Hi in a previous video, install a couple of these uh German brand Muer lights made in China they're a Uh lead T8 fluo replacement 18 wats as you can see uh 230 volt one nominal 1,700 uh lumens at 97 milliamps there, 4,000k color, temperature and well I thought I'd uh crack one of these things open to see what's inside I did measure it I did know it was uh, the safety type so it is designed right. If you haven't seen the previous video, I will link it in down below. but anyway, let's crack this sucker open and see what's in it I don't think I'm going to be able to reuse it afterwards I think it is a uh, a destructive tear down I'm afraid and it's got a diffused uh tube in it so you can't actually see the leads inside there at all. I mean there's obviously going to be a PCB and here there here this is the uh uh, the translucent top part where the light comes out, the bottom part part under.

here. no light comes out of there cuz they're just there'll be one huge PCB in there the whole length of This 1.2 M thing. Anyway, let's crack this sucker open. see what's inside.

In terms of the Uh DC to DC uh, constant current drive to drive all these leads, use my dodgy pair of side Cutters you always got to have just a crap cheap one hung low brand pair of side Cutters Just for sort of mechanical cutting like that, doesn't look like the end Cap's glued down at all so you know, probably you know, heat welded, maybe at a couple of spots on the end or something. I'm not quite sure how they manufacture these things so I guess we'll find out. You can just get a screwdriver in there and it does snap out so it looks like they just snap these end caps on afterwards. Yeah, there we go.

They've got the you can see the ridge around there and as it turns out, there's a Philips screw embedded in there. and of course these are a German tube they're not made in Germany they're made in China but is a German company. So I thought I'd use my German we screwdriver driver to unscrew that. we're getting close so it looks like that is totally separate to the lead uh board in the center.

but no I thought see I thought that was the board going through there, but it's not, it's just part of the plastic. It's just like a ridge inside the plastic tube. and I didn't even have to cut this thing at all. I just grabbed it and applied a bit of force and this end just popped off.

So there you go. did all that medieval cutting for nothing. There is the short of course in one hand and that's the proper uh way to do it so that it's uh, safe and I'll lick in a previous video with uh Doug Ford explaining exactly why this is the safe method to do it and why some other methods of wiring these things are dangerous and now are banded in this country I'm not sure about overseas and we've got another board with circuitry in the other end as well and you have a look down there, you can actually see there's the aluminium tube in that this obviously inside acting as a uh heat sink. It's not solid, of course these things are very light.

very thin outer wall tube as somehow all of this is going to slide out. maybe with that entire well it should be with the entire Um heat sink assembly, so some percussive maintenance could be required. Looks like a little part of the aluminium wraps around the board just down in there. so not sure.

But anyway, this whole thing is I You know, um when they assemble this, they uh, certainly Slide the entire aluminium assembly with the board. So they've got the aluminium heat sink on the back of that board. uh, somehow you know thermal. You know they use, uh, some um, thermal, uh, adhesive on the back of that.

probably to to connect the board through to the heat sink. there you know. exposed pads on the bottom of the board, of course, solder M removed and then they Slide the entire thing in. found a bit of silicon on the board at the other end, but that's not really holding it.

but I've put a big screwdriver in there I tried to bang the whole thing out and well, it's not budging so went in doubt. Dremel there it is I had to had to prize it up so maybe I might be able to slide it out now. but man this is not pretty. We're going to get out board to slide out.

Now there we go if I can grab that Tada There it is. It does look like one giant PCB so that's rather impressive. but I guess Ultimately, not hugely surprising given that uh, you know this isn't some hack manufacturer uh, making these things on any production line they're really going to uh, you know, optimize their production line for this large size Bard cuz normally you can't get PCB panels this big so you know this is over a meter long. PCB So not every PCB manufacturer in the world is going to be be able to a manufacture that board for you and then uh B you have to find an assembler who can do a 1 M long board now A 1 meter.

Usually you can board can be any length for a pick and place machine and you can go through the pick and place machine either in one whole pass. if you pick and place machines big enough or you can just you know do it in Hars or something like that and move the board along and then realign it to assemble your uh to machine assemble. Your Parts on there this thing. but yeah, this is a 1 M long over a m long I mean this is a nominal 1.2 M tube and uh, you can see we got a couple of strings in there.

We got one ground trace, the top one there running completely from one end to the other and uh, I'll Endeavor to tell you exactly how many leads. oops I accidentally uh, ripped off dragging it through the tube. there accidentally ripped off the pad there for that ground w wire. And here's our main PCB At the Main's input end here, there's our X class cap on the input 0.1 Microfarads.

Looks good. They've got heat shrunk inductors. It looks like we probably have a uh, a fuse in there. nicely heat shrunk like that.

They've got the isolation slot cut into that so we don't get arcing across the Well when the fuse blows. presumably the fuse blows. Then we don't get extra arcing across there. That's nice attention to detail.

You know it's obviously the subcontractor ad power who's actually manufacturing this. Yeah, not much doing on there at all. Pretty darn simple. Our Cap's 105 C rated.

No problems there. but I don't think they quality Brands No BH You're not going to find a Panasonic in there or anything like that. So Nichon or anything like that. oh well.

Four doodes there. They're probably your full wve Bridge rectifier. So we got some input. uh, filtering of course.

um, input fuse and then uh, some extra filter in there and then our two. um, after the bridge rectifier. So that's generating our high voltage DC nothing more on there. The control circuitry must be at the other end.

There it is. there's our controller. So basically the board at the Main's input end is uh, just generating the high voltage DC and that comes all the way along the positive in the ground and the positive trace up there. That's the direct Mains rectified DC voltage coming to the main controller board at this end, which then controls the strings and I'll draw a Dave CAD drawing in the minute.

Of all that you can see, still see some of the dremeled plastic on there horrible stuff. Yeah, once again. BH branded cap. Not the best and we've got ourselves a compatible Uh Nxp SSL 2109 T but this is the SL 2109 a um I don't know who the manufacturer is for this one.

Clearly, it's a ripoff of the genuine Um Nxp uh one probably has, you know, identical pin out of course, identical, uh, functionality. but they've gone for a cheaper Chinese Source One By the looks of it, this Chip's capable of both buck and flyback configurations. and um, at first thought I thought that was a flyback Transformer And that's what they were doing. But a closer examination of what they're doing, there seems to be the Buck configuration Exactly almost exactly as per the application.

note in the Nxp data sheet, there's the external mosfet there and all the Uh leads. the positive part of all the leads Are all uh, common to the positive part of the supply. but so what you think is a flyback Transformer there I think they're just using that as a Um as one as the output inductor there for the Uh Buck configuration. this side tap I'm not sure what that side over there is doing though.

If you have a look at the application note circuit for the buck configuration there, it's the buck low Ripple one then uh as you can see, the lead Uh string over here is commed up Uh to the positive high voltage rail coming from your Main's input. as I said that first board Bridge rectifies with that input fuse we saw there and then feeds the high voltage DC along the board to this board at the other end of it. and and I've checked a few things and it does seem like we got the exact configuration here with the output with the main electroly electrolytic output cap here, which is that one up there. And then we've got our inductor L2 which uh is this winding, this side winding of uh, the core? There, we've got our external mosfet there.

we had a look at and uh, it seems to be exactly the almost exactly the same configuration, but they do have a secondary side the Transformer over there and I'm not quite sure what they're doing with that. They've got a Zena diode there some filtering so that's probably the low voltage supply for the device whereas I think the genuine Nxp one has the built-in regulator, it can generate its own VCC built in. It looks like they just got some stuff in here to uh, generate that externally for this uh uh, you know, cheap ripoff brand one. it may not have that buil in.

So this sucker has um, you know, pretty much you know was pretty much purpose designed for this, uh, sort of application here. 95% efficiency, high power factor oh low bomb cost always important for these consumer stuff. Um, as I said, can do buck, uh, buck, boost and flyback modes um single inductor for non-isolated configurations. this can be a non-isolated configuration of course because the user can't touch anything inside this sucker and 5% output.

Uh Current Control Accuracy: not bad at all. And of course here it is for driving strings of lead or high voltage lead modules from a rectified main. Supply Bingo Exactly what you want in these LED replacement fluos. and of course it's just not a dumbass converter.

It's got uh, zero current switch in and uh Valley switching as well for the turn off. so it is following the Main's input knows exactly what it's doing Pwm of course and uh, fast transient response cycle by cycle control. Very nice and tons of internal prote so really no shortage of stuff. Under voltage lockout Leading Edge over current protection short winding protection over temperature protection.

We'll check that I don't think there's a themister on this thing to measure uh, the temperature? Anyway, it's got internal over temperature protection on the DI but also external output short circuit protection really? H Can't go wrong with these things. This is what you want I see. Lifetime easily matches or surpasses the lead lamp lifetime of course. Now on the Nxp one here.

we've got pin three is our Um NTC themister. There There it is for uh, you know, measuring external over temperature protection. but if you look at Pin three, you probably can't see it. But anyway, trust me, pin three down on the chip down in here.

Um is going off to this part of the circuitry with the Zener diode, the cap, and the diode and the extra winding there. So yeah, once again, probably not because it's A because it's not, doesn't look to be a genuine Nxp part. It's very close pin compatible. Uh, looks like it doesn't have the external temperature.

something else doing there. Now as for the actual lead element used I'm not sure I mean I I'm no, uh, expert in the field of leads Just by looking at them like this. I mean you know you would presume that it's either a Cre or a Lumi Leeds They're sort of like the big two manufacturers of leads, just a little. Dave CAD Doodle of exactly what configuration they've got on the Le lead strip here.

Basically, they got four strings of 24 leads in series, so all the there's a common one going up there and then that just goes into. Once they get to the end of 24 there, you can see that it maybe you can see that, but it branches off down in there and they've just got four of those strings in parallel. like that. Once again, like no current sharing resistors in there.

so they're pretty much relying on the strings themselves to just equally share the current, not be entirely equal. But eh, you know it's going to be good enough for the purpose. really. roughly four equal currents down the different strings.

As I said towards the start of the video, this board is uh, I don't Doesn't look like an aluminium back board, so it looks like they just got the copper on the back and they're probably just thermally bonding that to the extruded aluminium. uh, heat sink which goes all the way through this sucker. I Guess it's a dead giveaway that there's no VAs on the top to, uh, you know, get a thermal transfer from the top pads down in there. Um I Guess they've deemed that they don't need it.

but anyway, it's only a singles sided. PCB Check that out, there's nothing in there at all. and that board is. it's I fact I don't it's not even.

it's not even glued to the aluminium back in there. It's just, uh, sort of held in place by the tabs which go over the top of the board like that. So they've de that they don't need any heat sinking in this thing. We'd have to know the um efficacy of these leads, of course, and exactly what they're going to dissipate and have to go through the thermal calculations.

So as a first reaction: I'm quite surprised that they didn't at least have some thermal bonding through to the aluminium backing, so they're probably just using the aluminum backing is some stiffening. I mean you're going to get some, you know, radiated heat through, but you're certainly not not going to get any conducted. um uh, thermal? uh, heat through to there. So supposedly at least not that bad.

a Manu you know, reputable manufacturer. So I guess um, they've done their homework on that. So that got me interested and I did a bit of digging and it looks like we do have a Lumil. Leeds I think don't quote me on this, but everything seems to match up.

This looks like it's a Philips Lumileds Luxian Uh, Luxian low power they called. It's the 414 compact footprint delivering High uh efficacy and just the right amount of light. Well, that's what we need. Just the right amount and uh, it's once again 4,000k Bang on 80 C Exactly.

Um, what you know? the specs for this thing are looks identical. Uh package under the um uh macro lens here looks like we got exactly the same thing and 4 mm length: 138 Lum per watt at 30 milliamps Superior Heat dissipation enables costeffective thermal design. Well, that's exactly what they've done with this board. It's a cost effective design because they've got away with a single-sided PCB They don't need a double-sided double-side It's going to cost more you need, you know, Copper on the other side.

Copper cost money of course, copper is not cheap and uh, and then you need all the uh VR holes on there to get the heat through to the other side and then it's got to be thermally uh, bonded onto the aluminium heat sink on the back and all that sort of stuff. So they've done effectively. Done away with that, and they can just you, You know. Just that little pad pad on there is is looks like it's big enough this lowcost, low power thermal designs and it's all starting to add up.

Take a look at this. uh. luminous flux at 60 milliamps at 25? C of course. Um, minimum lumens 18 per LED And remember, we've got four strips of of 24 96.

Well, what's 96? *? 18 Bingo 1728 What's this thing rated at 1,700 lumens? And it's probably conservatively rated too, cuz that's the minimum. I Mean the typical is about Uh 22, So 22 * 96? What are we looking at? 2,000 you know, 2100, about 2100 lumens typical or about 1,700 minimum. So this doesn't look like a manufacturer that is over specking their Uh tubes. and incidentally, I stumbled across a uh cheap Chinese knockoff uh version of this looks very similar.

It's labeled the Uh 3014 model and I'll uh Link in the data sheet down below. so you know I can't be exactly sure which one this uses, whether it's a genuine Philips Looney Ma Luxan or it's just a generic, you know? Chinese Rebrand One eh. All right, let's just power it up for some fun here and see what we get: Uh 240 Vols input and I'm measuring the current there and we're getting about 150 milliamps. So that's a bit lower than expected because if you divide 150 milliamps by those four strings that we've uh, seen on the board, then you're only running about 37 milliamps uh per string.

So really, I was expecting it to be 60 based on the data sheet to give uh, this, 1700 lumens out total. but of course that's just the Um RMS average current based on the multimeter there. And if you're interested in seeing the current waveform on this thing, I've got my A TTI Prober 520 here. uh, just measuring the current on the Um uh on the main lead string.

so it's all four strings and uh, we'll take a look at it of course. I've got the wire attachment here I've got it in wire mode and uh, this is what we're getting here it is you can see the that's the advantage of the deep memory. Of course you can uh, capture all that and then zoom in and you can see the current ramp there. Of course we got some whole bunch of ringing at the bottom of it, but uh, and then after that it looks like we got some main stuff happening in here mixed up with that.

but it's basically switch in there at Uh 64 khz and you can see the main stuff there where at Uh 2 milliseconds per Division and if we take that point there for example and go from there to there which is the repeating period, then uh, we got 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 milliseconds, 100 HZ which is of course our full wave rectified 50 HZ Mains and this a TTI Prober gives us Uh 1vt per amp output. So um I've got it set to times one here on the vertical scale and we're looking at basically um, you know 200, 400, maybe 600 volts with the Um undershoot there? about you know, 6 amps, um, full scale there and if you look at the RMS value there, it is about 178 molts So that's uh, you know, little bit higher than the average Uh value than the RMS value we measured on the multimeter. But of course that value is going to uh vary depending on which part of the 100 HZ cycle you're actually measuring that in so we can move from 192. Uh, milliamps.

it's M volts so it converts directly into milliamps. Um, on that part of the waveform. Then when it dips down here, there, we go down to 160 milliamps or something like that. RMS Now I've had this going for a bit.

I'll try and measure the temperature very crudely. um with my IR thermometer and uh, an ambient Ambient of 25 in here roughly and I'm getting pretty much a peak 42 43. So we're looking at uh, at least 17 18 above ambient temperature and I'm attempting to get a thermo couple directly on one of the pins there of the lead, which is going to be, you know, M pretty much match the heat sink. that little tiny, you know, 1 square cm heat sink they've got between the pins there and you know, 37.

It's going to be a bit tricky, but it's going to be at least that. um, you know it could be as high as say 40 or something, but yeah, oh there we go. You know it's not a bad ballark. anyway.

heat sink on the back and as you can see, it's uh, not as hot of course cuz the thermal, uh bonding is, well, you basically not there. um it's just radiating through the Fr4. Onto that. but you know it is certainly well above ambient.

and uh, if you in case the whole thing in Polyc carb I don't know, you know to do proper temperature measurements. you really got to do it inside the actual tube itself. And of course, if you do the the math, it's very easy to explain why they can get away without direct bonding to the heat sinkers because the individual leads don't dissipate much I mean it's 37 milliamps each I mean you know it's buger. all basically times a nominal uh, 3 volts on there.

each lead um is is dissipating only. uh, you know, or consuming only11 Watts I mean you know it's bugger all really. So when you include the efficacy and everything else and you know how much um, you know waste heat is coming out of this thing, it is not a huge amount. That's why these things don't need to be, uh, really have any major heat sink.

although as we saw, they did actually have that you know little 1 square cm worth of um large pad on each pin there. So there you go that's inside a typical uh, reasonable quality. uh German not German manufactured but uh German Company Malite um one of their lead replacement fluo tubes and that's it's. not too shabby at all, you know they've cut Corners a little bit, but uh, it could certainly be a lot worse that's for sure.

And of course you know to really get an idea of how good it is, you got to measure its uh, thermal performance and and stuff like that. But I'm sure you know the reput or manufacturers have done their homework on that and the heat sinking in there is you know, adequate enough for the life and it's probably going to meet its life expectations. I don't know, you know. would have been nice to have a top quality cap in there or something at uh, least.

But anyway, um yeah, not too bad at all. Nothing terribly, uh, surprising. inside. This is exactly what I thought it would be.

really. and uh, that's all there is to it. And really I think you probably won't be able to buy fluo tubes or you know, um, compact fluorescent light bulbs for too much longer. These lead things are just dominating.

I Just changed over all the bulbs in my house to lead bulbs. just h So much better. Anyway, if you like it, jump on over to the Eev blog Forum to discuss it. That's the place to do it.

or you leave YouTube comments. but the YouTube comment system kind of sucks. not that good for conversations. Not as good as the Forum anyway.

but if you like it, give it a thumbs up. Catch you next time.