Archive for March 10th, 2016
Vacuum Tube LEDs: Knockoff Neopixel Failure
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench on 2016-03-10
The knockoff Neopixel epoxied atop the big incandescent bulb just failed:
Vacuum Tube LEDs – ersatz heatsink plate cap
It stopped changing colors and began blinking high-intensity bursts of the RGB LEDs. Which was interesting, I’ll grant you, but didn’t produce the desired, ah, mood.
Differential diagnosis:
- Reboot that sucker: fail
- Shot of circuit cooler: fail
- Failing LED with known-good Arduino Pro Mini: fail
- “Failing” Arduino Pro Mini with known-good LED: work
Looks like a permanent WS2812B controller failure this time around.
It’s been plugged into a Kill-a-Watt meter that reports it ran for 415 hours and used 150 W·h of energy, for an average 360 mW dissipation. I think the actual power falls well below the meter’s lower limit, so I doubt the accuracy, but it’s a whole bunch less than a nightlight and much more interesting.
Now, to break that epoxy bond without breaking the bulb …
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