Possible Fake LED Strip Light JH-12C from "TYCOLIT"

Deltatango · Mar 31, 2022

My local store purchased a lot of this Chinese LED striplight JH-12C for himself they are dying like flies, I offered to look at one (he has 20 duff plus a shop full fitted).

I found a small power supply based on a TP8533 IC with three worn out capacitors fitted inside, from a look at it the LED's are fed from a rectified bridge so in effect live, this is fed into two strips of led's on a pcb slid into a aluminium backing with a white defuser.

The supply to it from mains is via a twin lead with no filters etc, insulation is via the rear of led's pcb and plastic ends to its metal backing.

Should it have an earth connection? or would it be rated as isolated?

I can fix the duff Chinese capacitors with 10,000 hour+ quality parts and leave it that or get more involved?

Now I note TYCOLIT is a reputed brand and the logo this has is different in a small way, plus other labels lead to not much of interest with the German location one only saying its a shop for food and goods but you have to sign in, and has a Chinese Director.

Can anyone shed some light on the issues I have raised please

Many Thanks from David

Lucien Nunes · Mar 31, 2022

That driver PCB looks highly suspect to me too. It has positions for a filter cap CX1, a VDR VR1 and a fuse F1 none of which are populated. Sometimes different versions of a PSU will have different filtering and surge protection but I can't see any legitimate reason not to fit either a conventional fuse or fusible resistor upstream of the rectifier. I would venture an opinion that they are non-compliant, and therefore as you say probably counterfeit.

The output is probably supposed to be isolated from the mains by the transformer. I'm not seeing a feedback optoisolator but there might be crude feedback from a tertiary winding on the non-isolated side. Whether the creepage and clearance distances on the board are up to snuff for the output to be SELV is another matter. Plus there's the transformer insulation to consider; if they skimped on the fuse, on the basis that the unit doesn't need it to function, they probably did the same with the double-insulated secondary.

I would not personally offer to repair them.