Replacing led diodes ebay black box and blue channel I wasn't changing no longer works....?

[DavidinGA]

I was just about done replacing the red and green diodes on the white channel of an ebay black box and found the blue channel I wasn't working on, now no longer works.

I did scratch the board pretty good forcing one of the old diodes off, could that have severed the circuit for the blue channel? The white channel I was working on still works fine. It seems odd that the scratch would have effected only the blue channel, right?

Usually, this would be a problem caused by the diodes I am working on where I have one not connected right, but this being the channel I wasn't working on has me stumped.

I'm not super familiar with electronics, just enough to do some basic stuff like this, which I've done in the past without issue.

On this board I can't actually see the circuits on the board. If that scratch is the problem how can I reconnect the circuits? Can that white layer be removed some way to repair a severed circuit?

Thoughts, suggestions? Thx

See pics

 

[DavidinGA]

Another pic

 

[DavidinGA]

Ok...

I stuck a tiny piece of metal in the grove of that scratch and got the blue channel to flickered on; so the circuit is cut.

How to do I reconnect that circuit? Can I remove or sand off the white layer to make a clean connection or just push some solder down into the groove or what?

 

[Malcontent]

 

[Koh23]

May i ask, since red and green led usualy work on lower voltage, when replacing it with blues who required higher voltage..... Regardless of scratch, will it work?

 

[DavidinGA]

Fixed it.

 

[DavidinGA]

May i ask, since red and green led usualy work on lower voltage, when replacing it with blues who required higher voltage..... Regardless of scratch, will it work?

Yes, swapping out reds and greens work for others (I put some blues in their place). I thk these ebay boxes all run 3w diodes.

 

[Koh23]

Great u fixed it!

I wasnt sure will it work, they all are 3w chips, but i remember correctly, blues,whites, uv and similar works on 3,2-3,8V, while red, greens and similar works on 2,0-2,5V... Again, dont trust me that this is exact values, but i remember when connecting to 12v power (without drivers), for blues was 3 in series, for total 12V and 0,7A, and for red was 6 in series for 12V total and 0,7A...

Probably don't matter here, i have black box also and i planned to replace red, green, 3200k and some of whites for uv and blue...glad to hear that this work...

And yes, i removed all of lenses for better coverage and blending, HUGE difference..... On 130cm tank, one light, with lenses coverage was about 90cm, meaning that i have 20cm on each side of tank that was practically in dark.

When i removed lenses, all of 130cm is covered evenly, with even some light spill on sides...

 

[oreo54]

May i ask, since red and green led usually work on lower voltage, when replacing it with blues who required higher voltage..... Regardless of scratch, will it work?

Depends on the driver and how many less volts your string goes to.
Look on the driver and see what the rating is..
Should be something like 40-90V dc 550mA

Strings are either 28 or 27 diodes..
"worst case" ie. all red diodes..
27 x (2.0 to 2.4V) = 54V total minimum level

If your driver is like 60-100V then it wouldn't work.

 

[DavidinGA]

On the plus side I can now run both my black boxes at 100% both channels and it looks perfect to my eyes! Before it was super yellow with the whites at 100%.

 

[Koh23]

Yes, that is main "problem" of this black boxes....

Half of light is kinda useless, if it is 165w (and we know that it isnt), half of that power goes to white,green,red mix, so, in best case scenario, with blue channel at 100% we have 82w (which we don't have), so.... in real life, blue channel is only about 50-60w.

Other half of light you can run at very low %, so 27 led diodes are useless, with 1:1 ratio, it gives very unnatural, yellow bright look to tank.

Replacing probaby 20 diodes with blue/royal blue/uv combo will give much powerfull unit, and more desired ratio of blues/whites....

But, that can be super easy, or very difficult, depending on are diodes glued or not... if thermal paste is used - super easy, if thermal glue is used - not so easy....

I newer build any of my diy with original drivers and stuff, they were expensive and not easy to get, so i always relay on good and quality 12v power source, and use simple math - 3x3w @ 3,8max = 12v series, x needed number of parallels connection to power supply. Messy, lots of wires, but....

 

[DavidinGA]

Yes, that is main "problem" of this black boxes....

Half of light is kinda useless, if it is 165w (and we know that it isnt), half of that power goes to white,green,red mix, so, in best case scenario, with blue channel at 100% we have 82w (which we don't have), so.... in real life, blue channel is only about 50-60w.

Other half of light you can run at very low %, so 27 led diodes are useless, with 1:1 ratio, it gives very unnatural, yellow bright look to tank.

Replacing probaby 20 diodes with blue/royal blue/uv combo will give much powerfull unit, and more desired ratio of blues/whites....

But, that can be super easy, or very difficult, depending on are diodes glued or not... if thermal paste is used - super easy, if thermal glue is used - not so easy....

I newer build any of my diy with original drivers and stuff, they were expensive and not easy to get, so i always relay on good and quality 12v power source, and use simple math - 3x3w @ 3,8max = 12v series, x needed number of parallels connection to power supply. Messy, lots of wires, but....

Yeah, that was my thought process; why would I pay to use anything less than 100% of what I got. So I modified the terrible white channel so I can now run it at 100% just like the blue channel. I didn't get too wild with the new layout, but I replace all the red and green with royal blue on the white channel. I left the original warm and cool whites there and now with the added blues, it makes for that crisp clean white light, with no yellow tint, that the white channel should have come with originally.

I modified some of these boxes 6-7 years ago and the diodes were way easier to replace back then. All I had to do was de-solder the diodes and they just fell off the board (I even have a bag full of the old ones that are still usable). These new ones that I just did I had to break apart to get them off and then ended up scratching the board in the process. That must be the difference between paste on the old ones and glue on the new ones. It seemed like the older boxes were easier to access everything back then too...

 

[Koh23]

I'm at the same process, to get and replace most of diodes...

As it seems to me, mine black box uses blue instead of blue, is is blue, but brighter than i want, so probably i need to replace white with royal blue.... Sadly, i have good 2 months waiting for diodes to arrive.....

Slight ot, but, in ecotech radions and similar i see using uv and violet, blue and royal blue, so i wonder what they considering uv and what violet?

Uv - below 400nm, violet - 420nm, or?

 

[DavidinGA]

I'm at the same process, to get and replace most of diodes...

As it seems to me, mine black box uses blue instead of blue, is is blue, but brighter than i want, so probably i need to replace white with royal blue.... Sadly, i have good 2 months waiting for diodes to arrive.....

Slight ot, but, in ecotech radions and similar i see using uv and violet, blue and royal blue, so i wonder what they considering uv and what violet?

Uv - below 400nm, violet - 420nm, or?

Where are those diodes coming from? 2 months? Dang

I've heard true uv is hard to come by, so I'm guessing most/all diodes are probably in that violet category.

 

[Koh23]

Well, from our friendly neighborhood peoples republic of China, of course....

If you are lucky, 10-15 days. If not so, up to 3 months..... Usualy two weeks but no rule, most packages 40-60 days....

Order today and receive from 26.5 to 28.7....

Of course, there IS option to receive it in few days, from UK for example, but, price is way higher and postage is riddiculus....