Help! Kessil fell in tank!

[SoCalReefer19]

Happy Easter! Hope you’re all having a blessed day. Today, one of my Kessil a360x lights fell into my tank while in the on position. Yes, that’s right. My light fell into my tank. I walked in and found a glowing blue light in my sand bed.

“ it’s Easter Danny... relax Danny. let’s figure this out... ”

First thing I did was turn the outlet off on my apex. Then I unplugged it, pulled it from the water. Cursed a storm. Kicked a water change bucket across my house and assessed the damage.

Good news is the light was still on. No flicker, no sign of shorting out. The fan was not running... livestock and tank behaving normal. I quickly filled 3 buckets of rodi. I proceeded to dunk the light into each bucket agitating it as much as I could to rinse off all salt contaminants. It was already wet so this could only help. I then disassembled the light, placed the pile of parts in front of a fan for 8 hours and prayed.

Every piece appears dry. My instinct tells me to be patient, but I’m not. I plugged it into a wall outlet (to avoid any possibility of damaging my apex energy bar) and it functions perfect. Intensity and spectrum control works as if nothing happened and the fan runs silent as it did before. After a sigh of relief, I turned it off again, disassembled it and placed it back in front of a fan. My plan is to let it air dry another day. Tomorrow I’m going to clean as much as I possibly can with rubbing alcohol on q-tips and place it back into service.

I’ve noticed all of the motherboard and electrical components within this light are covered and sealed with some kind of rubber coating. I know they’re designed with withstand normal salt spray and higher humidity environments, but if this light ends up surviving I’m stupid impressed.

Any thoughts and or recommendations for further action to help fix my light are encouraged. You won’t hurt my feelings I already know I’m an idiot. This was 100% human error as it was a diy light mount that failed. I will be correcting that problem.

 

[reefiniteasy]

That is awesome! I’m glad it still works. Now get the proper mount!

 

[SoCalReefer19]

I’m mostly worried about the effects of salt creep.

 

[Cory]

I had the same happen on an a160

 

[tehmadreefer]

Make sure it’s on a gfci plug, if it trips you know it’s bad even if the light comes on. If not woohoo!

 

[WallyB]

First of all. DO NOT PLUG IT IN YET!!!

I can't really tell you exactly what to do (since your choices are are risky either way), however I have experience with fixing water soak electronics, and specifically fixing my (salt mist damaged) Kessil once.

Salt is nasty on fine electronic. It may not fail if nothing got wet inside (doubt it), but the slightest water, even tap water will slowly start a corrosion process that in few hours or a day will fail components. Salt water is 20x worse.

The trick for getting Electronics dry (wihout taking something apart) is shake out as much water as you can. Lighting tap the kessil on a towel covered by a paper towel, and keep tapping till no more water wets the paper towel. Keep changing paper towels.

Then next step is to get the inside drying (AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE). Any lenthy water contact to the exposed metal components make the changes of failure higher.
The trick I used to save a totally soaked Cell phone, is to put into a Seal Zip Lock bag of rice (after a soak/rinse in RO water). Rice draws water out of moist air, and it will speed up the drying process.

Now. How I saved my Kessil.
I had it over my tank and after a few years of mist, and dust building up it failed. It would sometimes come on and sometime fliker and die. I called kessil and they said beyond repair, so I took a chance.
I remove the screws and pulled apart the enclosure (really easy but takes some prying, pulling). I sprayed (inside electronics) down (soaked with Electronic Contact Cleaner Spray). Then I paper toweled all the electroncs. Sprayed again. Paper toweled it again and left to dry.
Two days later I turned it on, and it's been running to this day.

If you don't want to take it apart (risking breaking it). Then do the rice drying way to improve you chances.

OOPS. YOU ALREADY TOOK IT APART AND SOAKED IN RO DI. I re-read your post (first time I read quickly). So move to getting things super dry, fan works like you did, but more completed drying needed (consider rice, and if it doesn't power up in a day, consider electronic contact cleaner like I did)

But don't plug it in too early for curiosity, since if there is salt on electronics, the power surge could fry a sensitive component. You have to wait till things are fully dry!

 

[StatelineReefer]

Get a box of what's called 'damp-rid' and keep the light in a sealed container with it there for a day or so.

Damp-rid is the same silicate they use to package and ship electronics to keep moisture out, but on a greater scale. It will evaporate the remaining water.

 

[WallyB]

Get a box of what's called 'damp-rid' and keep the light in a sealed container with it there for a day or so.

Damp-rid is the same silicate they use to package and ship electronics to keep moisture out, but on a greater scale. It will evaporate the remaining water.

Good idea if he can get some quickly. Key it to get things dry ASAP. He might have rice, which is similar.

 

[Bryce M.]

HOLY! good luck man, I can't imagine that!

 

[legrunt]

I quickly filled 3 buckets of rodi. I proceeded to dunk the light into each bucket agitating it as much as I could to rinse off all salt contaminants. It was already wet so this could only help. I then disassembled the light, placed the pile of parts in front of a fan for 8 hours and prayed.

This... is what will most likely save the light.
When I had a fire in my server room (the gas came on and put out the fire in the aircon before any real damage was done) smoke soot got everywhere. The first thing the insurance people did was to get a "cleaner" to come in to do preventive maintenance. What they did was exactly what you did. Soak in pure distilled water, disassemble, and dry thouroughly.

 

[Twitchy]

Had the same thing happen to one of my 360WE lights, I gave her a RODI bath, took it apart, and gave her an alcohol bath, and let it dry out for a couple of days. Thankfully Kessil covers their driver boards in a conformal coating, so all was well, and she is still running.

 

[H@rry]

I saw this in a Field & Stream magazine years ago dealing with Marine Electronics (radios, depth finders, etc.). Flush it with fresh water to displace the salt water, then flush it with rubbing alcohol to displace the water, let it dry thoroughly. HTH.