Topic

Who’d a thunk……cheap arse Chinese LEDs wouldn’t be reliable?

The LED effect was invented/ discovered in 1907 by a British chap, the first red LED was demonstrated by a British chap & a group of British chaps at Cambridge university are busy making further development. Needless to say non of these chaps made any money out of their work, even the folk working during the 1930’s in Eastern Europe who pushed developments forward ended up with not much. It goes without saying that the almost bottomless research grants at American university’s transformed these ideas into commercial products etc etc etc.
Out of the untold trillions of devices made there’s going to be the odd failure, it’s strange that two of those chose to die in your dashboard.
M

Sorry, I do not buy the faulty "chinese" LED bit, as airportable said trillions are made, and this type of simple LED rarely fail once burnt in. The chances of having a rare faulty ABS module and an extremely rare LED failure on the monitoring system for that ABS module at the same time is a 'winning the lottery' type of odds. Being a very distrusting soul when it comes to previous owners, it's possible the ABS light was deleted to pass MOT , and while in there the EML was also sorted, as that can be another MOT failure light.

Have had that scenario on a BMW Z3 with a dodgy MOT. New ABS module would have been £1100. On a nothing to loose basis cut it open and re-soldered every joint I could and got lucky. Explained to PO what a fine chap I thought he was. ......

Glad you got it all sorted, and hope the EML does not start a new thread ......

Hi santapod, something was bugging me with your photo of new cluster. The MG TF does not have 2 EML warning lights. The new one at the top is not operational on SAIC UK MG TF. Just checked in owners manual and on my car, no light. Strange

markvrs wrote:

Sorry, I do not buy the faulty "chinese" LED bit, as airportable said trillions are made, and this type of simple LED rarely fail once burnt in. The chances of having a rare faulty ABS module and an extremely rare LED failure on the monitoring system for that ABS module at the same time is a 'winning the lottery' type of odds. Being a very distrusting soul when it comes to previous owners, it's possible the ABS light was deleted to pass MOT , and while in there the EML was also sorted, as that can be another MOT failure light.

Have had that scenario on a BMW Z3 with a dodgy MOT. New ABS module would have been £1100. On a nothing to loose basis cut it open and re-soldered every joint I could and got lucky. Explained to PO what a fine chap I thought he was. ......

Glad you got it all sorted, and hope the EML does not start a new thread ......

Clearly you haven’t worked on as much Chinese shit as I have!
I spent 2 1/2 years uncrating brand new Chinese commercial machines and rebuilding them so as they’d be in a saleable condition, recrating them so as they could be sent to the poor unsuspecting customer.
The only thing that I’ve encountered that was worse was a chlorine batching plant that came from India……Truly horrific and bloody dangerous, some poor bugger got killed by that appalling piece of engineering.

markvrs wrote:

Have had that scenario on a BMW Z3 with a dodgy MOT..

Seeing as it was a BMW did you also have a go at checking the indicators ? They must be very fragile or over complex as BMW drivers never seem to be able to use the bloody things.

Hi Cobber, totally agree with you in general with Chinese stuff, I was only referring to Simple LED failings. I imported millions £ of goods from sister factories in China and my QA/QC engineers were frequent flyers. What we loved was that when a Chinese factory made a mistake they could replicate it on every single item, LOL. Could not knock them on consistency only on quality.

On the Chinese MG TF it is appalling how bad the few extra bits that are actually Chinese are that were not designed and overseen by MGRover engineers. The "Chinese" dashboard was actually a MGRover design and spec in pipeline before MGRover collapse, and not implemented due to financial constraints at the time.

Hi notanumber, what did I do to upset you?

Should we introduce an irracibility scale similar to the Scoville scale for chillies. Obviously our dear friend Cobber would be hitting 8+ on a regular basis, which is not surprising for an antipodeen but odd for an early f owner, most of whome are usually 1,2 & possibly 3. Just a thought, although I have come across an unusually large number of BMW drivers with blown indicators. I always put it down to a bad batch, maybe BMW were early adopters of LED technology in motor cars & had quite a large number in stock, possibly from China & it took time for the problem to become apparent. I've always assumed this to be the case as this unfortunate failure of bulbs can be observed in BMWs made across many years.
M

markvrs wrote:

Hi notanumber, what did I do to upset you?

You are ok by me. I do have a thing about BMW drivers though.

Take pity on the poor bloke who fits the indicators at the BMW factory…………he does so in the knowledge that his life’s work is utterly pointless as no one will ever intentionally use them!

This is dreadful news, being one who always give my fellow man the benefit of the doubt I can’t believe that someone who fails to indicate their intentions whilst driving would be drawn to one particular make of car.
Do you think it psychosomatic?
One of my friends, who has also observed this deficiency told me it was because the indicator controls were in an obscure position, but Terry can’t be correct in thinking that they are mounted under the sun visor. Surely they would interfere with the sun glasses clips. Terry also says that BMW drivers have very sensitive vision as they need sunglasses even at dusk & in the rain.
I’m still sticking to poor quality control in the indicator bulb department & an ophthalmic imperative.
Right I’m off to repair the toilet, it isn’t as bad a job if there’s good reason for failure, it was a particularly good curry.
M