SMALL REPAIR FORUM

Recessed ceiling lights are very popular with false ceiling at homes and offices. However, even the good quality ones last a few years depending on usage.

Usually a small portion of the LED stip goes bad, causing the entire light to fail or start blinking. It is a waste to descard the entire fixture because of the failure of a few LEDs, since these lights are expensive at around Rs 500-Rs 1000 each. Below we fix a Phillips Astra 15W model, atleast extending the life of the fixture.

First, remove the screws from the back of the fixture:

Carefully remove the back cover. Don't pull on the wire, as it may come off. Use a screwdriver to extend the spring outward so that the back conver can come off. Once off, you can see that only partial of the LED strip is lighting up.

Next, use a metal tweezer and short the individual LEDs around the fixture. At some position, shorting an LED will light up the rest of the fixture. See below:

So, the fix is to break that LED and permanently short it by soldering. Break it by pincihing it with the tweezer. It will look like below:

Then take a soldering iron, and cover it in solder.

That's it. Now turn on and check that the rest of the LED strip is lighting up.

Re-assemble the parts of the fixture. This is not a 100% fix, because over time other LEDs will fail with usage, but should extend the life of the fixture.