Black box blue LEDs not working.

mopar9012

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As the title reads. My blue LED bulbs will not come on. Sometimes. When first giving them power, the blues to blink once and then stay off.

I opened up the box and don’t see any loose connections. Any ideas? Power supply cable is good.
 
Most likely a transformer burned out most of the boxes I've taken apart have cheap transformers inside. It's an easy fix if your comfortable with wiring it in. If you have a multimeter you can check for power coming out of the transformer on the low voltage side. I work with LEDs if your close I can swing by and give a hand.

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One of the leds has probably died. The way the two channels work on black boxes is all the leds each channel complete the circuit. One dies and the whole channel goes down.
If it's not an individual led then it's the power supply or driver. I have the drivers if you need one but you'd have to buy a power supply if one is bad.

There are a few tests you can do. Like Primereddime said with a multimeter. Or you could swap components around to see if the blue channel will fire up.
A powered multimeter can test the individual leds too. With meter set to continuity there is just enough power to dimly light a led when you put the probes on tabs of each led, polarity has to be correct but they will produce a little light.
 
Didnt even think of that. I've got a v1 reefbreeder that I had to do that with I swapped the white channel transformer to the blues over my QT setup.

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So I took a meter to each bulb. Most of the light up, some didn’t. Should I be concerned?

All the lights showed a 1 when checked for continuity except one. That one bounced around and then settled at .003. Would that be the issue there?
 
So I took a meter to each bulb. Most of the light up, some didn’t. Should I be concerned?

All the lights showed a 1 when checked for continuity except one. That one bounced around and then settled at .003. Would that be the issue there?

I'm betting that led is on the blue channel and is the reason for your problem. If there are any UV leds on the board they are very hard to see. The room has to be pretty dark to catch the slightest bit of light.

How old is the box?
 
Can I bypass that without buying a new bulb? I don’t even know where to get a bulb.

the fixture is about 3 years old.
 
If the others read 1k ohm, you can cut the wires to the bad led and solder a 1 k ohm resistor in it’s place. That should do it.

Be sure to insulate the wires & resistor, or you may let the magic smoke out ;)
 
At 3yrs old and having a led go bad probably means there will be more to follow soon. Look at the Blue leds. If you've had them at a pretty high setting then I'm betting the you'll find the "magic smoke" as they'll look brunt... or dare I say smoke colored.

I would just replace the whole board is this point. And the power supply(s) while you're at it. I have two drivers I can give you.
At that point you basically have a whole new light less the housing.

You can get a new board here. Plug and play pretty much.
 
if I did want to replace the bulb. Any idea where to find one? I think they are called diodes but I can’t seem to locate any that look like mine.
 
I may have a black box light available to loan you, if you’re in a bind?

Where are you located?
 
if I did want to replace the bulb. Any idea where to find one? I think they are called diodes but I can’t seem to locate any that look like mine.
Just the one led? Reef Breeders or Steve's LED's is where I'd start and I'd buy several because it's only a matter of time till more go out. You need to have the basics of desoldering and soldering down and the suitable equipment to do the job. If I had my basement finished and had the space I'd do the job for you. I just don't have either or the time to do it now. But I do also have a Black Box I could loan you depending on who you're closer to.
 
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