I've never seen this happen before. The aluminium core LED panel has actually delaminated. I don't know the full history of this light as it was sold as untested, although a flex had been Wago'd onto the original wire stubs! So hopefully it wasn't powered up with a saturated electronic driver.
As supplied it was covered in mud and had water in the LED section, suggesting it had been stood vertically outdoors for a while, with the pole port up.
It's possible that the standing water and a number of freezing cycles caused progressive delamination, and the submersion may also have resulted in humidity ingress to the LEDs too. So I don't know if the light was retired due to LED failure or if that happened in outside storage. It's not old, so it must have been removed for a reason.
If you work with these lights (Urbis Schreder Axia 2?) then let me know if you have had issues with them.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- https://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
As supplied it was covered in mud and had water in the LED section, suggesting it had been stood vertically outdoors for a while, with the pole port up.
It's possible that the standing water and a number of freezing cycles caused progressive delamination, and the submersion may also have resulted in humidity ingress to the LEDs too. So I don't know if the light was retired due to LED failure or if that happened in outside storage. It's not old, so it must have been removed for a reason.
If you work with these lights (Urbis Schreder Axia 2?) then let me know if you have had issues with them.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- https://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Are the SS screws causing galvanic corrosion accelerating the bubbling / water ingress of the Al backing of the PCB? Here in BC (basically communist), Canada, many car license plates exhibit a delamination of the paint lettering from the Al substrate. An unintended consequence is that OCR readers and speed cameras are impotent in identifying law breakers. Obviously I would never condone ignoring this design flaw and in doing so evading tax collectors….
Could the heatshrunk MOV have had a fuse sandwhiched to it?
Meanwhile the metal halide street light out front is still going strong after 8 years. I really don’t understand adding fragility to industrial systems. Seems like a bad idea.
Never had a LED reach it's rated lifetime before failure. All horribly overrun, and not heatsinked properly, so they cook themselves to death.
Overkill on the PSU? I think yes.
The water probably made its way between the insulating layer and the aluminum. Probably happened while in use and heat cycling but not necessarily. Water is a solvent…
I really do miss the orange of Sodium/Natrium lights…
isn't there a way to have a similar (powerful/bright) substitute using LEDs??
Overly complicated.
Dead streetlight, or DED, darkness-emitting diodes?
Makes you think how technology has changed over the years, when it comes to flickering lights we've gone from "just change the bulb" to "just change the whole streetlight" when it comes to road illumination, not built for serviceability, but made to look fancy with their designs, which sometimes are the achilles heel when more thought is put into how it should look over how it needs to perform, and when we have councils who are going bankrupt, changing streetlight units versus changing a bulb is a cost that they could do without…
as an RMA technician for an LED street light company. i can confirm every problem you have found and many more.
the main cause for all of them is usualy water ingress. most of the time this is from a trapped cable compromising a seal, or the nema sockets/photo socket seals failed.
the led boards will blister as you have seen almost every time they interact with water.
this is sometimes intesified as the dc current runs through them, you get gas production aswel as electrolitic corrosion.
part of my job is trying to figure out what the initial point of failure was and then trying to figure out what caused it,
was it user error?, bad manufacturing?, did they leave it outside in the rain upside down for 6 months?, or inversly did the leave it open and inside in the the dry for 6 months after water damage?
half the time its impossible to determine anything and i fix it regardless.
The question I have: Is there continuity between the aluminum and the power input?
None of our LED street lights are bright enough but they have no intension of replacing any of them. There are so many dark shadows all over the town it's like going back to days of gas lighting.
How can I send some stuff to you, or contact you and ask if you like to receive some stuff for breakdown…?
The delaminated spot will for sure have less heat transfer, probably kills the led. Take a peak with the heat camera?