Bought a cheap LED shop light from Harbor Freight and it burned out in 3 months

Spent $28 on a 4000 lumen shop light for my garage because it seemed like a steal. It flickered from day one and finally died last Tuesday while I was trying to swap out a car battery. Now I'm looking at a proper Lithonia unit for around $60. Anyone else had luck with cheap LEDs or should I just bite the bullet on the expensive one?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_thea28d ago

Yo have you checked the actual drivers in those Harbor Freight lights? I grabbed one of those Braun units on clearance and it started doing this weird pulse thing after like two months. Took it apart and the capacitor was literally bulging. Like bro, a $3 cap would have saved the whole thing but they used the cheapest possible junk. My buddy swears by the Hyperikon ones off Amazon though, he's had one running in his dusty shed for like 4 years straight no issues. I ended up just grabbing a commercial electric one from Home Depot for $45 during a sale and its been fine so far, no flicker at all.

xenaf5128d ago

I grabbed a Hyperikon from Amazon about 18 months ago and mine started doing the same pulse thing around month 10 (but taylorc40 I see you had luck with the Nichicon swap, that's solid). Honestly I think the whole "spend a little more for quality" thing is overstated sometimes. My Braun from Harbor Freight is still going strong after 3 years in a damp garage, no bulging caps or anything. Maybe I got lucky, but I feel like people only post about the bad ones and the thousands of working units go unnoticed. I'd rather roll the dice on a $20 light that might last a few years than spend $45 on a Commercial Electric that could also have its own issues down the road.

taylorc4028d ago

I had the exact same issue with a Braun light from Harbor Freight. Mine started flickering after about a month, and I found the driver board had a cheap cap that was all swollen up. I ended up swapping it with a Nichicon cap I had lying around from an old computer repair job, and it's been running fine for about six months now. It's a bummer they can't spend the extra buck on decent parts, but the fix was simple enough if you have a soldering iron.