PSA: Beware of Cheap eBay Fixtures. Fire!

Thanks for sharing this helpful information. I was going to get one of the 120 watt ones that are sold on ebay, but I read that another fellow reefer had his catch on fire. I believe he caught it before it did any damage to his place. Then the seller on ebay that gave him the warranty refused to replace the light. 6-8 months ago there was only one or two people selling these lights. Now there are a lot of them, and every one of them claims theirs is better.

I guess I will wait until next year to switch to LED's, they are just too expensive

 

Good post, I always wondered how those things were so cheap. I have modified a lot of cheap (chinese) lighting fixtures and regularly find bad solders and connections that could cause such things. Fixable if you know what to look for in the wiring.

 

What caused this fire? Was it the cheap power supply or did the led catch on fire from overheating due to a cheap heat sink? Just curious because I use Chinese leds.

 

Doubt anyone will ever have an answer that specific, as it happened when no one was there and all that was left was a burnt pile.

It started in the light's housing itself, but what the "it" was could have been either.

 

Coming from a fire investigator...there has to be a want to find out as well. It is very easy to blame the fixture and call it a malfunction. Once the determination is made most of the follow up responsibilty comes on the arms of the insurance company. It was my job to figour out what happened, and it would be very easy to call it a faulty fixture and just go with that.

 

I have never seen a LED burst into flames, my money is on the power supply. Like stated before, cold solder is a big issue with chinese electronics.