions, LED being one on the table. The man was an encyclopedia of information. I will pass this on to you guys and you can do as you will with the info. Apparently there have been hundreds of fires started by LED bulbs that were of inferior quality or were improperly vented, many sold through Home Depot, Lowes and other improvement centers. The rep showed me picture after picture of local incidents where the bulbs themselves either melted or caught fire. There are other manufacturers and articles easily found by DAGS. According to him, this is the tip of the iceberg as the market has been flooded with all manner of LED lights of different styles and configurations. I know this to be true as I have seen more different kinds of light over the last year that my clients have dug up than I knew ever existed. Since a couple of them have picked out their own lighting and a lot of my clients have changed over to LED on a rebate program from our local power company I know there are a ton of these bulbs out there. As much as I read, someway I missed this issue. Thinking others may have as well, I thought I would pass along. According to the lighting rep, the only safe bulbs are the ones with the UL testing cert on the package. And here I was thinking how nice those low voltage LED strips look under cabinets or over bookcases... certain types fall in that same danger category. Robert

Apr 24, 2013 22 Replies

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Bruce 13 years ago

On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:16:17 -0600, lektric dan wrote (in article ):

Exactly.

Many of the LED's take far more current, some I've used take several amps. LED arrays look like a single device, but actually are many smaller LEDs inside a single package. I've used arrays (Cree) that take 48V at about

300ma.

Note that LED's are current, not voltage dependent devices. A proper power supply will be current regulated.

-Bruce

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Father Haskell 13 years ago

Expect that the burned units had plastic casings on their power supplies. Metal casings bleed off heat much better, which helps to keep the enclosed circuits from burning out. Most of the failed T-8 (cheap) fluorescent ballasts I've seen were plastic boxes. Failed metal-enclosed ballasts are almost dead-on reliable.

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