Review: 10W Cool White LED Floodlight from Wallbuys

Other Types of Lights LED Spotlights
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During the Wallbuys New Years Sale, I picked up three of the 10W LED floodlights for $8.45 (regular price was $11.27).

I've seen similar products sold online for around $16 so I had to jump on this, even if the only good part is the enclosure. From what I have seen so far, they are well worth the sale price and there's room for improvement (check the first reply for some modding tips). it's not a bad looking light and the overall build seems good and durable. The lens is made of thick (4mm) glass (unsure if it's tempered). All external fasteners are made of stainless steel and there are weather sealing gaskets at every joint. The units that are built properly should handle any weather condition. They do not appear to be good enough for submersible use, however.

Product Specs from Wallbuys.com (SKU 5977)

- 10W 7000K 900LM High Powered Flood Light/Projection Lamp (100~265V)
- Silver grey shell
- Super bright: 850~900 lm
- Boast long service time
- Rated voltage:100-265
- 3-pin flat plug

- The whole weight: 480g (include package)
Packing dimensions:12cm( L )*9cm( W )*9.5cm( H )
size:12*9*9.5

The lights were packaged in a plain white box with no markings.

Out of the box, you get the enclosure with mounting bracket and Australia/Asia type power cord. Other parts of the world will need an adapter or change the cord. No user manual or installation instructions were included.

All three were fully functional out of the box. Only one had a small problem. The weather sealing grommet around the power cord was pinched and is not sealing the hole properly. I believe I can fix this, but I should not have to. It does indicate that the manufacturer may have some quality control/inspection issues.

OK, now for the fun stuff; tear down time!

Opening up the front means removing the four front bezel screws. This allows removal of the bezel, lens, gasket, and reflector which is held in by two screws. We now have access to the emitter.

The emitter is held in place by pressure from the reflector. It also has adequate thermal compound and should be conducting heat away nicely. I did notice that this enclosure is designed for the square-type 10W emitters; there are four tapped holes perfectly spaced for that purpose (check the mod comment below for an example). Note that the reflector is also perfectly cut for this as well.

The wires from the emitter snake through two holes that connect to the driver compartment at the back. This also opens up by removing four screws. The driver connects to the emitter via a two-pin captive connector, which allows the two enclosure pieces to be separated. I included a 14500 cell in this shot to give a sense of scale.

Right away, I noticed a serious safety issue with this light; the earth ground conductor from the power cord is not connected to the metal chassis. This would likely fail every safety lab approval in any country. If the AC mains were to somehow contact the chassis, it would become live and present a serious shock hazard. In one of my lights, I used the inner grommet nut to fasten the ground wire to the chassis, but this was difficult to do and probably still not safety approved. The proper way is to have a separate metal screw in the chassis that the ground wire can be fastened to. I plan to add this before putting these in service.

Update: Upon further inspection, I noticed that the power wire gauge is very small. The sheathing states 0.5mm2 (~20awg), however it looks much smaller than that maybe 22 or 24. I am not up to speed on minimum wire gauges, however I have not seen products in North America with wire smaller than 18 gauge. This small wire is making it difficult to connect the wire to a ground screw without accidentally breaking it. I would recommend changing the power cord, especially if your jurisdiction requires a larger gauge wire.

The driver itself is enclosed inside a small plastic case to keep it from contacting the metal enclosure. I find that this might be restricting the air space for the driver and heat dissipation may be a concern (especially if modding). Adding some additional holes on the top and sides may help.

A close examination of the driver reveals the current sense resistors, located under the large electrolytic capacitor.

The stock unit comes with a 1R2 and 3R0 in parallel for 0.857 Ohms total. This gives about 600mA of emitter current for an output power of just under 6W. The Power in was measured as 7.2W (120V, 60Hz) for an efficiency of 83%. For a light that is rated at 10W, it's rather underdriven at stock. Luckily for the modders among us, there's an easy mod to correct it.

Light output measurements confirm the underdrive condition. The unit throws 417 lm OTF. This was just under half the minimum stated in the Wallbuys (likely came from the manufacturer) specs. Even with this, the unit can still light up a reasonable area; just don't buy this product depending on the manufacturers stated light output.

Thermal management was good, with the integrated heatsink/chassis quickly reaching a stable operating temperature (see table below). Driver temperature was not measured. One diode was noticed as rather hot, but at stock it should be OK.

Cautionary Note: Since this driver appears to be designed for 220V power grids and the current sens appears to be on the mains side, you should check if this mod is necessary by measuring emitter current before attempting any mods. it may output the proper current when running on a 220V supply. I have 220V access, but I have to drag everything out into my garage and I'm way to lazy to do that :)

Dimensions:

Width (Bezel): 115mm

Height (Bezel): 87mm

Depth (Bezel to back of enclosure): 80mm

Depth: (Bezel to mounting bracket): 103mm

Cord Length: Approx. 1m

Cord Plug Type: Australia / Asia type three-prong plug, 22 or 24 gauge wire

Reflector type: rectangular, aluminum

Lens: Glass, 4mm thick

Weight (including cord): 466g

Performance:

Power In: 7.2W

Power Out: 6.0W

Driver Efficiency: 83%

Light Output (no lens): 450 lm

Light Output (with lens): 417 lm

Light tint: Cool White

Thermal Management:

Time 0m 5m 10m 15m 20m 25m
Temperature 19C 28.2C 31.8C 34.4C 35.8C 36.4C

Relic's Conclusion

Overall, I like these little lights. They simply do the job for me (although I needed to mod it to get what I want, not a big deal for me; YMMV). Buyers looking for a 800-900 lumen light will be disappointed by the output. Even a mod to give the correct emitter current cannot come close to the manufacturer spec (see mod comment below). If you are comfortable with performing the safety fix (or brazen enough to use it as-is) and are OK with the actual light output, this light is very useable.

I would like to see Wallbuys check with the manufacturer about the earth ground wire.

Recommended for those willing to fix the earth ground and safety issue, or if Wallbuys has the issue addressed by the manufacturer. Otherwise, it may not be worth the risk.

Update: I also recommend a different power cord, something with a larger gauge wire.

Thanks for reading! searchID8934

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Mod Update 1: Resistor Mod to increase output (Note: May not be necessary when running with 220V AC power, check your stock emitter current before making changes)
With emitter current at 600mA (running on 120V AC), this light is not driven hard at all. These LED modules are rated for around 1A with a 10V Vf giving 10W of power. I found an easy way to get closer to the rated power.

On the driver there are two parallel sense resistors. At stock, they are 1R2 and 3R0. I found that by changing the 3R0 to 1R0 (0.545 Ohm total), you get about 900mA of emitter current. The light output jumps from 417 lm to 564 lm. Emitter thermal management is still well managed:
table(table#posts).
|Time|0m|5m|10m|15m|20m|25m|
|Temperature|22.0C|36.8C|40.2C|42.2C|43.2C|44.8C|
I’d estimate that replacing both resistors with 1R0 resistors (0.5 Ohm total) will give close to 1.0A emitter current. I didn’t try this; I’m happy with 900mA.

As for the driver thermal management, there is one component of concern. A diode gets very hot, especially after the mod. My solution was to add a tiny heat sink to the diode and drill some extra holes in the plastic driver enclosure. before the heat sink, the diode would get to 100C in about 75 seconds. After adding the heat sink it took about three minutes to get close to 100C.

The heat sink is a small piece of battery tab from an 18650 laptop battery pack. I just soldered it to the lead and ensured it could not contact any other components.

Mod Update 2 coming soon: Warm White Emitter Swap

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Thanks for the review Relic.

I was going to do a review but you beat me to it.

If you don’t mind I will post some of my modifications on your thread.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with as well.

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You guys just have to show me what I missed out on… :open_mouth: 3 failed attempts to buy these on sale. And the latest weird wallbuys sale don’t seem to have this one as well.

Seems like a good host. 400lm is respectable amount of light, especially coming from real 7W input. This should be a good electric-saver light. I’m starting to like this already.

Thanks for the great review, relic! I do hope to see some measurements using 240V though, see if the driver give more output there. Maybe werner can chime in as he had this light as well.

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So far the LED floodlights are a disappointment. Like you said, expect 400ish lumen output which really sucks to be honest.
A 100W halogen will produce a good 1600 lumens, and you can get a Floodlight with a motion sensor and THREE of them for what…40 bucks?
Its not like they are always on, so the life of the bulb is less relevant, as is the power consumption. 225 watts is weaksauce compared to a washer/dryer or your AC.

edit: Look at this bad boy. 500 Watts of floodlight goodness.

You have to lay down a LOT of scratch to get an actual decent LED floodlight/spotlight currently.

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Thanks for the great review Relic. Im going to hold off with my XML conversions until I have a chance to relic-resistor-mod the seven floodlights I already have. I agree… these were a great buy for the housings alone. The overall quality is rather impressive.

Im looking forward to your mod post.

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I added a resistor mod to the first reply for those not happy with the output, or just want more more MORE! :wink:

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great review and thanks for the detailed mod info!

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I was going to recommend EZ-White 12V XM-L from goodluckbuys but seems it has no stock now.

So… three normal T6s in series? BAM! :bigsmile: 1200 flood lumens from tiny package.

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I like the way you are thinking… the emitters would cost more than the entire light though :wink:

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True for the triple T6s. A single 12V EZ-W only cost <$5 shipped though, I wonder who else have them for that price.

You think that driver is constant power buck driver? A single T6/U2/U3 will sustain 10W easily, if the driver bucks the output to 4V x 2.5A that’s still gonna be 700+ lumens.

Need to be sure about the driver though, so that it won’t cook the new LED.

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The drive is constant current, so it would stop at 600mA stock, or 900-1000mA with a mod. You would need three LEDs in series… or a 9V MT-G2 :wink:

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Nice job Relic. The fun begins!

A close-up of the resistors to replace:

3R00 and 1R20 appear to be in parallel. I dont have a small enough soldering iron or reheat station for SMD work. I know I can get those two resistors off with my soldering iron but will probably destroy them in the process. Can I remove both resistors and use a single larger one like this? (taken from a CheapThrills post)


What resistor would I need to giver close to 1.0A emitter current?

OR

Even better, could a 10 ohm pot work with both resistors removed? Then I could dial in the precise current. If the driver overheats, I could reduce the current without having to replace resistors. Are these a good alternative for continuous long term duty?

http://www.fasttech.com/products/1009/10000077/1224400

For thermal management, I was considering ditching the plastic driver case all together and affixing the back side of the board directly to the metal housing with a thick round dab of fujic or silicon (pressing very lightly and kept level to maintain electrical isolation). As for the hot diode, I was thinking about using a copper penny. 1982 or earlier pennys were 95% copper before they went to the zinc pennies. The lights will be mounted high up and out of reach, so Im not to worried about potential failures. I do intend to ground them properly.

What would be your advice? Thanks for helping a resistor newb.

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I'm a little confused on the resistor mod. Are you paralleling two new resistors on top of the existing ones (which is what it looks like in the photos), or are you removing and replacing one of them (which is what it sounds like from the text)? Can you post a close-up of the resistors after the mod?

Thanks,
Garry

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I removed the 3R0 and replaced it with a 1R0.

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I modded a couple of 12V lights with Nichia 219’s and new drivers:

I also did a 20W one with a new driver (after the original one blew).

Will bought a couple of 12V ones that turned out to be direct drive… no driver at all.

Chinese floodlights are like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re going to get. And some pieces are turds in disguise.

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Can anyone please help me with post #12? Thanks.

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Oops, missed your post somehow! Sry.
If you cannot remove the resistor, add a 1.2 Ohm for 0.5 Ohm total (1.0A emitter current) , or 1.5 Ohm for 0.545 Ohm total (0.9A emitter current). Any value between these should be fine too.

I would not use a pot, they are not rated for these kinds of currents.

Good luck with the mod.

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Thanks for the quick reply Relic. You da man!

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Thanks very much for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.