Many LED bulbs are becoming more expensive some even have bluetooth and wifi but do they have MOVs or other transient suppressors between the line voltage and series capacitor?

if there were a high votlage transient those capacitors might be damaged unless they are self healing type.

 

Many LED lamps use small switchers and buck regulators instead of capacitive droppers.

 

Those are probably the more expensive types.

Yes, more expensive but not necessarily absolutely expensive. It seems that lamps with special features do this. So they probably do have MOVs if they have WiFi.

 

I have a Phillips Hue lamp here that will soon be Dremeled open, that should be a good data point on high end supplies. I'll let you know.

 

Pictures would be nice. Do you consider Phillips Hue as being an absolutely expensive variant?

It is certainly a premium lamp. And Philips is very good at design and manufacture. For example. I've partially dissembled it, and there is a connector for the LED board that is captivity connected to the heatsink so the LED board plugs on. The heatsink also forms a shield over the PS in the base, which is why I need to cut it out.

Photos forthcoming when I open it.

I will also open a GE lamp, which is mid-high range quality and uses Zigbee as well, so I expect a good supply in it.

 

Many LED bulbs are becoming more expensive some even have bluetooth and wifi but do they have MOVs or other transient suppressors between the line voltage and series capacitor?

if there were a high voltage transient those capacitors might be damaged unless they are self healing type.

The "Smart" LED's typically have ...
1) Input Filtering
2) A Full Wave Bridge to convert Line AC to High Voltage DC
3) An Isolation and/or Switching Transformer for multiple Low Voltage DC outputs
3) PWM Voltage Controller

The "Dumb" LED's typically use the Capacitive type Current Limiter.

 

Those are nice and expensive lamps.

Those lamps probably have UL and another organisations' verification. Are you opening them to check whether they are wired properly before screwing them in?

I've used Philips Hue lamps for a long time, they are extremely reliable and it's been three years without a failure. This "failure" was caused by dropping the lamp and breaking the outer bulb, so time for a teardown.

Unfortunately, the base is full of potting compound, but it's rubbery so I might be able to go past it. I stopped to get a photo and I will try to take it down further. That is a really big cap, though. it as about 560Ω to the live contact. The smaller one is about 1KΩ to live.

 

Hello,

@Yaakov , Thanks for the nice pictures.
It looks like there are two PCB's in the base of the bulb.
One is clearly the power supply the other the led controller.

Bertus

 

OK, so that potting compound flowed everywhere inside the base. The base is a plastic covered 1mm aluminum shell. I was able to cut it off and with a lot of fiddly work, I managed to remove the rubbery compound which was over, under, and through everything but really didn't stick to anything. Razor knife, pliers, and tiny screwdriver got it all off—oh, and I helped.

I managed to break the antenna "tail" from the logic board, so I reattached it for the photo.

As you can see, these guys aren't fooling around. That big yellow cap is an X2 rated part.

If anyone would like a different angle, please say so. I can also read any part numbers that aren't visible if you'd like

PS Top View

PS Bottom View

Logic Board Top View

Logic Board Bottom View

 

Also, these images are quite scaled down, so any section can be called out in detail.

 

Philips HUE (2016) LED Bulb Tear Down ...