Part of lights not coming on

[clancaster23]

I have four sets of led's over my 180. They have two switches on each of them and there's three fans, one switch runs one fan and 20 leds and the other switch runs two fans and 20 led's. I was looking earlier cause the one on the end of the tank didn't look right so I looked under and saw that half the lights, the entire switch, wasn't lighting up. The fan comes on that's on that switch and I might get an occasional flicker from the lights but they don't come on. I took the light apart and switched the power around to see if it was that because the other half works fine but it wasn't that because it does the same thing on the other switch. Before I closed it up, I got them to come on steady but as soon as I got it over the tank again, they won't come on. I might get a flicker a couple times but won't stay on steady. I replaced maybe half the lights on the board with others I wanted in it. I'm wondering if one of the solder points became unattached and if one light is loose that the whole strip won't light up or what. I'm lost on this one. I don't think it's the actual parts inside because the other half works on both sides fine. Also, this entire part that's not working, all the leds are the UV color. Not sure that has anything to do with it or not.

 

[Aquarian]

If you got them to stay on when you had the lights apart then the problem reoccurred after you reassembled and hung them I would look at the wiring to the board and trace it back to the switch something my be lose there or something is getting pinched and is shorting out the connections when you close the assembly.

 

[Steveg229]

+1, I had the same issue with my leds when I get mine. I took apart and once apart they worked fine. After tracing back I found that one of the drivers had a loose wire connection within the driver. After plugging in all the way, worked great!

 

[clancaster23]

I don't think it's a loose wire. I was able to take apart the light today and I was able to get it to turn on again but I turned it off and back on and once again, it wouldn't turn back on. What it sometimes does is even though they won't turn all the way on, sometimes when I hit the switch, I'll see a pulse go through them like they are getting juice but they just can't fire up all the way. So I looked to see what ones were not working at all and found one that was not doing anything. I took a closer look and it looks like the chip that is on this particular led is blown. It has a white spot in the middle of it and the ends of it are brown like they are burnt and you can see others next to it are fine. They all say "201" on them. Would it be possible to find this particular microchip and somehow solder it on or is the whole half of this light done?

 

[Aquarian]

You should be able to find the LED and replace it. You can test you theory by making a jumper (take a small length of wire and strip the insulation from each end and ) touch one end to one side of the diode and the other to the other side. This should complete the circuit and the leds which are out should come on.

 

[clancaster23]

I don't think the led itself is the problem, I think it's the chip that's next to each led. The diode itself appears to be fine, the microchip above it looks to be done and that's what I'm looking to replace. I know for a fact that if one led is out that it doesn't prevent the whole strand from coming on because when I got the lights from a friend, several were out but the rest did come on.

 

[Aquarian]

If the bulb is out the current will still flow through the circuit but if the chip is bad and the circuit is interrupted they won't.