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The power controllers for US refrigerator interior lights are designed to fail shortly after the warranty runs out. It costs more than $100 for a replacement.

(What, the light in the fridge needs a power controller? Evidently.) It has two surface-mounted resistors that are too small, under-rated, and burn out. They can be replaced with higher-wattage resistors, which sometimes works.

Of course the better solution would be to toss out the power controller, and jump the input voltage straight to the light. But connectors, voltages, yada yada.




What?

I'm pretty sure the light in my forty year old European fridge has never been replaced and is a perfectly ordinary 230 V incandescent bulb. Even if it were replaced with a LED why would it need any extra electronics?


Note I said "US refrigerator".

But with LED lighting, you need a converter from mains voltage to low DC voltage. A little bitty transformer and a pair of diodes, or even a low-duty-cycle oscillator driving a switching transistor, diode, and capacitor would suffice, but there is a lot more junk on the circuit board in US refrigerators.




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