moon ligth problem

lisa g

Member
I have a JBJ 12 gal dx. recently I have had a problem with the LED moon lights. They will not stay on. I have to tap the top and they come back on. Seems like a short. Anyone else have problems with it? I have ordered the kit from nanocustoms to have the day and moon lights on two different switches so this should help. Just wanted to see if anyone else had similar problems.
 

chipmaker

Active Member
Odds are its certainly not a short. A short usually pops a fuse or breaker.....what you most likely have is an open. More than likely corrosion on a switch contact or under a wire splice which is not making good contact. Although on low voltage setups such as LEDS its still possible for a short to occur without any breaker popping off, but its most likely a poor connection somewhere. If your comfortable with electrical systems, pop open the hood, and gain access to the wires under it, zero in on the LEDs them selves, and follow all the wiring to each connection and tap or giggle them when you get to them, and odds are you will find the soource of your problem pretty easy.
 

lisa g

Member
Thanks I will open it this weekend. I would like to leave them on but hitting the tank is scaring the critters.
 

gregzbobo

Member
might even just be a loose connector. And glad you decided to get the moonlight fix, I have it, I like it, i also use it to operate one fan 24/7, I also leave the moonlights on 24/7 as well.
 

lisa g

Member
I have not had a chance to check it yet. my light kit should be in any day now so I will just wait to do it all at once. I am debating how I want to structure the fans and lights. I only have the 24 watt 50/50 10k that came with the jbj nano 12 gal. Going to add another 24 I think but haven't decided. Thanks for the advice.
 

lisa g

Member
Originally Posted by gregzbobo
might even just be a loose connector. And glad you decided to get the moonlight fix, I have it, I like it, i also use it to operate one fan 24/7, I also leave the moonlights on 24/7 as well.
Greg I installed the moonlight fix kit and now the moonlights do not work at all. I completely removed them from the tank and tried them to no avail. I then hooked them back up to the original system and they still do not work. Any ideas? How are yours doing? Thanks
 

gregzbobo

Member
did you conect the plugs correctly? Its been a while since I installed mine, but I think the plugs for the fans and the LEDs are the same, or at least very similar. Without seeing a pic or anything I don't know where to start.
 

chipmaker

Active Member
I don't know exactly how JBJ wires their lmoon lights up nor do I know where and how they get the required voltages to drive them., but your original problem sounded like you had a bad connection or switch...Moon lights (LED's light emitting diodes) to some folks are nothing more tha a tiny light bulb, but they are not a light bulb. They are dependant on polarity, and if your wires were crossed during installation (once again I do not have a lcue what wires are used by JBJ or if they have different colors to depict fan feed from light feed) the LED's have to be hooked up with the right polarity. Try swapping the two leads that feed the lights around and see if that works. Do you have a multimeter? You should have 3.5 vdc at them ? Kind of hard to trouble shoot electrical stuff without a pic of how its wired, or if the person doe snot have a multimeter to check for power at different points, as its all togethe r possible you may have a faulty component even though it may be new...Like I said I have not seen the wiring inside a hood on a JBJ, but circuits are circuits, and if JBJ used a like plug to wire fans a well as the LED's thats a big nbo no in the electrical setup as things should be wired so you can not plug compnenets with a different source or amunt of power into other things so easily. Fans normally take 12VDC, leds need approx 3.2 to 3.7vdc and normally incorporate a dropping resistor to drop a common 12 vdc power source to required voltage and current draw.
 

lisa g

Member
Wowo Chipmaker, that was a read and a half. But I understand what you said and I have a meter. I will look at it again this weekend when i get time and check it. I haven't had a chance to mess with it again. I talked to Chris where I bought the light kit from and after describing the circuit board he says it is not the one supposed to be in my model. So I have to do a little rigging probably to get it to work right. I will let you know what I find.
 

lisa g

Member
Originally Posted by gregzbobo
did you conect the plugs correctly? Its been a while since I installed mine, but I think the plugs for the fans and the LEDs are the same, or at least very similar. Without seeing a pic or anything I don't know where to start.
Yeah Here is the kicker. I may have a 6 gal circuit board on the 12 gal hood. Looks like I got a fast one pulled on me, the box was closed and the tanked did not look used at all but I think someone gutted the works and put it on a 6 gal and put the 6gal circuit on this one and returned it or put it out to sell. I can't wait to tell the LFS guy I got it from about it. Anyway, The LED plug was easy to find because it was right on top and I could follow the wires. Problem is that my LEDS are not hooked to the switch directly they go to the switch through the circuit board. So I ran them straight from LEDS to plug in that goes to the 12v transformer plug. They worked but only for a second and they dimmed out. I hooked them back to the original circuit to see if they worked if I reinstalled them to original set up and no dice. Chris had been great and is sending me another set and I am sending him some pics of the circuit board. He has not seen this setup on this tank so he was curious but I tell you he has been so helpful. Even if it doesn't work and I have to rig it I will still get my retros from him. I will get some pics soon and post them. I can't do it till Saturday.
 

chipmaker

Active Member
Odds are the reason they dimmed was there was no resistor in that circuit you tried them on. LEDS can either burn totally out or overheat because of being overdriven with voltage / current and that makes them go dim. Left on long enough they will eventually burn out as well...... If you got a 12 volt line feeding two moon lights (IIRC which is on the JBJ cubes, you shoiuld also have at a minimum a resistor rated at 180 ohms (depending on what they are driving the leds with) and its color stripes would be brown, grey brown. You can go higher or lower and I do not know what JBJ is doing. The smart thing is drive the leds at 20% less than their rated current / voltage but odds are they drive em wide open for brighter light, and shorter longevity.
 

lisa g

Member
I will check it out and see what teh problem is. Thanks Chip. I have found out that I have a circuit board in my 12 gal that is for the 6 gal jbj. I got ripped. I am trying to work with it and see what I cna do. I will eventually just get a new modded hood.
 
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