Tag: led

Panasonic TX-55AXW634 backlight (short-term) fix (WHL #84)

TVs are apparently still a thing, and so are defective ones. Here’s what I did to a 55″ Panasonic TX-55AXW634 with the red blinking light of death – likely also applicable to similar units of the “LA58 chassis” generation, e.g. the TX-48AX630B 48″ unit or the even smaller 40″ TX-40AX630E. While this fix isn’t perfect nor permanent (I heard it lasted for four months, when presumably another row of LEDs died), it’s good enough to keep the TV going for a bit longer, so one can order spare parts or decide/save up for a new unit. […]


Noname LED bike helmet autopsy (WHL #81)

Chinese junk that appeared on my work bench this week!

Well – it’s a bike helmet. An LED bike helmet. A colleague brought it over and asked if I could install an USB type-C port since he (or his wife?) brutally murdered the micro USB in the back. Sure, pinouts are basically identical and access to the thing is darn easy. Oh, no, they’re not.

Turns out this thing can be tossed, since he doesn’t want her to use a nonfunctional LED helmet that furthermore still has a ticking lithium time bomb in it. So I did, after extracting all the goodness shown below. […]


Flashlight comparison – Dimmable Triple XM-L2 vs USB rechargeable XPL HI (WHL #74)

China gadgets, finally :cool:

Both of these have been laying around for years now. Time for a review – we currently got a little bit of a snowy April, but mosquito season has already started and four of those bastards have made it inside my living room. No survivors :twisted: And of course, those flashlights can also be used for, you know, flashlight stuff. Finding things, not tripping over other things, sitting around with empty batteries and so on…

So, the contenders:

“Roxane X6 XPL HI 1850LM 650m Type-C Rechargeable LED Flashlight IPX7 Waterproof USB Charging 26650 Powerful Searchlight – Cool White”, bought from Banggood almost two years ago at 25,56€ including shipping. […]


ESP32 hardware faders (#P27)

Maybe my google-fu is rusty, or there’s simply no full example of this on the Interwebs…that’s pretty strange.

This is about the cherished ESP32 that will feature an extension/replacement of my #P7 series. This was an ESP8266 board that replaced a dumb lighting control, offering sensor logging to a database. I quickly found out that the limited pin count (and quirks) of the ESP8266 would require me to think about e.g. shift register extensions to make the entire project viable – which now got replaced with the large ESP32 that does have all the flexibility that I need. […]


Fujitsu P20-2 finalized CCFL to LED conversion (#P9F1)

Canned content, for when I’m busy with stuff that’s not definite yet.

A while back, I tried the CCFL to LED conversion on one of my Fujitsu 20″ monitors. I only had warm white LED strips available at the time, mostly because I no longer require cold white DO STUDY NOW atmosphere at home ;) However piss-yellow doesn’t really shine behind an LCD, so I ordered some cold whites. AliExpress -“2018 New 1m 1200LEDS 2835 SMD LED Strip 24V 1900lm 240LED/M Gold Line LED Ribbon LED Tape Light Cool White Warm White Natura”. 6000K color, 12V, “14-18W”. […]


Fujitsu P20-2 CCFL to LED conversion (#P9)

Okay, so here’s something that I wanted to do for a long time, but it makes no sense in terms of time and money. But hey, I finally did it and it was fun!

I’ve shown my old Fujitsu P20-2 monitor previously as a comparison to the current 3440×1440 setup. It’s an old prosumer-grade 1600×1200 display, 20″, 60 Hz S-PVA panel with VGA and DVI inputs. Really good stuff. I got two of them after they failed by the dozen at university, where the tech guys even did a capacitor swap (these were in the upper three-digit Euro range when new, their replacements are totally overpriced 2560×1440 displays for 700€ a pop). […]


Lenovo Thinkpad R400 LED Display backlight fix (#P3)

Yes, it’s running in the “projects” category, as “quick and dirty weekend fixes” isn’t available yet :mrgreen:

While I was hosting my brother, he casually asked me when I will fix his display. Umm…what?
Turns out, his Lenovo R400 was showing vertical stripes again. Like these:

(jup, stolen from some Apple customer help page – I didn’t take a photo at the time. I guess the bug is a watermark, isn’t it?)

Update from 23rd of December in 2020: By pure luck, I found this one from the previous issue while shovelling old photos and other data onto my server. […]


Müller Licht 5.5W/220-240V/50Hz/38mA/470lm/2700K/dimmable/E14 EB1500665 40036 (WHL #12F1)

Another one bites the dust :suspect:

Three months after the failed E14 LED light bulb in WHL #12, the second unit (out of four) died. It came back to life a few times (a few seconds each), and I reckon now the magic smoke has finally escaped.

All of the remaining bulbs show this distinct yellow shading on the diffusion globe. The replacement one still looks white, like shown in the previous post. But this one clearly failed…look at it, I think it sneezed one single LED off the board. Bless you! […]


Müller Licht 5.5W/220-240V/50Hz/38mA/470lm/2700K/dimmable/E14 EB1500665 40036 (WHL #12)

Bit unusual item today – a plain E14 LED bulb that is sold in Germany, made by a German company, but I suspect it is made in China. Müller Licht has some stuff actually manufactured in Germany as well, but I don’t think this one was. But as it is not clearly indicated on the bulb and/or on the retail package (as far as I can see from product photos), I cannot say for sure.

Well, this was one of four identical bulbs that I bought for replacing halogen bulbs in my new home. I cost me 6.39€ a piece back then, shipping was free due to buying loads of other stuff and easily surpassing the free shipping limit at one of my favourite shops, voelkner.de. […]


DC 12V 5M 300LEDs Not Waterproof Single Color RGB LED Strip 5050 SMD 5630 3528 Flexible Light Neon Lamp Tiras LED Light Garland (WHL #7)

…also known as

NEW DC 12V Not Waterproof 5050 5630 3528 Single Color RGB LED Strip 5M 300LEDs Flexible Light Neon Lamp Tiras LED Light Garland

DC 12V 300LED 5M LED Strip 5050 RGB 5630 3528 3014 Not Waterproof LED Strip Light Flexible Neon Lamp Tiras LED Light Tape Stripe

or

5m/roll SMD 5630 DC 12V Not Waterproof LED Strip White / Warm White String Lights Fita Lamps for Home Lighting Cabinet Decorate

Well, you get the idea. It’s LED strips this time, and I chose 5630 size in warm white color. I’ve been ordering quite an amount of these, and in hindsight, I would rather buy A LOT of them instead of getting 1-2 reels at a time. […]