LED Ribbon Light Failure Problems

[U Wash]

About 18 months ago I installed those new LED ribbon lights that were available in various colors. This one had two strands of LED's embeded in plastic that you could cut at designated points to fit the various distance runs on your building.
After 1 year I noticed a complete section of LED's were dead in the middle of my one run. At this time that entire run has now failed. Plus another run is showing the same failure pattern. Portions of the run of LED's have failed. The second strand I installed a controller from the light manufacturer that made the strand alternate between the two strands of LED's at different sequences. Now you can see dead spots as the strands turn on and off.

Has anyone else tried these lights and had the same problems? I talked to the manufacturer when the problem first happened and they had no good explanation. Since sections are going dead in the middle of a run where you have good LED's on both sides with dead areas in between, the only explanation to me is the LED's have failed.

 

[Dan kamsickas]

What brand of LED are you using?

 

[U Wash]

What brand of LED are you using?

I purchased Sunlitz LED Ribbon Lights. They are distributed by a company in Phoenix, AZ. Kleen Rite had a special on them two seasons ago. They were great when I first put them up. However, they are designed as a 100 foot long run that you can cut about every 4 feet to make up runs to fit your building or sign. After about a year the first strand I put up had some sections go dead, about the same length of the cutting points on the plastic. Now it is entirely dead. The second strand in now showing the same problem. Some areas of LED's will be completely dead with the LED's on both sides working fine.

I am going to try and video the lights and post them on line so if someone is knowledgeable they can may take a look and see what the problem might be or if it is a lost cause and they are totally shot. There is absolutely no way to replace the LED's inside the plastic. Splicing in new pieces would be alot of work and then the older ones next to them would probably fail. It would make more sense to replace the entire run. But I don't want to do that if it is going to fail again in 2 years. I wanted to try and determine if anything is wrong with my installation, I followed the directions, or if others are seeing the same failures.

 

[Dan kamsickas]

Interesting.

We are getting requests for LED lighting on products and want to make sure we do it right. What kind of warranty and or help are you getting from the manufacturer? 2 years is extremely low for the life of a LED.

 

[U Wash]

Interesting.

We are getting requests for LED lighting on products and want to make sure we do it right. What kind of warranty and or help are you getting from the manufacturer? 2 years is extremely low for the life of a LED.

I talked to the manufacturer when the first section went out. They said to check the connection where the 120 volts meets the LED strand. Considering a 4 foot length would be dead and sections on both sides were working fine, I did not feel we had a connection problem. The symptom develops with one section going dead, or in some cases just one strand in that section is dead. This ribbon has two strands that are imbeded seperately. They have a controller that allows you to sequence the strands off and on seperately if you want.

After a period of time another strand or section will die, again you can have working sections on both sides with dead areas in between.

I have not yet contacted the manufacturer or Kleen Rite the second time. I wanted to find out if this problem is being experienced by anyone else. However, I suspect there is limited useage of these LED's, I have no idea how many were sold.

I am going to contact them shortly and will post response. I bought another roll of the LED's just about the time I started experiencing the problem. I have not installed or even opened the box because I saw the first problem. Based on my experience now, I am not installing any more and asking to return the uninstalled roll. They are not inexpensive and it takes time and special track has to be used to install them correctly.