Hi Kreosan. Thanks for excellent video and very valuable information. Many of your viewers also had great feedback. I have only one additional comment: as an electrical engineer of 40+ years, I think you need to emphasize the danger of working with live AC circuits. These lamp circuits are powered by straight rectified AC mains voltages and in addition to the common 220 V AC, they can have DC voltages present ac high as 300 V. This is a voltage level that can be deadly. Under no circumstances should they be touching a live conductor (meaning any wire or component of the circuit of lamp that is already powered up) without a fully insulated tool. (A toothpick works just fine, but not an ordinary screw driver, for example). Best regards.

Evolution of LED bulbs: - 1. LED bulbs made during 2014 or earlier were more expensive. First I thought, I was "economies of scale". 2. They lasted > 6 years, when lit for 24 hours. They were impossible to be dismantled unless you wack them with hammer. Diffuser itself was thick as my toe nail. 3. When I opened one, I realized that they had SMPS flyback converter, which were way more efficient (converter did not heat so much). But that made the circuit and bulb more expensive. 4. Later years, the flyback converter was still there, but the EMI suppressors were removed. Such bulbs created massive noise on AM radio (still used by my grandmother). 5. Subsequently came the low cost bulbs, which had linear regulator with low efficiency. In addition to heating of LED, the converter themselves heats up quite a lot. 6. The LED now has multiple LED inside them (to take care of the voltage drop) and hence heating is more concentrated. 7. Now a days, LED bulbs are available at lower cost, but do not last long. Manufacturer is happy (higher revenue), customer is happy, environment is not happy. I see lot of LED bulbs floating in lake and drain.

Agreed about the planned obsolescence, when LED lamps first came out they had fairly elaborate heat sinks to reduce heat and prolong the life of the bulb. Clearly the business model changed.

I didn't know you can do this. I fixed my first LED bulb today thanks to your tip. One of the LEDs had a black spot on top like in your video, but it also blocked two others from shining. I removed it and bridged the contacts with solder.

Thank you ☺️ The best way to recycle ♻️ is to not buy more crap. But fix what you have. Well done 👍

Hi. I personaly repair these bulbs also.. So I am happy to see that I am not alone ;) I just use different methods. Current: When there are a few components, it is probably the integrated driver (constant current supply), so it is "safe" to bypass one LED.. But some LED bulbs contains power source that has resistor in series with LEDs to set the current (depends on voltage drop of LED chips). So by bypassing one LED you actualy increase current through them.... Diffuser: yeah without diffuser light is more bright.. but also more directional.. So if you need the bulb just above the table it is beneficial to remove the diffuser. But if you want to light entire room evenly, you would need more bulbs.. So whatever fits you... You could also leave diffuser on and drill holes in it.. It will still diffuse light, let pass some airflow, and most importantly - you cannot touch wires and get shocked ;) Thermal: You idea with screws looks interesting.. but I'd rather use screws with nuts (and maybe washers) and tighten them tightly instead of some sealant. Maybe add some thermal paste under the head of the screw?? Or is it overkill? Main problem is getting heath from plate (PCB where are the LEDs mounted) to the body of the bulb to radiate it. Some bulbs have this plate screwed (with thermal paste) on another plate that is part of the body. But those you show have this plate just pressed into the body.. so heat is transsfered just via the rim of the plate.. poor thermal contact.. So yes, manufacturers are fiddling with those things to lower the mfg price resulting in lower lifespan... which leads to more unnecessary waste (of money and resources). This is sad.. So we should deal with it by repairing what is repairable, and don't throw it away just like that ;)

I have repaired one. This is the reason I love Kreosan. Practical legit stuff. Kudos 👍🏾

Interesting video. As for myself, I kept the good LED's from the first bulb that failed and used them to replace the burnt LED's on subsequent failed bulbs. I really liked the black window sealant trick and will have to try that one out.

The drilling holes with a self boring/tapping screw is pretty clever. I won't forget that next time I can't find a bit.

I had the cover break off of an LED light I was using for my sons basketball hoop. It was so much brighter without the cover on. 3 years later it is still functioning as bright as ever. I stumbled upon this hack and didn't realise how awesome it really is. I just butchered every other LED light in my house and expect to get triple or longer life expectancy out of them. And, YES, they are way brighter too! Thank you for making my grey matter click in and realize I was right about that first one years ago... haha 😃

SAVE THIS ONE! This is the best, simplest, most comprehensive, and compact presentation that I have found on the internet on this topic. Excellent information. Looking at the powered on light in the dark, and the super quick and safe window sealant fix are 2 of the best tips here. Of course, the designed overheating is another very valuable fact. I'm going to try drilling a few 1/4" holes in the diffuser, and in another I'm going to drill a 1 or 1.5 inch (2.5 - 4 cm) hole in the middle of a diffuser to see how the light and temperature are improved. Thank you!

😘 Although I’m a little confused and have a few questions, I’m so grateful that you took the time to do voiceover for us that only speak English instead of blasting annoying music and “pointing” or expecting us read subtitles simultaneously:) thank you 😅

This video is absolutely wonderful! Just like the ones in the beginning of this channel. Love it.

I've been repairing these, too, but I use a multimeter set to the 200VDC scale. There is actually 166VDC present across the capacitor. By putting the ground lead on the capacitor negative, I can then touch the negative end of the first LED and it will light up fairly well if it is good. Then, I move the positive meter lead to the negative end of the next LED. It and the first one will light. Then, number 3; 3 LEDs light. When I come to an LED that doesn't light itself and the previous ones, that's the bad one. To check the remaining LEDs, you can just move your positive meter lead to the capacitor positive and the negative meter lead to the point where the positive lead was. All the remaining LEDs should light if they are all good. If you have a good soldering gun, you can scrape the top of the bad LED down to the metal and apply solder to short across the actual diode. That way, you don't have to fight with the small wire. I agree about the heat and have drilled holes also. My only worries about this are the possibility of damaging the circuitry inside with a slip of the bit and the possibility of insects getting inside the bulb. Too, there's even more heat up near the ceiling or in a light fixture or in hot summer weather. So being an LED could be pretty tough. If you have a pair of rubber gloves, you can get enough grip to just rip the plastic dome right off those suckers! That's how I do it.

Thanks buddy....this was an eye-opener for me. I didn't know that they could be opened. I opened mine and saw the interior as you presented yours. It's a cool experiment for me, man. Blessed

Amazing - a lot of good ideas. The fix for the bad LED is brilliant.

Wow, I'm pretty impressed at how easy most of your suggestions are. I knew the issue with these bulbs was head...I think they are, indeed, engineered to fail. Nice work!

Love these tech videos! Great stuff Kreosan and team!!

This video alone made me subscribe. I truly appreciate people who tell me how to fix things rather than throwing them away. As an American, I am very impressed with the techies of other countries. Often you know many practical things that the majority of Americans are unaware of, since here it is easier to throw things away and waste. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. :)

Great video. What I don't understand, is how the manufacturers get away with telling us that their bulbs will last 20,000, 40,000, or some other ridiculous amount of hours. I have never had one to NOT fail.

I would not recommend leaving exposed screws poking out like that. There's always the chance that the socket/box/fan the light fixture is attached to is wired improperly resulting in the hot/neutrals being reversed. (this can especially happen if you use this in a lamp that does not have a polarized plug). If the connection is reversed from normal the exposed screws are on the "hot" side of the AC connection and can electrocute you!

It's nice to see someone doing this too. I've been saving bulbs of my neighbors when they just throw it out. When I told them I can fix them, they were like : "No way! This is impossible to fix".. I think they thought that LED bulbs are like incandescent, once broke, cannot be fixed. One method I use since I have all the tools is to use multimeter and set it to continuity. Then test the LEDs if it lights up or not. If it does, then the LED is good. Sometimes I found 2 or 3 LEDs burnt. I then use my heat plate to replace them with a new one. BUT your video shows a great example of how some people without tools can repair them.. Great video.

I like the idea that somebody else did something successfully that I had the idea to try. Now I know it's possible, I'm stubborn like that, to try and see if the seemingly irreparable can be repaired. Thanks for sharing

Very cool! The best cooling woild probably be to drill a larger hole in the center of the diffuser then small holes close to the board. Then drill holes on the cone close to the board and more near the base. Then you would have convection cooling on both sides of the board. Providing you are keeping the diffuser of course.

Omgg usually i'm not so much into technical videos but this one was really really interestinggg and useful! Thank you Kreosan!!!

GREAT video. Lots of small improvements can be made as others have said for safety or whatever, but you explain why these things fail so quickly instead of lasting a whole lot longer. Thank you!

Good video. My local power company subsidizes bulbs so that they cost less than a dollar, so I would probably only repair one in a pinch. But now that I know how easy it is to remove the diffuser I am doing that when replacing bulbs that go inside diffusers built into the fixture.

I had 3 bulbs left over from our use. These are the dusk to dawn bulbs that automatically turn on when it’s dark enough. Due to the relatively high price and occasional stock shortages, I decided to try to fix them. Best and safest way to open them is with a cardboard cutter. The blade goes in nicely and after prying a bit in one area I move it to the next spot. First 2 bulbs the leds were fine. The regulators below must have been bad. Last one had one led blackened. Since the others were still good, it was easier to unscrew the board and replace the whole thing. Plugged it into an outside light fixture (at noon time) and it illuminated. Not supposed to so 3 out of 3 are not repairable. Firefly is the brandname.

This is EXACTLY what UKposts was made for! Thank you so much dear friend. This is wonderful contribution for a less polluted, green world.

This may be the best DIY vid on YT! I've kept about 30 burned out LED bulbs simply because I was pissed off by their short lives. Thanks! I'll never have to buy another bulb!

Also useful in the other direction, there are cases where I could use frosted plastic domes like that for crafting projects and with your trick I could just harvest those from cheap LED bulbs.

Good informative video. I've also posted a video where I used the same technique, shorting out the bad LED in the array. The only difference is I actually scraped the bad LED off and soldered the connections better, but same result. I never thought of it running cooler and lasting longer with the diffuser removed, but it makes sense.

I have been to cheap to buy custom bulbs to fit older desk lamps so I have always just peeled off the plastic cap they do seem to put out better light but thats good to know I was actually doing them good by adding better cooling

I've never had an led bulb go out on me yet, but I'll be ready for them now! Great video!!!

You are one clever engineer, whenever there is a failure, engineer gets restless. He got to fix it. I learned something from you today

Bypassing a dead LED in a series will get it working, but with one less in the series you are overvolting the remaining ones and they will fail even faster. Cooling will help, with a proper heat sink. I typically find that the driver circuit, not the LED is the failure point.

This was fantastic... so many good ideas. Thanks you for making this video.

thanks a lot for this neat introduction. Besides opening them you can also use a dimmer to reduce overheating. I bought a 5 $ dimmer for my 12 Volt led bulbs and discovered that they still shine quite brightly after considerable reduction in power consumption (displayed on the meter). This means that the %age graph of the 2 factors are not parallel, i.e. not directly proportional. = A 30 % lower power input does not result in a 30% reduction of luminescence, but still gives you some 90 % of the original light, This way you can save 12 V power while still enjoying relatively bright light, especially if you use several bulbs in parallel. I never tested this on dimmable 110 V Leds but all 12 V Led bulbs I tried accept dimming.

74° Original lamp. 60° after removing the diffuser (which is there to spread the light over the whole room instead of the spotlight effect when it is removed). 55° with vent holes drilled. 52° when compromising the shock protection by having screws fixated with conductive sealant through the insulating cup. Just don't. No temp measured after increasing the resistance.

One of your BEST videos! It's also wise when you can, to purchase a chandelier in which the bulbs point UP instead of DOWN, as a wiser purchase, heat goes up instead of being trapped at base of bulbs, and if you remove the bulb diffusers, the glass chandelier shrouds will still dissipate the light without hurting your eyes, then the light bounces off of the ceiling and it pleasant. All the Best! THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING WHAT IS GOING ON THERE. 73 DE W8LV BILL

Instead of letting the screws stick out, it would be much better to make much more smaller holes instead and add a round heat sink to the aluminum backplate of the LEDs with the help of a self sticking thermal pad.

Very impressive video. I've been disappointed by the stated lifespan of these bulbs compared to the actual. I'll be repairing and modifying them from now on. Thanks.

I will try this. One of my led bulbs stopped working last week and it was in the bag for electronic recycling, now I will rescue it and repair myself. Thank you sir.

I have hated all my burned out LED bulbs. This video is the first I've seen that addresses this problem. Love the foreign original, with English overlay. It was a bit hard to follow, but sometimes we need to scour the globe to find ingenuity. We North Americans usually solve the problem by going out and buying another bulb.

You have inspired me to repair all my failed LED bulbs! I knew keeping them would pay off lol

Wow. Lots of tech info in 1 video. All to save replacing a light bulb. I like it. As far as giving off more light with the cover off, you will recieve more light directly beneath the bulb. But without the cover, you will not have much light spread about the room. It acts more as a projector than a flood light.

I really admire people capable of thinking and doing stuff like that. Tks Cdn

Great, thanks. Need more information on how/what to do to lower the current. Do you have to replace the resistor and if so, do you do it by 1.5% of original or ??? Thank you.

Hello Kreosan English Sir! It's great to see the interesting videos coming on Sundays regularly. Keep doing the good work of spreading valuable knowledge to whole world. God bless you and your whole family and team with good health and well being :)

Well, I was somehow sceptical - but this video turned out to be useful as well as entertaining with that charming sense of humor, I will definetely repair my lamps, thanks

Thanks for helping extend the light of these bulbs. What would be even more brilliant would be if the comment section was turned off and all your Know-it-all's and complainers replying Would be short circuited.

A law should be passed to make these led circuits parallel instead of series, so it’ll still light up if some leds stop working.

I used to remove the diffuser in order te get more light - as I use for photography and sometimes movie making... In practice, the diffuser takes off 1/3 of a stop - which means that will decrease the luminosity by 1/3. Which is a LOT! I found your video very informative and funny at the same time!! 😉

it's so easy to replace the bulb, i also share a lot of ways! Thank you

Great suggestions and explanations of how led light bulbs work, thanks!

Great video I'm definitely going to try this! I'm an electrician and when an LED fails I tell people to just buy a new one but I'm going to give this a shot.

One recommendation I've heard is buy dimmable leds and keep them running

A few things. I'm all about repair, reuse, recycle. Those are fantastic tips. Now, onto the "Cooling" section of removing the frosted diffuser and drilling the base. The diffuser itself is a challenge for a ton of manufacturers because LEDS are inherently directional in it's light output. You immediatly see in the video that it gets brighter like a beam vs where the diffuser helps to bounce the light to get a general field glow as older incandescents were able to do naturally. This had to do with electrifying the filament and using the gases in the lamp to help push light outwards. You put that same LED lamp with a diffuser in a light fixture and you're just highlighting the ceiling. Now for the true rocker bulb - for the love of god, don't do that. That shield is also used to bleed any excess electricity into the neutral. If the unthinkable happens, you're allowing for yourself, a loved one, or a bystander to get hurt. Higher end manufacturers usually fill that cavity with a nonconductive thermal compound that is used to move away heat and expell it from the same base. I wouldn't be surprised if half the lamps in his hands don't weight close to a feather. I'm not knocking this, because cooling is the right idea, but there are safer methods.

thank you! will definitely give this a try the next time one of my LED bulbs go out.

I appreciate having a diffuser because the leds are so bright when the are directly in sight. I think that the bulbs are made to be weather proof. The irony is that it would be more expensive to add aluminum fins and it would make the bulbs last longer so they would sell fewer. But I am glad that led bulbs are repairable and even easy to improve. I might consider 3d printing my own light bulb diffusers with venting. Something that makes them easier to look at will still allowing for cooling.

Some great ideas, thanks. I might want to re-check my life-insurance, smoke-alarm, fire-extinguisher status etc before trying a few of them, but most would be pretty safe if done with care

Thanks so much for your tutorial on LED repair/ recycling ♻️ udahci

It Works! Just repaired one but instead of wrapping a wire around faulty LED or covering it in window sealant, I simply cracked the lens off of the bad LED with needlenose pliers and soldered over the exposed contacts on top of it. Now the bulb is back in action. In my case all of the LEDs were initially glowing dimly when power was applied. During the repair process pressing on individual LEDs did nothing and the bad one was NOT discolored. I had to identify it by jumping each one out of the circuit individually with a small piece of copper wire. When the bad diode was shorted out the other 8 light right up.

Love your videos thanks for the great content

The simplest method to short circuit a LED is to remove the plastic from the top (it rips apart by pressing from one side with a sharp tool). Then you have two exposed pads from inside the LED that you can solder together, since they are very close to each other.

The original incandescent light bulbs lasted forever. There is one in a Livermore California firestation that has burned since 1901. The light bulb manufacturers got together and conspired to only make light bulbs last for a few years, thus creating a need to replace bulbs. LEDs should last 30,000 hours, essentially a lifetime. But my experience has been that they last no longer than incandescent ones and cost 10 times more. I wondered why the LED bulbs were burning out so quickly. Now I know. Thanks Kreosan.

Thanks for the video! I lost 68 led can lights at once from a power surge. I'm trying to repair them. I soldered the bad led. When testing it will come on but immediately blow out another. Any recommendations?

👍 Good ideas. But instead of jagged screw tips sticking out of the bulbs base ( 7:23 for cooling), maybe larger holes ( 6:33 ) would help for more air flow! Thanks!

Thanks for a great video! It’s a good way to reuse instead of throwing them away. I tried it on one, all the LEDs come on, but are very dim. Any ideas?

Thanks for your time making this video. I will definitely try this myself in future. 👍🏼👌🏼

Very nice and knowledgeable, I have a question tho, what if the wires end where they contact the board that holds LEDs is kind of rusty or like has been shocked? What do I do to make it work. I'm not into the field but I learn this way. Thanks for any comments on this!

If you have a series of resistors and you short-out one, then the others get more voltage. Same for the LEDs in a chain. Wouldn't that shorten their lifespan also? Wouldn't it be better to replace the burned one with a resistance? But I understand, this would need difficult soldering, and Kreosan's method is much better to revive the lamp than having no lamp at all. Thanks, will try it next time a LED bulb breaks! (And I agree with the commenters on the screws: that looks dangerous. Wouldn't try it at home.

For those without experience I would definitely not recommend using very sharp blades and knives as tools to replace way safer tools as pliers, wire cutters, wire strippers etc. It is definitely not worth it to take the risk of cutting a finger or worse. Great video, techniques and advice on fixing LED lamps. Thanks!

I'm glad they are plastic now No more broken glass No more toxic pwd coming from glass spiral bulbs Thanks for showing us how to fix or make them even better Much love xoxox

As a fellow electronics content creator i can really appreciate this video. I kept a few of these bulbs from 2022. i didnt know these tricks but somehow i believes i could fix them. Now i know how. I was also wondering, if the LEDs are in series, it means they each drop a specific amount of the total voltage. But shorting the damaged LED, there will perhaps be a highter voltage across the other working ones. Can this a problem in your experience?

I used to do the same, my high school electrical teacher taught me how to as the LEDs were very new and unreliable. We used to use a wire from a desoldering cord or whatever it's called.

You can soften the glue holding on the globe with a heat gun or maybe even a hairdryer on the high heat setting. Same as getting a screen off a smartphone for replacement.

I winced when you used that huge kitchen knife to cut your wiring, but the temperature regulation method is interesting. I've noticed most of my bulbs seem to melt and I couldn't understand why if the LED itself is cool to the touch. The step down from 120 v ac (in US) comes with a lot of heat waste I gather. I will start tinkering with these. Thanks.

Love it. Make a light bulb not only be a electrocution hazard but also add some screws on it for extra hazardness! It's a good video nonetheless but I'd be careful with open circuits hanging around. There'll be one day where you eventually touch it. Might be a good fly killer though.

3:59 How about covering the sealant up with heat glue so it's even more secure? It should short circuit the led and render it isolated from external touch

Stále ještě přemýšlím, jestli se jedná o rychlozkratovač nebo rychlozabíječ. To je porušení všech možných bezpečnostních předpisů!

Amazing video. Havent seen such a life hack for a long time. Congratulations and keep up the good work.

There's lots of planned obsolescence in led bulbs.

This works ones with the driver, there are cheaper ones that uses some sort of capacitor resistor voltage drop system and uses LEDs in series to reduce the voltage. If you short circuit those, the lamp break almost in no time. You may get better results if you replace the led, but that is not that simple. Also diffuser has a purpose, it increases the angle of the light. If you remove it, light will shine brighter directly below, but will not light up sides. Also, also, be careful, if you light the lamp and disconnect, there still can be charge after a long time if the LEDs are not working at all.

Makes sense (from a mfg’s viewpoint) to allow failure asap. Both Series-wiring and temperature sensitivity work well for that (for more sales anyway). I’ll be drilling into the diffuser for cooling.

Literally & figuratively brilliant

That black window seal is electrically conductive, but is it intended to be utilized as a conductor? Wondering if it could heat up and catch on fire if basically used as an electrical component within the heated environment of the bulb.

Surely it is safer to just buy another light bulb rather than risking your life prodding the inside while electricity is running through it. Many years ago I read that all that the companies had to do was to make the filaments thicker which would mean the bulb would never burn out. The reason they don't do this comes down to a loss in profit. Still, life is more important than a light bulb. I appreciate what you have shown here and enjoyed your video.

Thanks for that Video! Love that kind of content! Nice shirt btw

Thank you for this beautiful work,from Lagos Nigeria.

An easy way to repair it bridging the led is, with a knife remove the plastic cap of the broken led, and with the point of the knife rivet one contact to the other. The contacts are made from soft metal so you can bridge the gap easily. The best way to decrease temperature is to decrease the current removing one of the resistors, you can do it with the same knife!

Voltage is divided in a series circuit (calculated by the resistance). If you apply 12 volts through a series circuit and each LED is drops the circuit by 2 voltes then 6 LEDs can be lit correctly. Shorting out one LED will enable the voltage to bypass it but it will also cause the other LEDs in the circuit to receive a higher voltage which will burn them out quicker. This is the same principle of why Christmas tree lights burn out quickly after a few of them burn out. The other bulbs see a higher voltage than they are rated for. This is the reason we usually find a certain common number of LEDs and incandescent bulbs on strings. The lights are basically voltage dividers. We can string lights sets together because they pass a common voltage running through the connector enabling the strings to be run in parallel. And the amount of current used in each string determines the number of total strings allowed. If we were to short and bypass all the lights, we’d have a dead short, which would be bad.

doing this instantly....mine was no. 7 burned out.....by pass that as you mentioned.....exacactly it returned to life.....thanks a lot😚

Hi @Kreosann! The techniques mentioned simply works. Thanks. :-)

Wow, that's great very nice from manila philippines

Thank you for a very useful and cost saving video - very good hack but be aware of the dangerous voltage - toothpicks don't sound a good idea lol!

Lol I literally had one die on me yesterday. I open it and there it is - the black dot. I couldn't fit the wire in but instead just removed the LED and put a drop of solder over the pads and it worked lol so amazing. Thanks!

The worst problem of LED bulbs for me is when it starts to flicker. None of my LED bulbs have ever stopped working completely.

7:04 Increase the life expectancy of your LEDs. Decrease yours. Tin!

Wonderful advice on keeping LED lights going!