Windell -

What is the expected infant mortality of the LEDs? I've got an 8 panel kit with the white LEDs, and three LEDs failed in the first four panels assembled. One was an outright dead sucker, and the other two were partial failures (responded to mechanical pressure, but resoldering wouldn't fix 'em).

Thanks -

Kevin

I've split this into a separate topic, as it didn't seem related to the "failure after a year" issue.

Typically, if an LED is going to fail in the panels, it's going to do so very shortly after installation, which is a *good* thing. The most likely cause of the type of failures that you are seeing is stress to the devices during installation. That could be bending the leads too violently to the side, such that it pulls the lead out of the LED, or too much heat during soldering.

Just replace those LEDs and be a little more gentle on the next batch.
And, if you are having to heat the solder joints more than one or two seconds, your iron is probably not getting hot enough, and that's the root cause here.

Thanks for the reply!

I had used that topic because the failure symptoms were similar.

I'm running my iron at 375 C; I normally get melt within a second. While I don't bend the LED leads (tape, instead) it's quite possible that when I reheat some of 'em to fully seat them, things get toasty. iTunes can be distracting... :-)

Kevin