LED nightlight strange issue

jeepinmatt

jeepinmatt

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Stanley, NC
I have a few LED night lights with photocells for the kids hallways. One of them recently "quit" working. When you plug it in, it flashes briefly and then ceases to work. Fiddled and diddled with it to no avail. For whatever reason, the wife plugged it into the GFCI receptacle in the bathroom and it works fine. Verified on 3 other normal receptacles on 3 different circuits, and another GFCI with the same result. Only works on the GFCI ones. Any idea why? Does GFCI stand for Good For Children's Illumination?
 
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Do those GFCI circuits happen to be on the same leg of the fuse box, and the hallway is the other? Idoubt this is relevant but something to eliminate.
 
My random guess is that the driver for the LED has something wonky in it that either has made it sensitive to minor fluctuations in the AC, and/or is causin ga slight fluctaution in current.
The transformer on the GFCI happens to have just enough of a stabilizing effect to prevent that wonkiness and allows the driver to work.
I'd bet if you got a spectrum analizer on each of the circuits you'd see a diference.
 
jeepinmatt said:
GFI's were also on different circuits. Not sure if they were on the same leg of the panel or not, but its not important enough for me to put in that much effort for a $3 night light.
Click to expand...
I don't give a shit about the $3 light. I am much more curious about what would cause this phenomenon.
The learning opportunity is worth more than the light.
 
RatLabGuy said:
I don't give a shit about the $3 light. I am much more curious about what would cause this phenomenon.
The learning opportunity is worth more than the light.
Click to expand...
I was going to say....I can theorize 3 or 4 different "Dr. House" scenarios where this could happen...but they are all OUT there...
Now I want to know what actually is happening.
Like I want to put an o-scope on this ish
 
Ron said:
I was going to say....I can theorize 3 or 4 different "Dr. House" scenarios where this could happen...but they are all OUT there...
Now I want to know what actually is happening.
Like I want to put an o-scope on this ish
Click to expand...
Spectrum analyzer would be better than an o-scope.
 
skyhighZJ said:
You need a paper clip.
Insert into outlet in question, how high does your hair stick up?
Insert into “good” outlet, compare hair. Boom
Click to expand...
Maybe this evening i'll start with the simple things like checking voltage of the outlets.

To add another wrinkle, the nightlight is just 2 prongs, no ground, so the GFCI seems like it should matter even less to my MechE brain.
 
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