Disconnecting black box white leds

[Willbiker]

Hi all. I find the white leds on the Chinese black box lights to be too bright, even on the lowest possible setting, to get the right shade of blue that I like.

Has anyone disconnected leds and still found them to still run ok? Anyone with electrical knowledge see an issue with this? As they are wired in parallel, it will just result in a lower load on the driver, the same as dimming.....right?

Thanks

 

[Crustaceon]

You could always go with a softer white led instead. It just requires desoldering and re-soldering all of the white leds in a different color temperature. Or just swap half of the whites out and put more blues in.

 

[Willbiker]

You could always go with a softer white led instead. It just requires desoldering and re-soldering all of the white leds in a different color temperature. Or just swap half of the whites out and put more blues in.

Yes good idea. I have 3 of them and have plenty of power, for a quick and simple fix i hoped I could just snip and tape a few wires...

 

[Crustaceon]

Yes good idea. I have 3 of them and have plenty of power, for a quick and simple fix i hoped I could just snip and tape a few wires...

If you take the light apart, chances are it’ll have two led drivers, one for the blue channel and one for the white channel. You should be able to just disconnect the appropriate leads from the board. That’ll completely disable the white channel with no permanent modifications needed.

 

[Willbiker]

If you take the light apart, chances are it’ll have two led drivers, one for the blue channel and one for the white channel. You should be able to just disconnect the appropriate leads from the board.

Yes you are correct, here is the inside.

OK sounds good. I'll wait to see if anyone else raises a concern with this and if not, I'll go for it. Thanks

 

[Crustaceon]

Yes you are correct, here is the inside.

OK sounds good. I'll wait to see if anyone else raises a concern with this and if not, I'll go for it. Thanks

Man those are even easier to work on than my old galaxy hydros. The little white plugs should be your disconnects. Anytime.

 

[Justanano]

Can't you just unplug or turn the switch off for the whites

 

[Willbiker]

I want some whites, just not as much as is delivered on the lowest setting.

 

[Justanano]

Even from the back can see 2 plugs and 2 switches

 

[Willbiker]

I want to lower the intensity of the whites, not shut them off completely.

 

[Crustaceon]

I want to lower the intensity of the whites, not shut them off completely.

Ah. Ok, so you’d have to change the driver for a lower wattage version. The “click on” is probably starting at 5% power of 70w. You need it to start at 5% of 35w.

 

[Willbiker]

They dim down to about 10% but then shut off. If they dimmed down to 0 then there wouldn't be a problem. But I want about 5% whites not 10. I may experiment with cloth tape over some of the leds (on the glass not the led itself) however if I can safely desolder some leds, I will do this. Just hoping someone can advise if its OK to run few leds safely. Thanks

 

[Crustaceon]

They dim down to about 10% but then shut off. If they dimmed down to 0 then there wouldn't be a problem. But I want about 5% whites not 10. I may experiment with cloth tape over some of the leds (on the glass not the led itself) however if I can safely desolder some leds, I will do this. Just hoping someone can advise if its OK to run few leds safely. Thanks

The easiest thing is probably just physically removing those bright white leds and going with a warmer color like 3k. They’ll look super dim at the lowest switch setting. I think I remember my lights having some 3k leds and they were basically as bright at candles at the lowest power setting. I ran my lights at 10% white/ 40% blue and wanted more PAR, so I swapped out the boards entirely for SB reef light replacements. The tank looked like it was running metal halides with all of the extra 10k and 14K leds, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you want, lol. I think the 3k swap will give you some ambient brightness and let you retain some of the red and yellow colors in your tank, but they certainly won’t overpower the blue leds and affect pop.