Electrical issues with lighting! Please help!

[xarkaden]

Hey there, I'd like to start by thanking you for taking a second to hear about my issue and provide some desperately needed advice! I have a Giesemann Infiniti moonlight that I picked up for a great price and it worked good for the first few weeks, eventually some smoke appeared from the external transformer box and my surge protector cut the system off. Upon inspection the wires had been severely corroded and heat soaked. My thinking was that the old janky wiring that had held it together for so long has seen the last of its days and just needed to be replaced as there was obvious burn and corrosion crumbling the wire. I took the time to rewire the transformers with fresh 14 gauge solid copper and hooked her up today and she shined bright and true for some hours....eventually it cut out again.. I inspected the wiring cor signed of burning and found nothing , no odor or smoke either. I'm thinking I need new transformers but am not sure where I can get them.. I emailed giessmann and haven't heard back from them so desperately I'm turning to your collective knowledge for any advice in this situation! I'll attach photos for reference! Thanks!

 

[xarkaden]

I'll add that I'm getting constant readings of 236-240v on output for entire unit and reading 118-122v output on each individual transformer. Which is normal so I'm not really able to understand what the issue is.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Looks like thermal burns on the coil insulation. Dark lines where it should be just tan. I'm thinking it's epoxy packed around the coils and it's degraded.

I'm not an expert on electronics, but sounds like it's has too much resistance, thus the over heating.

Do not return power to the unit. It's most likely needing replacement.

#reefsquad, @Brew12

 

[Crabs McJones]

Looks like thermal burns on the coil insulation. Dark lines where it should be just tan. I'm thinking it's epoxy packed around the coils and it's degraded.

I'm not an expert on electronics, but sounds like it's has too much resistance, thus the over heating.

Do not return power to the unit. It's most likely needing replacement.

#reefsquad, @Brew12

Agreed. I haven't posted yet but I've been digging for these for the past half hour and come up empty handed....hopefully someone knows of replacements for you

 

[xarkaden]

That's what I was afraid of and cant find any replacements online either and as I'm not an expert with these units I wouldnt know what to replace it with that is still in production. Any advice from anyone would be awesome and if anyone had a replacement for sale I'd love to hear ill pay all fees and shipping!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Reaching out to Giesemann is the only thing you can do at this point. Being the weekend, it's understandable that it may take a day or two to hear from them.

 

[xarkaden]

Reaching out to Giesemann is the only thing you can do at this point. Being the weekend, it's understandable that it may take a day or two to hear from them.

Yeah I actually reached out to them 2 weeks ago or more and never got any replies that's why I turned here and even went through with the rewiring.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Try posting here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/giesemann-north-american.654/ Doesn't look very active, though


Reach out to coralvue, they are the north America distributor of giesmann:

https://blog.coralvue.com/giesemann-aquaristic-announces-new-north-american-distributor/

Or

@Jeremy@CoralVue

 

[xarkaden]

Try posting here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/giesemann-north-american.654/ Doesn't look very active, though


Reach out to coralvue, they are the north America distributor of giesmann:

https://blog.coralvue.com/giesemann-aquaristic-announces-new-north-american-distributor/

Or

@Jeremy@CoralVue

I just checked my emails again and apparently I sent the email from an address I dont frequently use so I'm in contact with someone now! I will update here incase anyone in the future has this problem as there is about 0 information out there on this that I've found. Thanks for your advice!

 

[xarkaden]

For the sake of information the solution to this problem requires a bit of splicing knowledge and I'd recommend a multimeter to test twice splice once and shrink wrap the splice. Soldering depends on the abrasive resistance on the damaged wiring. So you will have to splice a 3 prong plug on instead of the 5 pin connector that the light originally comes with and purchase a step up transformer with at least 2000watt rating and 220v output. Here is an example https://www.amazon.com/LiteFuze-LT-...=1540211440&sr=1-3&keywords=transformer+2000w I'll post pictures of the repair when the transformer arrives!

 

[xarkaden]

I decided to go ahead and mock up splices just using butt connectors at first to demonstrate what wires to splice together (I'd still recommend testing beforehand) I used the 3 prong wiring that was powering the original transformer box and spliced it directly to the three wires that connected to the 5 pin connector coming out of the light fixture itself. So ballast wiring to light wiring effectively bypassing the transformer completely. This is the end you will plug into the new transformer. Green/yellow to Green(ground), Brown to Black(live), Blue to White(neutral).

 

[xarkaden]

Transformer is in and I'll attach photos of it below. Pretty simply process if anyone runs into this issue with an older Giesemann make sure it's a 2000w breaker to handle the extra load from firing up the mh bulbs! The model I went with was the LT-2000 by litefuze. Just plug in the 3 prong connector that you spliced to your fixture cord, into the universal 220 output and make sure you select the input voltage on the back by moving the red tab to 113, and boom lights work again!