Has anyone had a LED fail in the field?

rmteo

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Has anyone experienced an actual failure of the LED while operating a flashlight - not during experimentation and/or modding the light?
 

kramer5150

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nope, closest thing would be a 21 LED showerhead that I direct drive off an 18650. Slowly 1 by 1 the LEDs died. It still works, but the 21 LEDs are down to ~16... LOL
 

parnass

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The LEDs in one of my 1AAA 3-LED Peak Matterhorns grew dim and stayed dim, though I suspect that was a driver circuit failure. Replaced under warranty by Peak LED Solutions.

An Arc AAA-P DS was delivered dead on arrival.

I had a $1 fauxton keychain light from LightHound fail after less than one hour use and it was due to LED failure. Another one was dead from the start.

A 1 watt 1AA River Rock flashlight died while on its second battery.

I have a couple of dozen other lights which haven't experienced an LED failure, though a few have had intermittant tailcap/contact issues.
 
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buickid

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I had some LED 184 wedge bulbs for my car license plate. Had about 7 small LEDs in a cluster per bulb. One side was dead and the other one was flickering like mad when I looked at them. Back went the incandescent bulbs...
 

Burgess

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Don't know if this is exactly what yer' asking . . . .


Dropped my Inova X1 (generation 2)

a distance of less than One Meter,

onto a hardwood floor.


Flashlight would no longer operate after this incident.

:(


Even the mfr. could not repair the light.

They had to replace it, with another unit.

:(
_
 

Yukon_Jack

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I've had a couple replacement LED bulbs grow much dimmer after using them on their maximum rated number of cells. Can't remember the exact brand but they were the one watt bults that had built in regulator and are supposed to run on from 2 to 6 cells. It may all have to do with poor heat sinking - don't know.

I've also had a few "cheapo" LED flashlight come on once and never light again. Unknown reason - took back to the store.
 

300winmag

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I dropped my L2D 3 feet to the concrete, I thought for sure it's a gonner but nope other then the scratches she still shines like the day I bought her.
Come to think of it I personally don't know anyone who had an LED fail them in the field.
 

kramer5150

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Don't know if this is exactly what yer' asking . . . .


Dropped my Inova X1 (generation 2)

a distance of less than One Meter,

onto a hardwood floor.


Flashlight would no longer operate after this incident.

:(


Even the mfr. could not repair the light.

They had to replace it, with another unit.

:(
_

x2, my X1 died from a waist high fall onto concrete. Although the failure was not in the LED.

I dropped my L2D 3 feet to the concrete, I thought for sure it's a gonner but nope other then the scratches she still shines like the day I bought her.
Come to think of it I personally don't know anyone who had an LED fail them in the field.

x2.. with the L1T-V2. I have dropped it several times and its going strong.
 

Jarl

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I've had one rebel fail on me (properly heatsinked) and 1 cree Q5 in a cheap DX light with no heatsinking.

IMO, decent lights shouldn't fail even when dropped. My L2D, E01 and D10 have both been put through a lot of abuse and never even flickered.
 

TONY M

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I have not had an LED failure yet, but have damaged an LED when modding a light.
ohgeez.gif


Some of the R100s had issues a while back.
 

bladerunner

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Yes, actually two have let me down. I dropped a mini mag LED on concrete at work and it quit. That may have been a circuit failure etc, and not the LED itself. Mag replaced the light.
I also have a diamond star 3 watt LED for my 3 D Mag. It no longer has much output. It works, but it is not what it used to be. Maybe poor heatsinking and running it over night to test run time may have damaged it. I replaced it with a Mag 3 watt that brought the output back where I remember it.
Oh yeah..a streamlight 4aa 7 Led got chewed to pieces by my black lab. The light is gone,but the LED's all still work..
 

clipse

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I have NEVER had an LED fail on my. I had three Surefire E series tailcaps fail, and a Streamlight switch fail. But, never an LED. In fact, I use a Streamlight 4AA Lux for firefighting. Thats how much I trust it.
 

Flight_Deck

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Never. Managed to have 2 Surefire incans fail, but never an LED (Surefire or otherwise).
 

Federal LG

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No, never.

I had some incan fails... just the bulb that went :poof:.

But I never had any problems with my LED lights, in the LED pill.

Most of the problems are in the light´s body or clickies or conectivity between batteries and LED pill, but I never saw a LED fail.
 

nerdgineer

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I had a Gerber LX1.0 fail on me during a night time walk around a local lake a few years ago. It didn't turn on when I tried it. I had a Fenix L1P for backup, so no problem, and Gerber replaced it under the lifetime warranty.

It shouldn't have happened as the LX1.0 was the most reliable type of design: spring loaded twisty and 3xAA direct drive into a good LED (Lux 1), but it did. The light was pretty much new so it was an early life failure, the kind which you shake out with initial proofing, which is why I don't take new lights into real field situations.

I've also had a number of Inova X1s which developed flicker and failure problems despite that they were also spring loaded twisties. It seemed to me that the intermittent button in the X1's tail somehow screwed up what should have been a dead reliable design (usually, holding the button in and twisting the tail tight would light it, up but not just twisting the tail tight, and it would flicker/fail if you let it go - or maybe it was just me).

I'm still a big fan of the spring loaded twisty design given its transparent simplicity, but I'm also a fan of testing and tweaking before I trust a light: and of course I carry a (usually spring loaded twisty) backup where a failure would create a real inconvenience. I won't mention critical or injury threatening situations as I pretty much avoid those...:drool:.
 
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chmsam

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I've not had an LED light fail (so far -- knock wood) except for batteries. Even after drops, extreme temperature variations, foul weather, and abuse, I trust LED's far more than other types of lights. Back up is always the way to go however for 101 reasons.

Now, I have had many incan lights and once had two bulbs fail in the same light within an hour. I have almost completely lost faith and interest in incan lights.
 

cave dave

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I don't think I've had the actual LED fail on anything but a fauxton, but I've had several LED flashlight failures. The weak point is the circuit and the switch.

Lets's see I will probably miss a few but these have all failed on me:
ARC LS - flickering
Surefire U2 -selection ring failure only two modes of 6.
Arc AAA - returned two, fixed one myself
CMG Infinity - about 3 have developed bad flickering.
Phauxton - LED burned out
Fenix L1 - Flickering

A system is only as strong as its weakest link.
 
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Owen

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Wolf-Eyes 4-mode D26 LED drop-in, I think with Q2. Not a total failure, but I turned the light on and it was dim and discolored. There's a brown spot in the die of the emitter where something obviously burned out.
I've killed a couple in mods getting daring with the voltage in DD, same with a voltage boost board, plus poked a soldering iron through a dome one time when I got butterfingers and caught it not quite in time.
 
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