Need Help Samsung LED Modules failing - need support contact

[612 SIGNS]

We installed Samsung LED modules in several channel letter signs last year. Now, suddenly, many of them are failing with no apparent cause. The supplier who sold them to us has gone out of business, and we are having zero luck getting through to the right department at Samsung. Does anyone have a Samsung contact they'd be willing to share? Need to get our dollars back.

 

[Inks]

We installed Samsung LED modules in several channel letter signs last year. Now, suddenly, many of them are failing with no apparent cause. The supplier who sold them to us has gone out of business, and we are having zero luck getting through to the right department at Samsung. Does anyone have a Samsung contact they'd be willing to share? Need to get our dollars back.

Are they actual Samsung modules or 3rd party with Samsung chips?
If actual Samsung try here https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/led-modules/#
Click contact at bottom of the page

 

[a77]

Are they branded "NC LED" ?

 

[Inks]

Curious now, how many watts per module? how many modules per power supply?
Which power supply did you use? Is it possible you overloaded the power supply.
LED's seldom fail, power supplies fail more often

 

[a77]

LEDs seldom fail... but when then fail, they fail big time. You would assume the sign maker did something wrong, used the wrong power supply (but power supplies are mostly current limiting now), or something else. But then you find out there are thousands of LEDs that are failing, all made during a certain period in a certain factory overseas. Then you have to replace them all. Ask me how I know.

 

[Inks]

LEDs seldom fail... but when then fail, they fail big time. You would assume the sign maker did something wrong, used the wrong power supply (but power supplies are mostly current limiting now), or something else. But then you find out there are thousands of LEDs that are failing, all made during a certain period in a certain factory overseas. Then you have to replace them all. Ask me how I know.

I have sold millions of $ of LED's in the past and the quality modules from reputable manufacturers seldom fail. Almost all sign failures I encountered were power supply's. I had one GE module fail in 6 years and cannot count how many power supplies failed. Samsung as far as I am aware are not low end modules.

Out of curiosity which modules did you use that failed and which power supply? NC LED?
Some NC modules have Samsung chips. Do they have a 5 year warranty?

 

[a77]

Like you said earlier, just because it has a samsung chip doesn't mean it's a quality module. And a warranty doesn't mean much if the manufacturer claims to be going bankrupt.

And what would a warranty entail? For the millions of $$ you've sold.. what type of warranty is offered on those? Replacement modules? It's one of the least expensive components of a total sign so a replacement doesn't' help much.

 

[Inks]

Like you said earlier, just because it has a samsung chip doesn't mean it's a quality module. And a warranty doesn't mean much if the manufacturer claims to be going bankrupt.

And what would a warranty entail? For the millions of $$ you've sold.. what type of warranty is offered on those? Replacement modules? It's one of the least expensive components of a total sign so a replacement doesn't' help much.

You seem a little angry, keep in mind I did not sell you the failed modules. I sold mainly GE and they had a 5 year warranty and as I mentioned had one module fail in 6 years. This was before the $0.30 module craze and yes the modules are a small part of the sign but the box does not need to be replaced as a result of bad LED's.

Yes there are lots of crappy modules on the market. If you have to reload them due to failure then you picked the wrong modules and supplier. I left the LED supply side of the business two years ago and to be honest never heard of NC before.

You have access to GE, Sloan, Principal, Allanson and Hanley in BC, why NC? Best of luck in your future endeavors, I truly hope you never encounter an led failure again, I understand it is a real PITA.

 

[a77]

I may be angry, but not at you.
But can you let me know what a warranty gives you? When they failed for you - the one time in 6 years - what was offered to the signmaker? Free replacement modules from the same supplier?

 

[Inks]

I may be angry, but not at you.
But can you let me know what a warranty gives you? When they failed for you - the one time in 6 years - what was offered to the signmaker? Free replacement modules from the same supplier?

I worked for a distributor and we carried a few lines. If the failed modules were no longer available, we would have given you another manufacturers modules and power supply's no charge. Did you buy from a local distributor? If you did they should make you happy in order to secure future business and to show they back up the products they sell.

These are the go to people for LED's in Canada
Nigel at Allanson
Ken Curtis at Grimco/Hanley
Susan Svotelis at Sloan
Paul Gramza at GE

 

[612 SIGNS]

Are they branded "NC LED" ?

Some of them, yes.

 

[612 SIGNS]

I worked for a distributor and we carried a few lines. If the failed modules were no longer available, we would have given you another manufacturers modules and power supply's no charge. Did you buy from a local distributor? If you did they should make you happy in order to secure future business and to show they back up the products they sell.

These are the go to people for LED's in Canada
Nigel at Allanson
Ken Curtis at Grimco/Hanley
Susan Svotelis at Sloan
Paul Gramza at GE

Thanks.
The distributor is out of business, and I've not been able to track anyone down.
Thus the reason for needing a Samsung contact.

 

[612 SIGNS]

Are they actual Samsung modules or 3rd party with Samsung chips?
If actual Samsung try here https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/led-modules/#
Click contact at bottom of the page

Thanks - we've done so twice with no response.

 

[612 SIGNS]

Curious now, how many watts per module? how many modules per power supply?
Which power supply did you use? Is it possible you overloaded the power supply.
LED's seldom fail, power supplies fail more often

Thanks for the thought, but according to local suppliers (not Samsung suppliers), customer say they are failing widely at the moment.

 

[icedhot]

i have seen 2 separate installed with nc led modules fail on us within 1 year. we have since changed to jsled.

 

[Inks]

I am truly sorry to hear that 612, hopefully Samsung comes to the table to address it. I left the LED racket around the time modules dropped to $0.38 Canadian and power supply's were being sold for a third of what they use to sell for. It became a race to the bottom and the quality has obviously suffered as a result.

 

[Inks]

Best kept secret in the industry: Principal LED will pay you to replace modules up to $500, and power supplies up to $100. That's just labor.
They will also warranty most modules to 10 years & power supplies to 5 (I thought they were going to start moving those to 10 years, but I've replaced plenty in under 5 years, so they're probably not going to 10 years any time soon).
We go through GSG, and they handle the paperwork on warranty claims as long as we send the units back on their truck. So far we've replaced plenty of power supplies, no sticks or modules that I know of.
Also, they have an American manufactured LED they make in Texas called the Patriot.
So a main selling point with our signs is a warranty on all components for at least 5 years, we do not warranty labor though and folks understand that part, and we typically do not go after principal for the labor either.

I'd stay away from JSled, hanley, GOQled, and even GE (the led division has been sold off, same goes with appliances btw).

GSG is reputable, one of the larger if not largest Principal dealers and have provided LED's for some large programs.

 

[a77]

Some of them, yes.

Is there any reason to believe there is a fault with the Samsung chips? Or you're just trying to figure that out?

 

[Inks]

Samsung produces many different chips. They may have made a bad chip or is it a problem with how the third party manufacturer used the chip? Could it be a heat sink issue?

 

[Inks]

Most of the companies I mention do not do anything with those products. They order them in, with a fine chip(Samsung is a big name, Nichia is actually a bigger producer, producing chips for Principal included), then pay cheapest bidder to punch whatever molds over spec'd lenses and have no real quality control. From there they just warranty because they can throw 1/2 the mods away and still sell the rest for a profit. All of these companies use meanwell's or a meanwell with their label over it. Principal copied sloan who copied ge about 15 years ago on an extruded all aluminum chassis for the power supply, but evidently did not sell enough led's at the time. Then the market explodes and others jump back on the extrusion.

I could ask my gsg rep for some contact info for you. What distributor that went under is this in reference to?

Sloan had to copy GE because Sloan had so many power supply failures. I know because I picked up 100's for credit at that time.