Limitless LED teardown


Here at Ice Moon Prison we are conscious of how much energy our facility uses, hence we are early adopters when it comes to LED technology.  Sometimes too early.  A couple of years ago Limitless LED released these inexpensive warm/cool white bulbs in the familiar B22 form factor.  They ended up being relegated to the guest sleeping quarters because their light was too directional and they left parts of the room too poorly lit. We reluctantly went back to incandescent bulbs.

Then the bayonet pin on a bulb broke, rendering the bulb unsafe to use.  There was only one thing for it.  Teardown porn.

The translucent plastic cap came off with a bit of twisting, revealing the low-voltage board with its array of twelve cool and twelve warm white LEDs.  It’s easy to see why the light is so directional. The RF antenna pokes up and across the daughterboard.  The entire backplane of the board is metal, screwed onto the large aluminium heatsink.

Limitless LED low-voltage board
Limitless LED low-voltage board

The high-voltage board is tucked into the neck of the heatsink.  It looks reasonably uninteresting.

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2 responses to “Limitless LED teardown”

  1. Can you post a better image of the inside? Especially the top part is interested as this has several IC’s that take care of the wireless communication and color mixing. If the numbers on these parts can be visible (or you read them and post them, that would be great! Maybe custom wireless hardware is possible or hacking the firmware… who knows!

    Thanks!

  2. I don’t have the bulbs any more, but I can read the following from the photo:

    • BL24C02 appears to be an EEPROM.
    • 9926 appears to be a MOSFET driver.
    • LT8900SSK appears to be a 2.4 GHz radio chipset.

    The big 14-pin IC in the middle with the yellow pen smear is probably the interesting one, and I remember thinking that it was odd that it had no markings whatsoever. It’s probably a custom chip.

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