Bad day - Broken Light

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Beej1254

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Joined
Apr 29, 2015
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Location
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One of my EBay LED fixtures broke today. The white LEDS won't turn on anymore. I guess that's kinda what I get for buying them used or maybe just a cheap fixture in general.

Does anyone know if these things are fixable? Or even worth it? Can I just replace the LED panel? The power supply still appears to work as the power switch lights up and the fans turn on.

I'm still out of work from an injury so this hits hard..


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I had an LED do the same perhaps where part of it worked. I was told that I could probably buy replacement LED bulbs(?) and re-solder. It sounded like one of those jobs that is a pain to do the first time and after that makes sense.


I wanted to replace the lights anyways so never went further with fixing.
 
I agree with you. It sounds like much more trouble then I want to go through. I am concerned now about the one light being able to sustain my corals in the meantime. But it is tax season and I will also hopefully go back to work soon.

I think I'm gonna buy a new set...whether that is another set off eBay or a name brand I still have to figure out.


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If you have some basic electronic knowledge and soldering skills , then you may be able to repair the light fixture . If not then you will be better off time and money wise to get another light fixture . Just my 2 cents , wish you the best either way .
 
That's what I'm worried about. I don't have any knowledge of electronics components..I'm soldered before but it was only putting tiny power supplies together.

So are you guys saying pop off the white LEDs and replace them with new ones?


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It really depends on how they are constructed and what the problem is. If they are daisy chained together than any single LED failing could potentially take out the whole line of them much like christmas lights. If it's a problem with a single LED it could be bypassed. If it's a problem elsewhere then it's a whole different animal. Bottom line, it's already broken... What worse could happen by attempting to fix it?
 
That is a good point.

Here's some pictures if you guys know more then I do then I'd appreciate your input as to what I'm looking at..

ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1454973980.165519.jpgImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1454973995.433138.jpgImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1454974011.249794.jpg

As stated above I believe the power supply works..sense the power switch glows orange when the unit is plugged in and the switch is flipped. Then when turning the white side dimmer on from zero it clicks and the fans kick on but no white lights. Judging from all the leads coming from the power supply I don't see what could be missing to stop these LEDs from working.

To test I unplugged the LED panel..both white and blues and then connected the white side LEDS to the power supply for the blue side and still nothing kicked in. This is leading me to believe that like you guys said an LED went out and took out the whole Christmas tree.

ImageUploadedByAquarium Advice1454974327.755933.jpg

Just by looks this LED is noticeably different from the rest. I have no idea if this matters or not. To me it looks like a blown "bulb"??


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Ok. Scratch the different looking led off the list. It's a blue LED...and it works lol..


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I found this video on YouTube of at least how to change/replace LEDs in this unit. Although it doesn't say how to single out a non-working LED. I can totally do this but I would definitely like to try and figure out exactly which led doesn't work. Who knows maybe I can replace some LEDs with some reds or Violet's to fill up the spectrum.


http://youtu.be/Mwfv1LvVw0w

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Assuming the power rating is the same on both of the drivers try hooking the blue driver up to the white lights. That will tell you if the problem is with the driver or the bulbs.
 
From everything I read on the power supply they are the same. I tried doing that a little bit ago and no go on the white LEDs which I posted yesterday. I also found out that with a multimeter you can test the LEDs if you take them off the board to see if they work or not. Problem is taking each white LED off the board testing it and re-soldering the LED back on if it works. Otherwise I could get a whole new set of LEDs and just completely replace the whites without trying to find which ones work or not..

Shouldn't really be that hard just time consuming. A big issue is I don't own either a soldering iron or a multimeter.

Cost after buying LEDs, multimeter, soldering iron will be a good portion of just buying a new black box LED fixture to begin with....at least from the one source I looked at today.

For simplicity and money saving I am considering just buying white LEDs and the soldering iron. But I don't know which Kelvin rating LED I should buy. Any thoughts? My initial thought was this would be a great time to fill in the color spectrum with red/green/violet. Again any thoughts on this?


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The link below may help. You can try out diy LED builds for spectrum and loss by depth (for red light mainly). Are you doing a planted tank or reef?

Custom LED Strip - BML Custom

I went back and found the LED bulb pics on mine that had blown (front centre bulb in link). The bulbs were cracked or broken and they looked burnt.

Your setup looks similar to mine and I tried the same thing of swapping hardware around to try running it but the bulbs had gone. I found it would still work at a dimmer setting of 50% but above that, one set of lights would flicker.

I ditched it for a t5ho. It's a shame I'm not in the US as I could have posted the two other working box LED units I have that are not being used.

74564-albums13177-picture69245.jpg
 
Thank you for the link! That site looks like a good potential candidate if I decide to just get new fixtures. I messed around with some different options on the site and got some things I liked. I also like how they are apex compatible.

Also thanks for the picture of your LED panel. I'm gonna take a closer look with a magnifier and see if I can notice any signs of blow LEDs. This will save me a ton of money and time if I can find something.

Edit: I'm still doing my reef tank just trying to replace lighting because of the fixture breaking. I'm kinda curious what you guys think of supplementing my black box LED fixture with t5HO instead of another LED fixture?

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Good news it helped :)

I can't really comment with reef tanks. Perhaps a separate thread if no luck here.

I had a reef light but was running the white light only for planted tank. I've picked up the Seneye Reef to get some relative par readings between LEDs and t5ho but having trouble getting the data from the meter connected to a computer.

Imo (with a pinch of salt) the LEDs were way more powerful. LEDs were running for 6hrs and the quad t5ho I have now runs for 8hrs.

I'm also unsure how t5 bulb decay with time is an issue. I'm hoping to record that as well.
 
Ok I think I'm really leaning toward buildmyled.com! They seem like great fixtures for a decent price.

I'm considering 2 either 12" or 18"
20000k Reef Spectrum - XB fixtures.

With an apex dimming cable

Sense my 5' long tank has this huge glass brace in the center I want to continue the split lighting fixtures because it's worked well before.

I'm really interested to hear your guys input on this before I make the purchase. I'm hoping that this will be enough to cover my tank and enable me to keep all my corals happy from sps to softies.

Because I had good success with the black box Chinese LEDs I'm hoping to find a suitable replacement with maybe more features (apex compatibility). This is about my price range right now so if this won't be sufficient then my back up plan is the galaxyhydro 165w wifi (about $300 for 2) or the marsaqua 165w unit ($180 for 2 and no real features)




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Well I finally have my light back! A LFS replaced all the white LEDs for me and even added 3 red. I'm happy with the repair so far and it was relatively cheap. Especially considering cost for a new set of lights


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It actually wasn't too bad...a shop I've said I didn't really care to go to before because it was dirty and the owner is hard to talk to fixed it. He did it pretty quickly actually I'm very happy with it. I guess it is true that you can't judge a book by its cover. I'll have to leave him a really good review in google maps so other people know he's good.


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