High wattage LED users please check your chips regularly

twilliard · Jun 10, 2016

Hi all I just want to make a good point on high wattage chips and the effect of UV on the lenses or diode lens.
Check them regularly for any blackening or discoloration of lenses.
After cleaning my fixture I found 4 chips that have blackened without me ever knowing except for some low light tank issues.
No worries they are fixing this but I think people need to pay attention to the lenses of the chips in the fixtures you run.
Some times just flip it over and take a good look

Thanks all!
Todd

twilliard · Jun 10, 2016

Here is what one may look like

The center one

gcarroll · Jun 10, 2016

Did they tell you what the cause of this was? Was it just the UV diodes?

twilliard · Jun 10, 2016

gcarroll said:
Did they tell you what the cause of this was? Was it just the UV diodes?

Yes it was the UV diodes.. now how did you know this lol
Thanks Greg for comming in!

CastAway · Jun 13, 2016

Hmmm. Tagging along.

gcarroll · Jun 15, 2016

UV is an enemy to plastics and acrylic. It was really just an educated guess. My guess is that this will continue to happen unless they go with a different material that is more resistant to damage from these lower spectrums. I would expect them to do nothing as replacing them as necessary is probably a cheaper option then retooling the fixture with an optic of a different design. I have never seen this issue come up in the other manufacturers but they may be using a poly carbonate material that is more resistant.