Analysis and Recommendations for LED Catastrophic Failure Due to Voltage Stress

Light-emitting diode (LED) lighting has, compared to other types of lighting, a significantly lower energy consumption. However, the perceived service life is also important for customer satisfaction and here there is a discrepancy between customers’ experience and manufacturers’ statements. Many customers experience a significantly shorter service life than claimed by the manufacturers. An experiment was carried out in the Pehr Högström Laboratory at Luleå University of Technology in Skellefteå, Sweden to investigate whether voltage disturbances could explain this discrepancy. Over 1000 LED lamps were exposed to high levels of voltage disturbances for more than 6000 h; the failure rate from this experiment was similar to the one from previous experiments in which lamps were exposed to normal voltage. The discrepancy thus remains, even though some possible explanations have emerged from the project’s results. The lamps were exposed to five different types of voltage disturbances: short interruptions; transients; overvoltage; undervoltage; and harmonics. Only overvoltage resulted in failure of the lamps, and only for a single topology of lamp. A detailed analysis has been made of the topology of lamps that failed. This lamp type contains a different internal electronics circuit than the other lamp types. Failures of the lamps when exposed to overvoltage are due to the heat development in the control circuit increasing sharply when the lamps are exposed to a higher voltage. Hence, it is concluded that there are lamps that are significantly more sensitive to voltage disturbances than other lamp types. Manufactures need to consider the voltage quality that can be expected at the terminal of the lamp to prevent failure of lamps due to voltage disturbances. This paper therefore contains recommendations for manufacturers of lighting; the recommendations describe which voltage disturbances lamps should cope with.