"No user-serviceable parts inside" Ha!

[vakkotaur]

or: Repair Beats Recycling

There were two "burned out" CFLs on the shelf. I managed to miss the recycling day by exactly a day (I kept asking the folks who should have known and kept getting 'idunno' replies, yeah government-level competence makes itself felt yet again) and did not feel like having them there another six months waiting the next event, not did I feel driving all over the place to dispose of them.

I had sent the LED bulbs back under warranty (and I have yet to see any results of that), but these were CFLs and had outlasted the warranty. Also, I'm not sure I still had the receipt and such showing the purchase. I plan to be much more paranoid about recordkeeping for light bulbs in the future. So if I don't chase all over the place to find someone to the things, I don't send them anywhere, and I don't leave them on the shelf, then what?

Repair. After all, these are not incandescent bulbs with a broken filament. They're fluorescent and it was pretty obvious that the circuitry in the base was what failed. The base had that peculiar 'something electronic got too hot' smell. I bungled the first bulb in trying to get the thing apart and wound up cracking the glass envelope. Nothing spilled, so everything is now in a zipped plastic bag. I'm not sure what I'll do with that one. I'd like to give it to some of the ignoramuses at the city office - they well and truly deserve it.

I did manage to get the second bulb base apart without breaking the glass envelope. After a while I managed to get fair if not decent access to the circuit board. It wasn't obviously charred and a big capacitor wasn't bulging. One 330k Ohm resistor didn't look right. It was darker than it should have been and had a spot that looked rather... boiled. I replaced it. I did a quick test and the bulb lit up after a moment. After reassembling the base, I put the repaired CFL back into service where one of the LED bulbs had been (and I had left the socket empty) in the office.

Now one bulb is back to being useful and the office is a bit brighter again. And I know how to get CFLs apart and have at least a chance of repairing any further burn-outs.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Wow, maybe you could let the CFL company know that their bulbs would last longer if they used higher-quality resistors.

Then again, fewer burnouts = fewer bulb sales. They may have intentionally chosen parts that are timed to short out a few months after the warranty expires.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that's the most common failure mode for these. Overall I've been rather satisfied with the life of the CFLs. I do wonder how many different apparent brands are all identical with different packaging and printing. It would not be a big surprise to find almost all came from the same factor{-y,-ies} in China.

These bulbs were/are a store brand of a regional chain out of Iowa. But that's just the vendor and the packaging. The bulbs were, as usual, made in China. I can only wonder what standards and quality control, if any, apply at the actual point of production.

These two failures are of bulbs that have provided 2+ years of service. Not the ideal full life, but out of all the bulbs in service some will fail early.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

I've been using CFLs since 1993. In all that time, I have had one bulb "burn out" on me. It was most likely electronic in nature, since it wasn't the typical failure that old fluorescent bulbs have when they burn out. The bulb just went totally dark.

It'd be awesome if these little gadgets were more accessible to the repair-inclined. I have ignored "NO USER-SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" for many years; in fact, I translated that to "COME ON IN AND FIX ME" at an early age.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Getting the thing slightly apart isn't too difficult once one realizes how to do it: Use a knife or flat screwdriver blade to carefully pry it apart at the 'ring' of notch near the 'top' of the base. There is a circular circuit board inside and just enough wire from the screw base to almost get decent access to it. Perhaps if I had undone the connection of the fluorescent tube (the connection looked like a wire-wrap) there would have been slightly better access.

We've had four CFL failures. One was 'infant mortality' of immediate flickering failure on first power-up. The others seemed to be more of the "just went dark" variety.

I think that originally "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" was a way saying, "Don't bother, there aren't any tube for you to check up on or try swapping out." Since then it has simply become a standard bit of lawyerbane. I generally ignore it as well.

[rbradakis.livejournal.com]

Are there pics of the disassembly?

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Nope. I wasn't documenting it, but see my reply to yakko.

[pharwarner.livejournal.com]

Great work on getting it going again, that's more than the vast majority could do.

I think I may have told you about the only CFL I've ever had anything to do with installing. It was at the Museum, and only lasted a month. I didn't replace it so never saw it to see what the problem might have been. Not an auspicious start. The replacement has been going for around four months though, no problem. It's a bit like CDs being originally marketed as indestructible. Over ambitious, at best.