Old arcing switch killing LED lamps.04:33

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Published on January 28, 2018

I’ve had two Philips LED lamps of the same type fail for the same reason. Arcing switch contacts. The contacts in these switches were so black that I thought they were burnt and pitted, which would be odd for a relatively low load. It turned out that they were coated in what I presume is an oxide film that wiped off easily, but was insulating enough to cause quite ferocious arcing when used.
I did a teardown on the first failed Philips lamp a while ago:-

Same problem on a different switch of the same brand and era.
Arcing contacts are really bad news for capacitive dropper based LED lamps as the dropper capacitors do their best to suppress the electrical noise and in doing so pass much higher current than normal. This stresses the rest of the circuitry and can kill LEDs and inrush/fusible resistors as has happened here.
This is actually a good demonstration of a typical class X capacitor or a snubber network doing its job.
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