Replace CFL with white LEDs

The CFL lamps are very used these days as a solution for economic lights. In TUNISIA the good quality lamps are relatively expensive between 6 TND and 12 TND (about 4$ to 9$). At my house I have not good expeience with this type of lamps most of them are broken after one or two years of working.

Broken CFL in my stock

To have more information about CFL you can see the following good link:

http://www.pavouk.org/hw/lamp/en_index.html

As I have many lightening points I have decided to convert the CFL with LEDs to see the lightening power result. One CFL is replaced with 12 LEDs, one LED cost 0.2TND so one CFL is replaced with LEDs cost 1.4TND (1$) the other electronic components are picked from other electronic devices I already have in my workshop stock and also from the CFL circuit itself.

Powering LEDs from the main 220V source this is an easy manipulation by finding schematics on "google" (for example). I have used the following schematic designed by myself to power 12 LEDs:

Make attention this circuit is connected directly to the dangerous main source. Don't touch any point of the circuit before disconnecting the circuit from source.

1- we start by opening the CFL lamp:

2- Desolder and separate the three main parts of the lamp

We need only the two parts marked with red arrows

 3- By examining the circuit we can see that a capacitor is broken, this a common failure on this type of lapms with capcitors fail:

 4- I have cutted a circular part of wood that can be assembled on the front plastic part. this wood disc will be used to place the LEDs

5- after that we make the driver circuit and place the LEDs on the wood disc:

 6- we solder the parts together:

7- we assemble the parts together and we have the final LED lamp:

8- Power the LED lamp on the main 220V source and the lamp is lightening very good:

9- We can put our lamp with a milli-ammeter to see the current consumption, we can read 22.48mA this give us a lamp of only 4W (this is economic lamp!!!).

To be honnest the lightening is not very powerful, this can be used for low lightening needs. I have used them in my stairs, showroom and hallway.