FTIR Analysis Proves Manufacturing Defect

An automotive warehouse had a building less than a year old when most of their LED lights began to fail. Before any investigation took place, the LED light manufacturer attributed the failure to the fumes from the products stored in the warehouse.

Envista’s materials science expert was called in to perform testing of the lights and was able to determine that the failure was occurring in the LED printed circuit boards where the LEDs were mounted.  The boards were then sent to Envista’s Materials Lab for a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analysis.

The FTIR analysis revealed that there were no foreign chemicals contributing to the failure of the LEDs, and that the failure was a result of overheating from an internal defect. 

Envista’s findings were reported to the client and the manufacturer and in turn, the manufacturer had to replace all defective light fixtures, at no cost to the client, saving them over $300,000.