|
I have a very odd problem. We have a bathroom outlet which had an LED night light on a photo cell operating for several months. It burned out and my wife bought a 5 pack of the same kind. The second one burned out within a day and then a third. If I plug one into another outlet, no issues. Voltage appears fine at the outlet and there are no major current draws on that circuit. It appears that the resistor that is burning is part of the photo cell circuit and not the LED. It is warm if you touch the area while the light is off and cools after the light comes on. In the alternate outlet it gets warm but never burns, but in the problem outlet, it burns the resistor after several hours of being off. I found the issue quite perplexing as I have never seen such an issue. Any ideas are welcome as I just can't wrap my head around the problem |
October 01, 2025 |
|
Likely a floating neutral or leakage current on that outlet keeping slight voltage on the photocell when "off". Have you tested for neutral-to-ground voltage or tried plugging it into a different gfci-protect outlet? |
October 21, 2025 |
| Add comment... | |
No answers yet. Contribute your answer below!
You must log in or create an account (free!) to answer a question.
Anyone can ask a question.
Did you already search (see above) to see if a similar question has already been answered? If you can't find the answer, you may ask a question.
CircuitLab's Q&A site is a FREE questions and answers forum for electronics and electrical engineering students, hobbyists, and professionals.
We encourage you to use our built-in schematic & simulation software to add more detail to your questions and answers.
Acceptable Questions:
Unacceptable Questions:
Please respect that there are both seasoned experts and total newbies here: please be nice, be constructive, and be specific!
CircuitLab is an in-browser schematic capture and circuit simulation software tool to help you rapidly design and analyze analog and digital electronics systems.
Please sign in or create an account to comment.