Anyone Modded the New Marsaqua 165W Version?

MarshallB

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So I ordered 3 of these off Amazon. They worked well, and I saw many threads about replacing some of the leds with more desirable wavelengths as well as removing the lenses. Well, turns out it looks like they have updated their board and use some sort of LED chip that is attached to the lens. ( Unable to remove lens without breaking off the LED ). I've attached some photos. Does anyone know where I can find these LEDs and how to attach them? It does not look as simple as it was with the older versions. It looks like it was held on by the lens extension. There was not any thermal paste underneath it.

For now I was able to jumper what looks to be the leads where the chip was sitting with some solder to get the light to work.
aqua1.jpg
aqua2.jpg
aqua3.jpg


Thanks!
 

Peace River

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While you are waiting on a direct answer to your specific answer, you may want to check in with the members on this thread to see if they can help:


Good luck!
 

oreo54

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So I ordered 3 of these off Amazon. They worked well, and I saw many threads about replacing some of the leds with more desirable wavelengths as well as removing the lenses. Well, turns out it looks like they have updated their board and use some sort of LED chip that is attached to the lens. ( Unable to remove lens without breaking off the LED ). I've attached some photos. Does anyone know where I can find these LEDs and how to attach them? It does not look as simple as it was with the older versions. It looks like it was held on by the lens extension. There was not any thermal paste underneath it.

For now I was able to jumper what looks to be the leads where the chip was sitting with some solder to get the light to work.
aqua1.jpg
Thanks!

Well that sucks.. Those lights have really sloppy silicone jobs..
Even if removing the lens doesn't destroy the diode those smd's are a bit hard to work with and not always easy to find in small numbers.

The lens should pop out of the holder and possibly allow you to sort of cut around the silicone off the diode but even w/ the old style most would break anyways.
 

theatrus

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What are the rough dimensions of that LED?

Its a bit of a different design as it has no dedicated thermal pad common in most 3.5mm sized LEDs. Replacing the LEDs is best done with hot air, though if its a proper metal core carrier board you may need to pre-heat the assembly up to get it heat nicely. Based on the cost of the light, just solder blobbing over it and ignoring the problem is by far the cheaper fix :)

> There was not any thermal paste underneath it

You probably sheared off the solder mating surfaces when pulling off the lens. It would have been soldered (maybe poorly) in place.
 

oreo54

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theatrus

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My moneys on 3030..

20171022173142_49772.png

Most likely candidate. A bit of an odd-ball, so it limits what you can replace. Probably not worth messing with, but people like projects :)
 

oreo54

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Most likely candidate. A bit of an odd-ball, so it limits what you can replace. Probably not worth messing with, but people like projects :)

It will be annoying to those who can no longer mod using "egg" diodes.
World eventually moves on I guess.

The egg was just a package anyways.. at least as I understand it. Who's chips inside was always ???
 
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MarshallB

MarshallB

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Thanks for all the replies.

Quick update:
I was able to pull off the lenses without breaking the diodes. The diodes themselves do not look easy to replace and I don't think it will be worth the trouble. Maybe in the future if I get bored, or one of the diodes die.

I put on a few of the 120 lenses I ordered and they look terrible thanks to this new design. The stock lenses on these new boxes have a lens attached inside of the bottom of the extender which looks like it distributes the light more evenly into the final lens. The 120's I placed did not distribute the light nearly as well since there is not a 'pre-lens'. It ended up creating more of a spot light effect.

Some further info: their heat management solution seems to still suck. I left both channels on 100% for an hour and the aluminum plate was not warm at all.

Judging by other photos I've seen it looks like the layout has changed with this update too. Their listing notes blue channel is 450nm and 470nm.
Specturm.jpg


I did not measure it before I put it back together. I took a photo of the full board for anyone interested.
MarsAquaFullboard.jpg
 

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