What am I doing wrong?

[ptreef]

I recently put optics (90) on my reef breeder value fixtures. One fixture looks great while the other looks wrong. Some leds are bright and some are lit but not as bright. I did break one bulb on accident putting on the lenses because they didn't exactly fit perfectly. So it kind of just smashed it by trying to snap the lens on. Would that cause other leds to not light up all the way?

 

[butch]

are some of the LEDs cool white and thus not as bright looking as the others?

 

[picoreefguy]

i dont have any expirence with that fixture but i have worked with leds before do you know how they are wired to the driver? if the leds that are dim are all the same color then its likely that smashing the one led messed it up and now its only allow a little bit of power through. if you broke the circuit completely then none of the leds on that circuit would light up at all. see if you can get the stats on the driver and find out if it can handle one less led on the circuit. if so try using a jumper between the positive and negative of the broken led if it cant handle one less led then use a resistor. that should get them all to light up.

 

[ptreef]

It's only about half of the blues. All in the same channel. The one I smashed is towards the center of the fixture and the dim bulbs are on both sides of it

 

[picoreefguy]

try a jumper between the positive and negative on that smashed led and see if all the others light back up. if so just soldier it up or soldier a resistor there to act in place of the smashed led

 

[ptreef]

Ok from my physics background that makes sense but I have no soldiering experience or the tools to do it. Is anybody around this area that could maybe help me?

 

[picoreefguy]

if i werent so dang far id help you out. its really simple and you can buy the tools you need for about 20 bucks. if you decide to get a soldiering iron and try it yourself let me know and ill walk you through it. but honestly if youre going to go through the trouble you might as well replace the one led that's out. have you contacted reefbreeders to see if they will fix it or replace the led or anything?

 

[ptreef]

I haven't contacted them, I just assumed adding the optics myself and busting the bulb in the process would void the warranty. I did see where a new bulb could be purchased pretty cheap though

 

[picoreefguy]

talk to them first. some companys go above and beyond their warenty so its worth a shot. and if they dont cover it then replace the bulb yourself. its not hard, there are tons of diy videos online you can watch to get an idea of what to do.