Cold weather = flashing outside LED flood light?

Factual Questions
1

I installed an outdoor, two-lamp LED, motion activated flood light above my garage a year or so ago. I purchased it from an orange-branded home improvement chain store, cost about $80 or so. Works fine.

When the outside air temperature is -4 F or less, the light doesn’t stay on, it goes into a sort of strobe mode, where the light flashes about 100 times per minute. Both lamps flash together. At -3 is doesn’t do it, only -4 or lower. It’s happened twice this season, and a small handful of times last year. We have insanely low temperatures predicted for tomorrow morning, and I expect to see the flashing light again.

My Google-fu seems to be failing me - finding only how to make LED flashers - what’s going on with this light?

2

Frozen capacitors, probably.

3

Neither LEDs nor CFLs work as well in cold weather as old fashioned incadescents. I’ve seen the flashing strobe effect on an LED, and also found that CFLs take forever to warm up and give light in cold weather.

4

All manner of explanations for CFL cold temperature failure is available, but I’ve yet to be able to locate any inference to the same for LEDs. To the contrary, any info related to LED function indicates that LED semiconductor performance increases at lower temperatures.

My guess would be that the OP’s strobing LED problem is caused by inadequate circuit design in the infra red motion detection aspect, or, perhaps in the power supply (ballast) for the fixture… Not in some imagined inability of the LED itself to operate at low temperatures.

5

I think the cap most prone to freeze problems (at approximately -40 degrees Celsius) is an oil cap… not commonly used in this type of circuitry, but nonetheless, well below the temperature discussed here.

6

I’m not so sure. Ordinary electrolytic caps–used in pretty much everything–often only have a minimum temperature range of -25 Cish. Example. That’s -13 F; not too far below the OP’s temperature. I can imagine cheapy caps crapping out at even higher temperatures, or a poorly designed circuit not handling the change in capacitance over that range.

7

I have had two Defiant Model DFI-5985 from home depot over two years and both of them BROKE completely the minute the temperature dropped below 25.

8

I have a similar problem. Motion activated LED light. Solar charged.

It is timed to go on for about 1 minute when it ‘sees’ motion. When cold, it will switch on, then go off for a bit again and again. We are very rural, so it’s not bothering anyone really, it’s just a bit annoying. I’ll probably just replace it.