AI Vega/Hydra Cooling mod?

[jrp1588]

Looking at a video on how to replace a fan on these, I noticed the LED pucks simply screw to the heatsinks without any kind of thermal interface compound. As a former PC builder, this made my eyelid twitch a bit. Does anyone see a reason why I SHOULDN'T throw some thermal paste on the back of the pucks while I've got the light apart? What are the pucks made of? I'm assuming there's no electronics on the back of them to screw up. Seems like I'd get better life out of the LEDs with better heat transfer, and the fans would run less often.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

I have 5 Vegas on my setup. All their original fans failed. They are cheaply made. Plus they want $15 per fan.
I went on eBay and purchase large cumputer fans and placed them right on top of the Vegas and power all 5 with a 12v 1 amp power supply. Never had an issue of heating again.
If you want to replace the original fan
Its easy. 4 screws open the body and then 2 screws on fan itself and a wire plug into motherboard.
A bit off topic

 

[jrp1588]

I'm not terribly worried about the fans, it looks like an easy swap, as you said. I'm betting if I looked hard enough, these fans just exit somewhere as a commodity item for cheap. I'm just thinking as large as these heatsinks are, there might be a lot to gain with better heat transfer.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

I agree. Its been a while since i openned one of these up. But if I remember correctly pucks are just a peice of aluminum with few leds and I dont remeber seeing any heat sinks.
I could be wrong.

 

[jrp1588]

I agree. Its been a while since i openned one of these up. But if I remember correctly pucks are just a peice of aluminum with few leds and I dont remeber seeing any heat sinks.
I could be wrong.

The entire ribbed top of the unit is the heatsink. I haven't dug into these lights yet. The AI controller doesn't have a temperature reading of the LED's I assume? If nothing else, I guess I could add thermal paste to one light and see how often the fan kicks on compared to the others. Thermal paste is cheap, and these things seem easy enough to take apart. I'm going to take a crack at it.