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Blog Philips MASTER LEDspot Teardown
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  • Author Author: shabaz
  • Date Created: 7 Oct 2018 12:22 AM Date Created
  • Views 2003 views
  • Likes 17 likes
  • Comments 18 comments
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  • teardown

Philips MASTER LEDspot Teardown

shabaz
shabaz
7 Oct 2018

Introduction

I recently ordered various LED home lighting from a UK supplier (theledspecialist.co.uk), and unfortunately one arrived smashed : ( They kindly sent a replacement very quickly, but before I threw out the damaged one, I couldn't resist a teardown : )

 

Details
NamePhilips MAS LEDspot CLA D 9.5-75W 830 PAR30S 25D
EAN Code8718696713907
UPC Code929001342902

 

It is a 9.5W, 760 lumen LED bulb, warm white, with an Edison E27 fitting. It has a 25,000 hour life (longer than the usual 15,000 hour rating), intended for lobbies, walkways and so on according to the datasheet at the Philips Lighting website. As its name suggests, the beam is fairly tight (about 25 degrees overall). I'm using it in the workshop as some temporary lighting (it replaced a bulb that I needed elsewhere, and I was curious to find out what this new-ish model Philips bulb was like!).

 

Teardown

Opening the box, I saw the bulb was smashed : ( Rarely for an LED bulb, it actually has a lot of glass! Definitely not one to drop! Despite all the glass that front lens is plastic, and there are more detailed photos further below.

image

The glass body is extremely thick (about 4mm). I couldn't understand why there was so much glass used, but I'm wondering if it was needed for producing the inner mirror reflective surface, or for strength. Perhaps the inner surface is intended to reflect out heat as well as lots of light. The inner surface was extremely reflective, just like a first-surface optical mirror, but with the dimple pattern that you can see from the outside in the photo below (and in some of the fragments in photos further below). I get the feeling that the entire enclosure forms a large part of the cost of this lamp!

image

The front lens was quite interesting. I could not guess what plastic, it could be polycarbonate or something more exotic, since it needs to withstand heat and be highly transparent. But the part was stunning. It is extremely intricate.

image

Here's a side view. It looks like a fairly complex shape!

image

Inside the bulb, the LED was mounted on an metal-core PCB (MCPCB), held in place by a clip (removed for the photo below). The connecting wires appear to have a silicone-like insulation, and there is heat-proof sheathing around that too, where the cable passes through to the other side of the aluminium heatsink.

 

I could not identify the LED manufacturer, I'd initially assumed it was a Lumileds part, but it is not a shape that I could see in their online catalog. The heatsink is actually not that thick! Given the shape of it, and how it is attached at its sides to the glass, I'm wondering if the glass plays a role in the heat sinking too. The LED is clearly very efficient though, just from the sums - the bulb offers 760 lumens at 9.5W, so even at 85% efficiency from the driver, that's close to 95 lumens per watt, and it could be higher still. I'm tempted to do further measurements : ) but there are plenty other projects to do too image

image

The circuitry was potted, but it didn't look overly crushed together; the E27 fitting shape has more than enough room for this circuit. It looks about the level of quality to be expected I think, not bad at all. There are a few inductors, and a MOSFET in an unusual package (i.e. small!) next to the yellow square inductor.

image

The underside contained more semiconductors. The main IC is iW3689 from Dialog Semiconductor (PDF brief datasheet).

image

The brief datasheet circuit looks similar to the implementation on the circuit board, although I didn't inspect closely.

image

Summary

I was quite impressed at the design of this LED bulb. It's definitely a more involved design than I would have expected! By the way its un-smashed sibling has a nice warm-white and powerful light output too, as expected.

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Top Comments

  • 14rhb
    14rhb over 6 years ago +5
    Hi Shabaz, It is always good to see what is inside things, and you seem to constantly deliver on that for E14 - thank you. The PCB does look well made and populated, which is good to see. I doubt some…
  • DAB
    DAB over 6 years ago +5
    One man's trash is another man's opportunity for adventure. It would be interesting to see what the IR emission is compared to the visible light emission. Was there a spectral plot in the datasheet for…
  • shabaz
    shabaz over 6 years ago in reply to 14rhb +5
    Hi Rod, Thanks! You're right, it looks great. I believe that LED lighting is an interesting challenge for manufacturers, even moving from one fitting to another could change the design a lot. Unfortunately…
  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 6 years ago in reply to shabaz

    My bathrooms are the same - they suck power like a heater, but replacements are super expensive still.

     

    >The newer LEDs provide a really nice light

    Totally agree! I just bought a new LED main light fixture for my office (from Ikea, about $60cad) - the old fixture could only hold one light bulb, which was originally 100w, but the new LED bulbs only give light for about 60 watts (the brighter bulbs are bigger and didn't fit).

    The new fixture gives the equivalent of about 125w and like you said, the light quality is so much better, and the big ring of LEDs distributes it very nicely too.

    So my office is much more cheerful now!

    I'm hoping to find a similar designed-for-LED fixture for my bathrooms in the near future to replace the 600 watts of halogens!

     

    >I'm still envious you are getting 20+ years from tungsten though : )

    Haha yes I'm very surprised myself too - the builder actually put in bulbs that were rated for 130v which is higher than the 120v system and seems to make them all last much longer.

    The mains power seems really steady too though. hats off to BC Hydro image

     

    The sad part is that the much more expensive, longer-life rated LED bulbs seem to burn on super quickly in comparison!

     

    Oh ps, our local Walmart is now selling LED 60w-eq bulbs for $1.50 (cad). They seem to work really well so far.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

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  • mcb1
    mcb1 over 6 years ago in reply to shabaz

    I'm still envious you are getting 20+ years from tungsten though : )

    I have outside lights that are driven by a PIR and haven't been replaced since we built the house in 2003.

    They are the RS (Rugged Service) style as we were expecting voltage fluctuations based on the electical network.

     

    There are a few others that haven't been changed as well, but do get infrequent use.

     

    Mark

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  • mcb1
    mcb1 over 6 years ago in reply to jc2048

    I always get confused by the safety stuff

    Electrical safety is based on the premise that the user can't make contact with the live bits.

    It also extends to double insulation so that the failure due to age, etc cannot put them at risk.

     

    Any 230v lamp is a very interesting contradiction, because if the glass envelope is broken, then the live terminal is exposed.

    The double insulation only extends to a certain height so after that you need a tool (ladder) to reach it.

     

    So that resolves the ceiling but what about any bedside lamps??

     

     

    Mark

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  • shabaz
    shabaz over 6 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

    Hi Nico!

     

    I did the same as you - I've not swapped out bathroom lighting, because it is switched on infrequently, and the cost to swap that out to LED is higher (halogen spots). The few CFLs we tried here were quite bad (I think it is a regional thing and anachronistic to describe them like that now - they are likely better now, but no point deploying CFL from new now) so at home 95% of the lighting is LED, and the remaining few percent are halogen until they need to be replaced.

    But, in hindsight, I should not have just considered it a like-for-like replacement when it came to comparing with tungsten technology. The newer LEDs provide a really nice light (bright and cooler - but not overly cool) that was not possible at a cost-effective electricity budget with tungsten. Overall I'm not sure what money has been saved unless I do the sums (the electricity bill is noticeably lower, but of course the LED lighting has a cost) but it was worth it from my perspective.

    Actually the next LED lamp that I'm thinking of tearing down was perhaps a game-changer, it was maybe the transition point where an LED bulb was considered near-equal to a 60W tungsten bulb. I don't know if they achieved that, but they got pretty close in that the light output and look of an LED bulb could approximate a classic tungsten bulb. This of course will be less relevant in the future, but for now people want to do retro-fitting while they have the old fixtures, so it is an important thing.

     

    I'm still envious you are getting 20+ years from tungsten though : ) here I could not achieve that, with the very high level borderline mains supply in my neighbourhood.

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  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 6 years ago in reply to shabaz

    Hi Shabaz!

    Thanks for the teardown! Very interesting!

    I've ripped open a few old bulbs myself in the past and was surprised that most of it seems to be a voltage reducer type setup that then runs low voltage LEDs. I guess that makes logical sense, but somehow I thought it would be trickier than that. I do wonder why there is so much tech in there though - what do the specialty chips do that a simple phone-charger type setup doesn't do? Maybe that's the dimming tech that the cheap bulbs don't have.

     

    shabaz  wrote:

    > the small bit of heat could be nice nearby (but I'm only saying that because it is freezing here for the past week : (

    Our house is heated mainly with electrical baseboards, so I haven't been too quick to switch out the old light bulbs, as the "waste" heat helps heat the house anyway. And in the summer we don't need the lights much.

    I have taken care to replace the outdoor bulbs, many of which are still CFL, and the upstairs ceiling lights are LED - extra heat doesn't help me any up in the attic!

     

    Some of the bulbs are nearly 20 years old - a testament to how little they get used, and thus why it would be silly to replace them image

    Given the cost of the new bulbs, it doesn't make sense to replace the rarely-used ones, and the CFLs are efficient enough and long lasting enough that it makes no economical sense to switch them out before they stop working.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

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