Inside a Chinese street light from eBay

It's six years since I've looked at one of these, so I thought I'd buy another and see if the construction has changed much. It has changed a bit, but not much.

It turns out that even six years ago they were using the new flip chip style LED modules, so the only slight changes are the fact it's now got an earth/ground connection, a six screw cover instead of four and the new driver is not power factor corrected, unlike the original unit which had a very good power factor. (Power factor is the relationship between voltage and current across the sine wave.)

These lights are quite nicely made, and it makes me wonder if they're actually used as street lights in some areas of China.

They're very hackable for replacing the LED or driver as desired if you have a specific colour requirement. They are also very serviceable in that the LED module and driver are very standard and easily available.

Being such a cheap and mass produced item, I wonder how reliable they would be as an actual outdoor light.


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