Dead Krill

[Lux Luthor]

I put my Krill 180 extreme in green on my dash board while loading some stuff into my car. It worked fine at first, but when I came back I noticed it giving off only a thin BLUE strip of light near the top, and the panel was completely dead. Has anyone had this happen? Kriana claims the thing can take a shot from a 9mm and still work, so I'm puzzled. I'm also concerned about the survival aspects of the light, since it is marketed as a survival product. Imagine this happening as you are crawling away from a plane crash in the Rocky's, and as your bleeding hand reaches for your Krill in a last ditch attempt to see your way to safety, you find out it's toast.

 

[DavidW]

Mine too. Well my daughters. She's 2 going on 3. I gave her a 360 green. She thought it was for tossing and I chalked up the malfunction to constant banging. It doesn't have the blue streak but it functions erratically.

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb

 

[The_LED_Museum]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Guy Guyer:
I put my Krill 180 extreme in green on my dash board while loading some stuff into my car. It worked fine at first, but when I came back I noticed it giving off only a thin BLUE strip of light near the top, and the panel was completely dead. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

First thing I'd do is take it back for a new one before the warranty runs out.
Assuming you haven't put thousands of hours on it, this behavior is characteristic of an EL panel that, for whatever reason, has developed an open circuit or has suddenly gone to a very low capacitance.

The blue color shows that the remaining "good" part of the panel is absorbing all of the power produced by the high voltage inverter inside, and it probably won't glow blue for much longer.

Now, if the entire panel suddenly turned blue, then the HV inverter is at fault (its pulse rep rate increased dramatically) but the small "strip" you describe seems to point to the EL panel itself as having gone bad.

The EL panel in the Krill generally has a useful life of a couple of thousand hours,
and this time only accumulates when the Krill is actually turned on.
It should not fail before that, and certainly not in this manner.

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net


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[Xenon]

My Green Krill died a couple of days ago. Same thing happen, a blue ring near the top.
It is also erratic in performance, changing brightness for no reason.

 

[Lux Luthor]

I only use LEDs since this happened to me. Cheaper, more reliable, and a lot more light. The Krill is no longer worth buying in my opinion.