AliExpress A8SE Reef Light

[ivanotas]

I wonder if people are worried the thermal paste making a mess and cause the light to fail. else will thermal cooling tape work? just probably paste a few strip on the base and stick them. just like how the M.2 drives are being stick on the MOBO.

 

[Tims reef]

I wonder if people are worried the thermal paste making a mess and cause the light to fail. else will thermal cooling tape work? just probably paste a few strip on the base and stick them. just like how the M.2 drives are being stick on the MOBO.

At this point i dont know what to believe, there are a lot of mixed reviews another guy in youtube said he was like running it for 2 months 80percent and the leds burnt out thats without thermal paste and now people here are like saying its better with thermal paste. @Jonreefer what do you have to say with this

 

[Jonreefer]

I wonder if people are worried the thermal paste making a mess and cause the light to fail. else will thermal cooling tape work? just probably paste a few strip on the base and stick them. just like how the M.2 drives are being stick on the MOBO.

Thermal paste if used the correct one is non conductive. You can get it all over the circuit board and will have no impact.
All you need is a few pea size drops on the heatsink and when you screw it back together it will spread all around and is a much better thermal conductor than thermal tape. Plus thermal tape will add some thickness and might not go back together properly

 

[Jonreefer]

At this point i dont know what to believe, there are a lot of mixed reviews another guy in youtube said he was like running it for 2 months 80percent and the leds burnt out thats without thermal paste and now people here are like saying its better with thermal paste. @Jonreefer what do you have to say with this

There is no downside to adding the paste to the unit. It will only help in terms of cooling in pulling the heat off the led into the heatsink faster. That in turn will help lead to longer led life.
The only negative is opening it and being careful to not mess up any connections.
The LED panel plug into the small main board seems to be very delicate and is probably the issue some have is maybe they were to aggressive removing or plugging back in.
That’s why I left mine connected and took the 2 screws out of the mainboard so I didn’t have to disconnect the led and board and just lifted. Added a few drops of paste on the heatsink then back together. 2 for 2 so far

 

[LittleMaui]

Not exactly certain why the Meanwell PS is so important. I replaced my aging AI HDs with the A8 Pro II Max lights. These are awesome. Two downsides - they drop from WIFI with router reboots. dedicated SSID seems to help. Second, the app is a bit to figure out. Nice thing, when a light schema is set, Wifi doesn't matter and the app doesn't matter.

I did add the thermal paste without removing the ribbon cable. I know this voids the warranty, but at this price? Paid $300 for the A8 Pro II Max from Breeze Aqua and $340 for the same including a bracket.

No regrets, yet.

 

[Tims reef]

Not exactly certain why the Meanwell PS is so important. I replaced my aging AI HDs with the A8 Pro II Max lights. These are awesome. Two downsides - they drop from WIFI with router reboots. dedicated SSID seems to help. Second, the app is a bit to figure out. Nice thing, when a light schema is set, Wifi doesn't matter and the app doesn't matter.

I did add the thermal paste without removing the ribbon cable. I know this voids the warranty, but at this price? Paid $300 for the A8 Pro II Max from Breeze Aqua and $340 for the same including a bracket.

No regrets, yet.

Yeah i agree too especially with that jon said i dont see any problem with applying thermal paste aside from it helps but maybe the led board are somewhat of a manufacturing thing cause it was not soldered well ive been delicate and careful from opening my lights and yeah i think i would need to resolder some of the led beads. So far no burnt out leds

 

[apac]

I put thermal paste on my first two. But I am not risking it again with my third light…… Unless temps become an issue.

 

[Tims reef]

A

I put thermal paste on my first two. But I am not risking it again with my third light…… Unless temps become an issue.

Are the two still working well?

 

[UK-Reefer]

You’ve made about 40 posts on Reef2Reef and nearly 20 of them are you criticising something you’ve never had any experience with.

Says the new boy.

Comedy central

 

[UK-Reefer]

People have fixed their lights by replacing the circuit board. That’s all I know.

Fixed?

It's a brand new light for god's sake, what would ever need to be "fixed".

Would you buy a brand new TV and expect to perform DIY straight out the box.

The sellers love you.

 

[penfold2]

I put thermal paste on my first two. But I am not risking it again with my third light…… Unless temps become an issue.

While thermal paste should theoretically increase heat transfer, I haven't seen any readings from others that show a notable temperature decrease in pasted lights compared to unpasted lights. My own temperature readings were identical before and after pasting. If I were to get another light I'd probably just leave it as is because there doesn't appear to be any practical advantage. If someone feels comfortable working with electrical components and feels the theoretical advantage is worth the loss of their warranty, it was relatively easy. For anyone else, I'd say leave it alone.

 

[apac]

A

Are the two still working well?

Yeah, but I can see how the possibility of damage could be done.
I didn’t much enjoy the experience of doing it either.

 

[Tims reef]

Yeah, but I can see how the possibility of damage could be done.
I didn’t much enjoy the experience of doing it either.

Explain the possibility

 

[Jonreefer]

While thermal paste should theoretically increase heat transfer, I haven't seen any readings from others that show a notable temperature decrease in pasted lights compared to unpasted lights. My own temperature readings were identical before and after pasting. If I were to get another light I'd probably just leave it as is because there doesn't appear to be any practical advantage. If someone feels comfortable working with electrical components and feels the theoretical advantage is worth the loss of their warranty, it was relatively easy. For anyone else, I'd say leave it alone.

the issue is we do not know exactly where they have the temp sensor giving the reading. It may be on a part that is not super accurate and it may seem like the temps are the same it could be reading from a different location that is not showing the impact of pasting the LED panel. I will say there is 100% better heat transfer pasting it vs letting it airgap and hoping it heat transfers that way.

if I didnt already thermal paste both I would pull the lens off both and have one pasted and one not and then use a thermal gun to take some temps from the led panel and heatsink to see if there is a better heat transfer between the two

 

[penfold2]

the issue is we do not know exactly where they have the temp sensor giving the reading. It may be on a part that is not super accurate and it may seem like the temps are the same it could be reading from a different location that is not showing the impact of pasting the LED panel.

That is true. My temp sensor didn't even show a 1° difference after pasting, but it could be positioned in a way that makes it relatively worthless. Still, the failures we've seen seem to be random, and there are people running unpasted lights for a year or more with no problems. Pasting definitely increases heat transfer, but it's up to everyone to decide if that additional heat transfer results in practical benefits that are worth the hassle, potential damage, and warranty voiding. IMO, and with the evidence we have so far, there's no wrong answer.

 

[apac]

Explain the possibility

Both the ribbon connection and its parts, and the multiple pin connector are both quite fragile and could be broken or bent or misaligned when piecing back together.
There could also be a chance of creating a static charge when working on it which could in theory damage a small electronic part.

 

[ryudo80]

I don't have the light yet so I can't say, but wouldn't applying thermal paste at a few places creates air gaps in areas that the paste doesn't spread out to? Is there an air gap by default before applying the paste?

 

[Jonreefer]

I don't have the light yet so I can't say, but wouldn't applying thermal paste at a few places creates air gaps in areas that the paste doesn't spread out to? Is there an air gap by default before applying the paste?

no you would be surprised at how far it spreads once its pressed putting it back together. Even though it might not reach every part of the heatsink the heat transfer with the paste will be much improved over just the bare heatsink on the LED panel.
When you build PC's and apply the pea drop on the CPU it never fully covers the CPU when you press the cooler on but it goes from overheating with no paste because of imperfections of the surface to being able to run with no heat problems after the paste because it fills the gaps of not perfectly smooth and allows much more heat to soak into the heatsink than with no paste

Just no one go use liquid metal cause it performs even better. That is 100% conductive and if you dont have the proper setup to use it so it does not leak out as it will it will fry all the electronics

 

[rsach]

Has anyone experienced issues with not applying thermal paste, especially at lower than 75 percent power?

I'm running them at 70% without thermal paste and the max temp is around 47C

 

[Tims reef]

The person that posted about some of his leds i cant reach him cause apparently they sent him a new led board and was wondering if that fixed the problem