Inside An IKEA LED Light Bulb

I’m usually happy with my IKEA purchases, but this one particular LED bulb was a big disappointment. It was installed in a desk lamp (also from IKEA) that wasn’t used much; I seriously doubt it worked even 500 hours overall, when it started failing. I did not have the receipt to attempt exchange or refund, so the only thing left to do was crack it open and learn what’s inside.

LED bulb,still whole.
LED bulb,still whole.

Under The Hood

The semi-transparent plastic cover, used to disperse the light and make it more even, is glued to the white “cup” and will not separate easily. First, I used a small knife – careful, there – to remove the plastic around its base (it was surprisingly brittle):

Uncovering the cover base
Uncovering the cover base

I peeled off the exposed glue and was finally able to take off the cover. It’s really nice; perhaps I’ll do a nice LED Arduino project with it some day. Underneath,  I could now see the LEDs themselves:

The LEDs inside the bulb
The LEDs inside the bulb

Looking carefully at the traces (embossed) on this white surface, it’s obvious that all 16 LEDs are connected in series. Assuming a voltage drop of about 3 Volts per LED, this means that the entire array needs 48V to work.

Conductive material traces (embossed) connecting the LEDs
Conductive material traces (embossed) connecting the LEDs

Two screws held a white ring with a raised inner edge; that too is used to scatter the light more evenly in all directions, like it does in an incandescent bulb. These screws also fixed the LED array with its metal base against the white “cup” of the bulb, which under the plastic cover is actually quite a thick metal structure:

LED array, plastic ring, and power supply inside the heat sink
LED array, plastic ring, and power supply inside the heat sink

This structure serves as a heat sink for all the excess heat generated by the LEDs, as further evident by the abundant thermal grease. LEDs may be more efficient than incandescent, but it’s still far from perfect. Without a chunky heat sink like that, the array would literally burn.

Inside the heat sink is the power supply: a small circuit that connects, on one side, through the lamp to the mains AC, and on the other via two metal prongs directly to the LED array.

LED bulb power supply top and bottom
LED bulb power supply top and bottom

The bulge in the black wire is, I guess, a safety fuse. The second, red wire remained inside the bulb when I tore this part out.

Everything seems in order with the power supply (the black spot on the back side is not a burn), so I have no idea what caused the problem. The bulb would work for several minutes, then dim to almost a candle for a few seconds, light up again for a few seconds and so on. The heat must have disrupted a certain component there, but that will have to remain a mystery – unless one of you readers can tell us more in the comments…

2 thoughts on “Inside An IKEA LED Light Bulb”

  1. If mine to evaluate, I would be checking out or changing out the two electrolytics that are seen on the PCB.

    1. Too late for that now 🙂 But also, it may be extremely hard to reach them without severing the wires.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.