Emergency exit signs are often always on. Sure, manufacturing LED's "bulbs" have a higher carbon footprint than an old fashioned tungsten filament bulb, but that carbon footprint is offset by the lower watts needed for LED lights for the same brightness, and also that LED lights doesn't have to be replaced as often.
Yeah I think the reduced cost of getting someone in to change the bulbs would be the main factor... Especially as we've moved from having an inhouse maintenance guy to outsourcing. If you derate leds they're almost immortal.
@@zzoinks obvious answer to that is that we as a society need to learn to recover and reuse the hazardous materials and to make batteries that are easier to recycle cost effectively...
At my last job, part of it was changing bulbs in exit lights. One day lightning hit the power line or building, and flash silvered a bunch of incandescent bulbs. ..I mean perfectly silvered, like mirrored sunglasses. They wound up being parts for Halloween props, and I gave some away to a woman who made jewelry out of them. My guess is a storm blew that capacitor open.... it's not unusual to lose an LED bulb after a serious lightning storm.. especially the " Walmart grade" ones. That same job and place had what I called " Chernobyl Lights"....signs that used tritium lighting..
yup 😂 he refused to buy me toys after a while because id make my own out of them, my mother had to rescue me 😂 ..was his dad who taught me to wire plugs at age 4....guess it skipped a generation
When I watched you open these, based on the fact that they were from exit signs, I just knew they'd be red LEDs. Before the days of blue LEDs, this was probably one of the few niche uses for an "LED light bulb" that would be more than capable for the particular task.
The last lamp is not unsafe! The circuit cannot be touched. The Cs used in the first lamp are not for isolation but as part of the voltage drop circuit just like it's used in the second lamp.
This is correct. Instead of a single capacitor, the second lamp used two. I'm surprised Fran made that mistake. I would not consider that second lamp, it safe unless I measured the spacing between line and the metallic housing, In either case the bulbs are enclosed in the exit sign housing. That said, exit signs are usually on an always on circuit, so there is a risk of shock when re-lamping unless they were turned off.
Capacitive reactance. I've made several LED night lights using that since it's a very compact way to efficiently drop line voltage to something LEDs can use.
Wow, the capacitor probably had gone way down in capacitance value, which explains why that lamp was so much dimmer than the other one. It probably was brighter than that when new.
It explains why those early, Chinese, LED bulbs were made like they were 20 years ago. They just got the idea from these early attempts at energy efficient, LED lighting. I'm sure the extra expense made in building them was repaid many times over. I mean, they STILL work! I was originally fascinated by the cold blue light those early LED bulbs gave off. It was like something out of Star Wars. The novelty eventually wore off when I wanted my brighter, warm light back. I didn't go back to CFL's. Proper warm white LED lighting finally arrived by then.
@@jsl151850b White LEDs are actually blue LEDs with phosphors for the red and green part of the spectrum with some of the blue light from the LED providing blue light. White LEDs can absolutely be cold blue. The LEDs that they were using were really for indicators, not lighting. EL doesn't get that bright and can't be used at all for general lighting.
That design is a "capacitor dropper" where the reactance of the capacitor is what limits the LED current. The big fat square capacitor likely is now a much lower value than it was before it broke. Not having to replace lamps in your exit lights can be a good thing. There are a lot of them in some buildings and often you need an electrician to do the rerplacement.
I have the flush cutter equivalent of the Chisel of Discovery. It started life as a respectable Hakko tool, doing respectable soldering work, until I did something stupid with it and it got a nick in the blade. So I wrote JUNK all over the handles in sharpie, and now it's used to do unspeakable things you shouldn't do with flush cutters.
I agree with you 100% about the amount of work and material to make those LEDs but I have some Cree brand LEDs bulbs that have been going strong for 8 years now out of like 8 of them I had one fail just this year !
I can't believe it, your have one of the craziest collections of electronics, but no bulb socket! I'm actually after a red LED 240V bulb, kind of rare (apart from smart bulbs), so I'm looking at hacking a regular lamp by fitting a red star module. That second one, when partially opened looked like a Doctor Who sonic screwdriver. The profile of the LED tops with their flat/concave LED's look like those commonly used for Christmas tree lights. Oh the poor tracks at the end
try grow lamps. ive got a couple of led strips that run on 120v (red/blue variety..but they do a red only (also available in normal bulb shape). its just calculating how many leds you need to suck up that voltage. star pcbs and normal shape led bulbs produce a lot of heat, they need a sink.
This was the era of the incandescent light, the long tube fluorescents and the costly small, 40 Watt elongated, exit sign light. The heat buildup was so great in those enclosures that often times the red letters were a sheet of red fiber-board like tinted fiberglass PC board without the copper. Maintenance people spent enough hours in facilities changing-out burned-out lights. These LED replacements for exit signs ran cool, but never really had the luminosity of incandescents. The reason was that the LEDs were limited in output, and their spectrum was too narrow to be a proper replacement for a white light illuminating a red target as a retrofit situation for an exit sign. It took a total LED EXIT SIGN redesign to fix this , which had an added benefit of emergency power failure backup built in as you see today.
The super bright square ones in the first lamp are old HP / Agilent parts called SuperFlux back in the day. Used in a lot of automotive 3rd brake lights in the 90's-2000's
I’m sure there have been many studies on it that I have yet to read, but it does make one think about how many hours an LED retrofit needs to burn before you break even on it’s environmental impact. I have no doubt that they do break even, it’s just a point of interest.
Building owner care more about the economic impact. LED bulbs last years. Save on the cost of sending a person around a building with a ladder and box of replacement bulbs twice a year
when i discovered cree i praised the gods 😂 (used to make bike lights, halogen, lead acid batteries and ultra efficient blu/green leds for my night vision rods.) lithium and smd leds ...was a help😂
That exit sign retrofit is very interesting I have a exit sign that uses the same leds but way brighter and it’s from 2000 (Lithonia LQM S W 3 R 120/277 EL N)
Fran, I know you might hate this idea but it's an easy way to make more $$$ in an ethical way - I see this with all other creators, regardless of subject/niche. Sell a basic electronics course (mostly text, but some video) for $300. Many many people watch these videos without a deep understanding, like me. Even if it is just your own experience/knowledge, I know it would sell. Especially if you make one about mfg'ing guitar pedals. I know you have already done this for free, but you'd be amazed how many people would pay for that. I generally understand guitar pedal engineering, but I'd pay to hear you explain it.
Meh. I'm prioritizing the lower power bill and heat output. My downstairs AC falls behind as it is, a couple hundred watts of light definitely wouldn't help.
Those tungsten bulbs are a whole lotta times 145volts @ 15w.. and will last a very very long time.. I’ve used them in some E12 or “candelabra” based applications and beleive it or not they’ve lasted for a few yrs at 120-125volts which is also what they run on inside of those signs
Could've been worse, it could have used a Rifa epoxy encapsulated metallised paper capacitor. Then it would've been really exciting when that thing split!
Often, the carbon footprint of operation greatly outweighs the carbon footprint for manufacture. It would have been interesting to compare the power usage of each of those options.
What decade are these from? I've found some disposable vapes lying around (Street Lithium) and they are really cool inside. Not as shocking as that last lamp though. Golly.
As an old film guy and lab tech, the digital age has at times caused me issues. Most of it is because of that rolling shutter especially comparing it to analog film.😪
How is the second lamp unsafe? It's non-isolated sure, but has no exposed conductive parts. Also could the capacitor have been damaged by prying it out?
lol re "junk" capacitor. I was always tickled by a company name in "Teenage Mutant Turtles" they had a robotic creature called mousers and at the time there was (and still is) Mouser Electronics ,they sell electronic parts!. I always wondered if Eastman and Laird knew this.
How does Fran not have a candelabra socket that size. Every boomer has a string of them in the outdoor Christmas lights junk box. Truthfully I might do the same thing rather than hunt through the attic for the real socket.
@@jeepien Intermediate is used in LavaLamps(tm) and built-in microwave ovens to illuminate the stovetop or kitchen counter underneath them . E26 is standard light bulb sized, E12 is for candelabras and night lights, and E17 is Intermediate.
Carbon footprint is offset massively by the fact 10 bulbs will burn out before the LED one does, not to mention ancillary people needed to order, stock, replace, install each burnt out bulb as needed. Then you can factor in the energy savings which is 1/10th that of incandescent. hat's a lot of unaccounted for support carbon not required for the LED. Now, LED exit bulbs are filament style LED bulbs, LOTs simpler.
The Chisel of Discovery, along with The Vise of Knowledge and Stanley The Knife, almost no enclosure can resist that fabulous trio!
Don't forget X-ray deluxe that Ave gave Big Clive.
And Crocodile Dundee's knife - or like yours truly uses, a cheap pirate-ish knife for a rare event of unboxing stuff on my channel.
dont forget chippy, the big knife from the kitchen 😅
Don't invite the Hammer of Impatience to the party.
Emergency exit signs are often always on. Sure, manufacturing LED's "bulbs" have a higher carbon footprint than an old fashioned tungsten filament bulb, but that carbon footprint is offset by the lower watts needed for LED lights for the same brightness, and also that LED lights doesn't have to be replaced as often.
That's the same principle for EVs then. But ev batteries are a lot of toxic waste that needs processing in the future
Yeah I think the reduced cost of getting someone in to change the bulbs would be the main factor... Especially as we've moved from having an inhouse maintenance guy to outsourcing.
If you derate leds they're almost immortal.
@@zzoinks obvious answer to that is that we as a society need to learn to recover and reuse the hazardous materials and to make batteries that are easier to recycle cost effectively...
My experience is LED light bulbs are not lasting much longer than incandescents. Major improvement needed.
@@ameyring Unless you pay like $25+ for the bulb it;s going to be intentionally overpowered so that it dies in 18-28 months.
1:59
"One moment, please" - BigClive
"FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!" ElectroBOOM
Except Fran takes steps to avoid explosions and shocks.
At my last job, part of it was changing bulbs in exit lights. One day lightning hit the power line or building, and flash silvered a bunch of incandescent bulbs. ..I mean perfectly silvered, like mirrored sunglasses. They wound up being parts for Halloween props, and I gave some away to a woman who made jewelry out of them.
My guess is a storm blew that capacitor open.... it's not unusual to lose an LED bulb after a serious lightning storm.. especially the " Walmart grade" ones.
That same job and place had what I called " Chernobyl Lights"....signs that used tritium lighting..
I still can hear my late fathers voice: "Do you always have to take everything apart?"
yup 😂
he refused to buy me toys after a while because id make my own out of them, my mother had to rescue me 😂 ..was his dad who taught me to wire plugs at age 4....guess it skipped a generation
When I watched you open these, based on the fact that they were from exit signs, I just knew they'd be red LEDs. Before the days of blue LEDs, this was probably one of the few niche uses for an "LED light bulb" that would be more than capable for the particular task.
First commercial white led bulb hit the market in 1996
The last lamp is not unsafe! The circuit cannot be touched. The Cs used in the first lamp are not for isolation but as part of the voltage drop circuit just like it's used in the second lamp.
This is correct. Instead of a single capacitor, the second lamp used two. I'm surprised Fran made that mistake.
I would not consider that second lamp, it safe unless I measured the spacing between line and the metallic housing, In either case the bulbs are enclosed in the exit sign housing. That said, exit signs are usually on an always on circuit, so there is a risk of shock when re-lamping unless they were turned off.
Capacitive reactance. I've made several LED night lights using that since it's a very compact way to efficiently drop line voltage to something LEDs can use.
Wow, the capacitor probably had gone way down in capacitance value, which explains why that lamp was so much dimmer than the other one. It probably was brighter than that when new.
It explains why those early, Chinese, LED bulbs were made like they were 20 years ago. They just got the idea from these early attempts at energy efficient, LED lighting. I'm sure the extra expense made in building them was repaid many times over. I mean, they STILL work! I was originally fascinated by the cold blue light those early LED bulbs gave off. It was like something out of Star Wars. The novelty eventually wore off when I wanted my brighter, warm light back. I didn't go back to CFL's. Proper warm white LED lighting finally arrived by then.
Cold Blue? You sure those were LEDs and not Electroluminescent?
@@jsl151850b White LEDs are actually blue LEDs with phosphors for the red and green part of the spectrum with some of the blue light from the LED providing blue light. White LEDs can absolutely be cold blue. The LEDs that they were using were really for indicators, not lighting. EL doesn't get that bright and can't be used at all for general lighting.
That design is a "capacitor dropper" where the reactance of the capacitor is what limits the LED current. The big fat square capacitor likely is now a much lower value than it was before it broke.
Not having to replace lamps in your exit lights can be a good thing. There are a lot of them in some buildings and often you need an electrician to do the rerplacement.
10:16 I flinched when you touched the chromed plastic reflector with the circuit energized...
It's Fran, not Electroboom!
12:50 that's like the RIFA caps in all of the old Apple II, Mac, etc power supplies that crack and die...
I have the flush cutter equivalent of the Chisel of Discovery. It started life as a respectable Hakko tool, doing respectable soldering work, until I did something stupid with it and it got a nick in the blade. So I wrote JUNK all over the handles in sharpie, and now it's used to do unspeakable things you shouldn't do with flush cutters.
Something funny about feeling like I've seen this before.
Did Fran make an edit or did TH-cam scroogle us again? 🤔
Like something Big Clive would show us.
I thought it was from the mailbag video.
@@nickk9202 you mean a light?
guess people didn’t like the reverse engineering diagram part
I agree with you 100% about the amount of work and material to make those LEDs but I have some Cree brand LEDs bulbs that have been going strong for 8 years now out of like 8 of them I had one fail just this year !
I have some pretty cheap LED bulbs I got in a 12 pack from hardware store. THey are 8+ years old now.. still work fine.
never hsd one go unless i pumped too much heat into it. been a fan since the late 90's
Always collected the extra wire from ballast replacements . Handy wire to have around.
a deeper dive into the rolling shutter effect would be cool, I bet of you adjusted the ambient lighting you could really make it pop
I can't believe it, your have one of the craziest collections of electronics, but no bulb socket!
I'm actually after a red LED 240V bulb, kind of rare (apart from smart bulbs), so I'm looking at hacking a regular lamp by fitting a red star module.
That second one, when partially opened looked like a Doctor Who sonic screwdriver. The profile of the LED tops with their flat/concave LED's look like those commonly used for Christmas tree lights.
Oh the poor tracks at the end
try grow lamps. ive got a couple of led strips that run on 120v (red/blue variety..but they do a red only (also available in normal bulb shape).
its just calculating how many leds you need to suck up that voltage. star pcbs and normal shape led bulbs produce a lot of heat, they need a sink.
12:52 The capacitor maybe is X2(X1) type, they never get shorted. (0.125 uF x 160VAC).
It could be 1.2uF (1200000 pF x 160V) but it is very small.
Thank you Fran! Very interesting! 😃
This was the era of the incandescent light, the long tube fluorescents and the costly small, 40 Watt elongated, exit sign light. The heat buildup was so great in those enclosures that often times the red letters were a sheet of red fiber-board like tinted fiberglass PC board without the copper. Maintenance people spent enough hours in facilities changing-out burned-out lights. These LED replacements for exit signs ran cool, but never really had the luminosity of incandescents. The reason was that the LEDs were limited in output, and their spectrum was too narrow to be a proper replacement for a white light illuminating a red target as a retrofit situation for an exit sign. It took a total LED EXIT SIGN redesign to fix this , which had an added benefit of emergency power failure backup built in as you see today.
Neat. Glad I stopped by.
That’s so neat! I wish to see you at the vintage computer fest in socal!
The super bright square ones in the first lamp are old HP / Agilent parts called SuperFlux back in the day. Used in a lot of automotive 3rd brake lights in the 90's-2000's
It's so cool when you're impressed with something!
I’m sure there have been many studies on it that I have yet to read, but it does make one think about how many hours an LED retrofit needs to burn before you break even on it’s environmental impact.
I have no doubt that they do break even, it’s just a point of interest.
Building owner care more about the economic impact. LED bulbs last years. Save on the cost of sending a person around a building with a ladder and box of replacement bulbs twice a year
when i discovered cree i praised the gods 😂 (used to make bike lights, halogen, lead acid batteries and ultra efficient blu/green leds for my night vision rods.)
lithium and smd leds ...was a help😂
That exit sign retrofit is very interesting I have a exit sign that uses the same leds but way brighter and it’s from 2000 (Lithonia LQM S W 3 R 120/277 EL N)
fine, ill watch it again.
Excellente analyse bonjour de la France
Every tech lover make lot of dismantling.....the curiosity to see its inner workings??
Huh... I've seen this before...
Me too. The video disappeared after a refresh i did since i didn't see any comments.
I thought so too. I figured it was from the mailbag.
Two mine sets. One over built and engineered to pretty to destroy the other built to a price
Fran, I know you might hate this idea but it's an easy way to make more $$$ in an ethical way - I see this with all other creators, regardless of subject/niche. Sell a basic electronics course (mostly text, but some video) for $300. Many many people watch these videos without a deep understanding, like me. Even if it is just your own experience/knowledge, I know it would sell. Especially if you make one about mfg'ing guitar pedals. I know you have already done this for free, but you'd be amazed how many people would pay for that. I generally understand guitar pedal engineering, but I'd pay to hear you explain it.
Consider the material simplicity of a tungsten bulb versus the huge number of energy hungry materials used in LED bulb construction.
But how many tungsten bulbs are needed, over the lifetime of the fixture, not to mention the carbon footprint of the extra electricity consumed?
Meh. I'm prioritizing the lower power bill and heat output. My downstairs AC falls behind as it is, a couple hundred watts of light definitely wouldn't help.
Those tungsten bulbs are a whole lotta times 145volts @ 15w.. and will last a very very long time.. I’ve used them in some E12 or “candelabra” based applications and beleive it or not they’ve lasted for a few yrs at 120-125volts which is also what they run on inside of those signs
Looks like a 99 cent candelabra socket (holiday version) at your very local dollar store...c'mon Fran!
No, that's not a candelabra base.
Yes it is. A nite light would have worked. How do I know. I’m the one who sent the bulb
@@jeepien really?? then what is it.. Fran said a nightlight would have worked, THAT is a candelabra...
@@GreyRockOne :: it looked bigger, like a ceiling fan "intermediate". But I stand corrected.
12:10 the triangular light's assembled like a chinese puzzle.
Thanks
Hello it's Fran again 🤪
Could've been worse, it could have used a Rifa epoxy encapsulated metallised paper capacitor. Then it would've been really exciting when that thing split!
Ahhh, The elusive E11 socket?
Often, the carbon footprint of operation greatly outweighs the carbon footprint for manufacture. It would have been interesting to compare the power usage of each of those options.
What decade are these from? I've found some disposable vapes lying around (Street Lithium) and they are really cool inside. Not as shocking as that last lamp though. Golly.
As an old film guy and lab tech, the digital age has at times caused me issues. Most of it is because of that rolling shutter especially comparing it to analog film.😪
Perana led ...now day cob led with driver circuit is very popular because of its eazy installation n less cost
The fake metallized plastic makes my skin crawl. Takes me back to the Taiwan ROC days.
There's probably a lot of that on your car if you have one, especially the lights. Also flashlights, LED or otherwise.
*chuckles* My RS hookup wire is not finished yet.
Jukn? There is a manufacturer called sus-con or thereabouts.
Suspect Condenser really sends a message of kwality.
Unusual form . Concave top ?
No night light socket?
How is the second lamp unsafe? It's non-isolated sure, but has no exposed conductive parts.
Also could the capacitor have been damaged by prying it out?
Socket looks like a e12 or e14.
e12 ones are rare even over here.
I'd say about 25% e12 to 75% e14 in Germany
Also know as Candelabra base. A nite light would have worked
lol re "junk" capacitor. I was always tickled by a company name in "Teenage Mutant Turtles" they had a robotic creature called mousers and at the time there was (and still is) Mouser Electronics ,they sell electronic parts!. I always wondered if Eastman and Laird knew this.
This makes me imagine one of those defective bulbs, in a fire exit sign. It fails. Then it starts a fire. smh
One moment please....lol
That is the wage , and cost of living difference between Michigan and any chinese state .
Black and Decker chisels are meant to be abused.
~8:00 reminds me of a Langolier.
That, or a worm from Dune.
Or a business end of a Goa'uld symbiote, haha!
@@KeritechElectronics Yeah, that too.
3:45 *Ohhh! It's EXIT sign incandescent bulb replacement LEDs! Never need replacement!!*
*Those AREN'T Candelabra/Night Light sized??*
How does Fran not have a candelabra socket that size. Every boomer has a string of them in the outdoor Christmas lights junk box. Truthfully I might do the same thing rather than hunt through the attic for the real socket.
No, that's something else called, I think, intermediate size? Slightly larger than candelabra. Not uncommon in ceiling fans.
@@jeepien Intermediate is used in LavaLamps(tm) and built-in microwave ovens to illuminate the stovetop or kitchen counter underneath them . E26 is standard light bulb sized, E12 is for candelabras and night lights, and E17 is Intermediate.
Stop writing *fat*, you are not more important than others!
@@l3p3 :: Dahell are you talkin' about, Karen?
Carbon footprint is offset massively by the fact 10 bulbs will burn out before the LED one does, not to mention ancillary people needed to order, stock, replace, install each burnt out bulb as needed. Then you can factor in the energy savings which is 1/10th that of incandescent. hat's a lot of unaccounted for support carbon not required for the LED.
Now, LED exit bulbs are filament style LED bulbs, LOTs simpler.
❤️🔥FRAN❤️🔥
Buy American not
Chinese jukn.
Is that even possible
@@robertusa1234 It's definitely not practical righ now.
@ no question. I can buy a hole exit light fixture with built in led fir 29$ 59 with battery backup