This is a rather cute little 12W LED street light I got from a Chinese supplier called Banggood. It’s designed to run on a 220V supply (180 to 255V) and is designed to mount onto a pipe about 42mm diameter. (1.5″?).
This unit was very typical of Chinese LED lights in that it had a stripped and tinned earth wire in the short pre-installed flex, but the earth wire was not connected internally and was actually cut flush with the flex inside.
The unit has a rather neat printed glass front with four screw clamps that pull it tightly onto a silicone grommet. The LED panel inside is an aluminium core PCB held onto the inside of the case with six screws with heatsink compound between it and the finned aluminium case. The LEDs themselves also have wet heatsink compound behind them which suggests that they have just been pressed into place and soldered without the use of thermal transfer glue. The power supply is a generic current regulated unit designed for driving between 8 and 12 series wired LEDs. It’s mounted in a small aluminium extrusion with end-caps and filled with black potting compound.
The lights are available in cold or warm white, but if you were so inclined you could replace the standard 1W LED “beads” with any colour you wanted.
Apart from the lack of a ground connection this is a very neat and well built light. As an actual street light it could be quite effective for lighting a pathway or side of a house if mounted on suitable angled pipes at a height of about 3-5 metres.
I’d recommend connecting the ground lead internally with a small crimp onto one of the screws holding the PCB to the heatsink.
Post time: Dec-30-2016