SainSmart 21-Segment Music VU Meter Tower LED Kit

Thanks Kris. Funny thing was, they contacted me again and told me they were going to send an entire replacement kit. I told them I just wanted the missing crystal. They responded and said this kit was no longer available from the manufacturer and to check with Massdrop as you were issuing a refund. I did receive an email notification from Massdrop as well. Just strange, they dont seem to have their act together. I also noticed Massdrop is running another campaign for this manufacturer for a different “assembled” kit. Hmmmmmm.... 😁

I desoldered each led and tested them on a breadboard. Unless I somehow misconfigured it in a way half burnt out, they had a 50% failure rate. Either way, Massdrop has refunded me as this clearly is a situation where a vendor tried to pull a fast one on them. So big ups to them.

OK, are all of the 0805 surface-mount 1k ballast resistors installed? It's really unusual for LEDs like this to fail right out of the box.