Question for you DIY LED guys

[Tripple T]

I own a nanocustoms led refugium light. Came with 5, 3 watt white leds. Recently the leds have really begin to dim. I am wondering how hard it will be to just buy new led and place them? can i just buy some cree xpg 3 watt and re solder them in? what things do i need to know before i order the new led's? This light is probably 4 years old and was when they were just first making LED units. I know teh cooling isnt great on it and thats prolly why teh led didint last that long. Also it may have been just older gen LEDs. any help is appreciated

 

[asn-naso]

I would skip replacing them, and buy one of the night kits from rapidled. They will swap out the blue LED's for 3 watt CREE's (for an added cost), and you'll end up with a new driver too. Trying to figure out what kind of LEDs your old driver will push, might end up being a lot of work, and these kits are pretty affordable.

http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-174/4-LED-Moonlight-Kit/Detail

 

[that0neguy1126]

Since its just for the refugium, you could go to lowes or home depot and buy a LED bulb and a light socket.

 

[scrumpto]

Did that with mine and the difference is amazing on chaeto growth. Took my nitrates to zero in a few days. I bought the Par38 5,500k light at Lowes for around $40. It's 7 LEDs at 18 watts, ~810 lumens for reference.

 

[Usnfoley]

You could get the xp series LEDs as long as your current LEDs are on star boards it will be an easy swap. The xp's and xr's require the same power but xp series are better on light output. The XP-G R5 cool whites are going to put out the most white. I don't know which driver you have but the xpg can be driven to 1500mA. If you just get the same ammont to replace what you have you should be good. However you may want to look at the output of your power supply or driver to make sure it is putting out atleast 15v from the driver and around 350mA that will give you about 139 lumen each from the xpg's. If you have a seperate driver from your supply like a buckpuck make sure the power supply is outputting atleast 17V and that would be a minimum as a buckpuck needs 2V. An ideal power supply would put out 19V with the buckpuck or 17V for just the LED's as they can go upto 3.5V each LED. I get my LEDs from rapidled at $4.50 each and $6 for shipping. So your looking at less than $30 to your door. Royal Blues if you wanted to add them to the set up are 3.40 I would only maybe replace two of the whites with two royal blues though if you do it that way.