Problem: LED flickers (not PWM)

[archer6817j]

Hi folks, had a weird thing happen yesterday. I built a light and there was a barely noticeable and apparently random (not a regular interval) flicker coming from the light.

Bad driver right? Changed it out. Hmm, maybe a bad switch. Changed it out. Battery? Changed it. The only thing left was the LED. Changed it...and no more flicker.

Anyone ever have the same thing happen or care to guess what the problem was?

 

[deadrx7conv]

Bench test the components separately??? Defective LED or other glitch.

Sounds like bad cold soldering or wiring short/issue.

 

[moderator007]

I have had this to happen with a led that was not reflowed on a pcb good. Flickering with no apparent pattern or short. Try reflowing the led.

 

[Lynx_Arc]

another issue is if you are driving the LED hard some LEDs fail while others don't. I bought a cheap 2AAA MXDL light and it worked fine for awhile then would flicker at weird intervals then flicker more and then died. I replaced the LED with a better 5mm and it worked again. I was being overdriven to about 40 ma off new batteries.