DIY electrical connection troubleshoot

[Nem0]

I broke down 2 IM skkye lights for the Leds to make a light for my refugium. each light is 18w. the power supply output is 24v, 1.5amps. which should equal 36w, aka 2 of the skkye lights. before i connected the wires with heat shrink/crimp connectors, i tried running both lights from one power supply and it worked. after i crimped and heat shrunk, both the lights worked for about 10 seconds and now only 1 light works. any ideas?

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

I’m definitely not techy but did you test for continuity?

 

[Nem0]

Hello,

I’m definitely not techy but did you test for continuity?

I didn't test, but the way i spliced and connected should create a continuous circuit. and the fact that both of them worked for a while together makes me think it was at one point...just not sure why not now

 

[Dom]

First thing I would do would be to separate the lights and test them individually again. Make sure that they both still work. It could be bad timing and one happened to fail.

If both are working individually, then I would ask how you have them wired; in parallel?

 

[Nem0]

First thing I would do would be to separate the lights and test them individually again. Make sure that they both still work. It could be bad timing and one happened to fail.

If both are working individually, then I would ask how you have them wired; in parallel?

just did that before i saw the post. now only 1 works . guess there's my problem

 

[Dom]

just did that before i saw the post. now only 1 works . guess there's my problem

Talk about bad timing, huh? Well... you still have one to work with. I like that you are repurposing equipment. I do that all the time. Great way to save money and understand how things work.

 

[Nem0]

Talk about bad timing, huh? Well... you still have one to work with. I like that you are repurposing equipment. I do that all the time. Great way to save money and understand how things work.

so another problem...now when connected the light gets SUPER hot and smokes after 3 min of it being on lol

 

[Dom]

so another problem...now when connected the light gets SUPER hot and smokes after 3 min of it being on lol

Throw it out. Not worth the fire risk.

 

[oreo54]

Diodes are usually driven constant current (some sort of driver) or constant voltage..
Those "look" to be constant voltage and the diode count and ps seem to point in that direction..
roughly 3.7v x 6 = 22.2V then add a current regulating resistor..

More than likely the fact you seperated the lights from the housing took away a major part of the cooling..
high output diodes will fairly easily smoke if not cooled properly and overheating will extremely shorten their lifspan

both are now pretty much toast..the smoking ones lifespan is considerably reduced...

BTW: your first attempt should have worked..if properly cooled..
Can't see anything you did, electrically, wrong..heat sinking on the other hand................