A month ago I ordered one of these as a test. If it was any good I would order more.
From here http://www.ebay.com/itm/360656430164
What I received was of good quality, and I used the star, heat sink and lens in my Mag Mod. Up until now, every MR16 bulb that I have ever seen had a constant current driver in it, and my test order bulb was no different. It had a nice driver in it.
All well and good, so I ordered 6 more. Even though between my 2 orders, 4 weeks apart, and the seller only sold 12 other bulbs during that time, I received bulbs that were of a completely different quality, as though they all came from a different manufacturer.
I think that is the 2 that GarryBunk ordered 2 days after I did, 2 rows above my first order.
To me this means that a seller such as this one does not have stock on hand, but rather takes orders and then fills them from a supplier.
Here are pics of the total crap that I received on the second order. I will comment on what I see above each pic.
First pic, the lens has been removed. I wrote “11.4” on the star as that is the voltage across the 3 emitters that are wired in series. Up until now there was only 9.4V (different emitters) because the CC driver in the base limited the current to 300mA. This bulb is supposed to be drivin at 3W and the voltage and current readings of the first bulb I ordered verify that. Also the lead wires are soldered to the wrong place, very poorly I might add. They should have been soldered to those 2 unused tabs towards the middle of the star. Electrically it is the same, but by soldering directly to the emitter, the joint is disturbed. More on that later.
The applying of the thermal compound is so poorly done that it is almost comical.
I removed the star, looks like none ever touched the heat sink.
The “driver”, just a full wave bridge and some current limiting resistors. Resistors are a cheap and crude way of imitating a current driver. At 12V in there is 110mA flowing through the 3 emitters for about 1.2W (not 3W as claimed)
No capacitor on the back side of the “driver” That is because if 12V AC was the input, the voltage would rise to the peak value of the sine wave, or 1.414 x 12 = 17. If there was a for real CC drive, as there should be, that would be OK. In the case of the resistors, the current would rise above the 300mA level and blow the LED’s
Having said that, these next pics will show that it wouldn’t matter anyway. These bulbs are going to blow anyway
None of the LED’s touch the star! There are air gaps between every one of them. This is due in part to the first pic where the lead wires are soldered to the wrong place. In doing this, the emitter lead is disturbed and the LED lifts off the star.
I must add, that in this case the seller is as much a victim as I am. Because I believe that he does not keep stock on hand, he only relays what he gets from his order. Who could possibly check each batch. I only realized how bad these bulbs actually are because I took them apart to use the parts separately. I bought 6 and took apart 3. All 3 are as described above. I would estimate that they would probably blow within 15 seconds of connecting them to a 12V source.