LED Interior Light Failure--Bathroom and Porch

[GrampaKilt]

The KAPER II bathroom LED and porch LED have quit working since last used in fall. There IS power to the soldered tabs on the LED wafer. These lights were essentially new. Any ideas on what's going on? Any hints on sourcing just the LED wafer? (Kaper website lists no replacement.) Unless there is a miracle fix, it appears I'm destined to purchase new units. The porch LED is still available from a few sources but I see no listing for the 'moisture resistant' bathroom fixture. Grrrr....

[Merlin]

Well, if there is adequate power (12VDC; 1A) to the fixture and no light, it seems it would be either the bulb or the plug (if it has one)? My only guesses would be corrosion or vibration. There are several pages of bulbs and fixtures on this site:

https://www.rvupgradestore.com/searchresults.html?Search=led+bath+light&Submit=

[GrampaKilt]

This I don't understand!

I was about to toss my LED fixture when for some reason, I touched the white wire (which had been factory screwed to ground) to the 12 volt feed, and grounded the black. And suddenly, there was...LIGHT! The LED wafer has a clearly imprinted -ve terminal with a white pigtail soldered to it and the +ve a black. So the factory workers did nothing wrong in their connections. I have so many questions. Like, did the manufacturer have a run of LED wafers with the imprinting reversed? Even more disturbing, have I really gone 3 years without noticing that the bathroom and porch LEDs didn't work (long summer days in the Great White North, eh)? GK

[DavidM]

Even in Chinese positive is + and negative (or ground) is -.

Stuff happens when it is made in China.

Glad you got it fixed.

David

[ADR]

I have seen LED lights that contain a diode bridge so they will work either way on DC- polarity doesn't matter.
If you are positive (no pun intended)  yours was hooked up one way and quit but works the other way it sounds like a diode failure in the bridge.

[charliem]

Stuff happens when it is made in China.

David

Beautiful paraphrase of Charlie's Third Law.

[GrampaKilt]

We humans have many foibles. Here's 2 of them. To assume something is true often makes an ass out of you and me. Definitely me in this case. And Occams Razor, which generally means the simplest explanation for an event, no matter how improbable, is likely the right one. After 'fixing' this LED problem, the weather turned uber wintery and I left further work on the LL until last week...when I discovered a myriad of 12 volt anomalies. But first, some history.

Last summer was taken up by a big move. Our 14DB sat idle until the day we loaded up. I hurriedly installed the trailer battery and hooked up the positive leads to the red plastic capped terminal and the negatives to the other. You probably know where this is heading...

Yes, I assumed the red cap was the +ve terminal. Besides, I never have or ever will mix up battery wiring. Ya sure—dang red cap! Now that I've switched the wiring, fuses don't blow, the trailer battery is charging off shore power, my trickle charger actually works, and it turns out there's nothing wrong with the TV's 12 volt feed. But alas, I have no light in my bathroom or porch

[Pinstriper]

Pin's First Law of Troubleshooting:

The root cause of every problem is an untested assumption.