LED Maintenance?

[bkraz]

Hi,

Curious... and mostly because I've had a pretty rotten experience having to replace bulbs, ballasts and wires repeatedly in a Coralife fixture so I'm kinda sensitive to this topic...

Anyone finding any maintenance issues with their LED fixtures? Either moisture related or just longevity matters?

Can you even replace lights in these fixtures if they go bad?

[allegori]

As long as your LED fixture is protected from splashing and moisture, there shouldn't be any moisture issues. As for longevity, properly cooled LED's will last a long time. I always have glass tops on my tanks so my lights aren't exposed to water/moisture.
I bought a commercial product a year and half ago, a Vertex Illumilux LED strip, and had used it for about 7 months before going DIY. It worked just fine even though it felt really hot, but the manufacturer said it was acceptable for that fixture. It still works but is in a box now since I made a fixture myself and don't have a need for the extra light. In DIY builds, it is easy to replace any LED's if they burn out. Commercial fixtures are a bit more complicated to replace the LED's if they burn out unless you know how to reflow solder. So far my builds have had no problems.

[bkraz]

Originally Posted by allegori

As long as your LED fixture is protected from splashing and moisture, there shouldn't be any moisture issues. As for longevity, properly cooled LED's will last a long time. I always have glass tops on my tanks so my lights aren't exposed to water/moisture.
I bought a commercial product a year and half ago, a Vertex Illumilux LED strip, and had used it for about 7 months before going DIY. It worked just fine even though it felt really hot, but the manufacturer said it was acceptable for that fixture. It still works but is in a box now since I made a fixture myself and don't have a need for the extra light. In DIY builds, it is easy to replace any LED's if they burn out. Commercial fixtures are a bit more complicated to replace the LED's if they burn out unless you know how to reflow solder. So far my builds have had no problems.

Interesting... so it sounds a lot like a one-n-done solution, until the fixture is completely done for (unless you DIY, at which point you are able to build for your own open architecture). For $100 - $175 I would have no problem having a 10-year type fixture that just went into the trash when it burned out. Right now my Coralife CF fixture is a new ballast or wires about every other year, plus a set of bulbs right around the same time frame. That's about $65.00 a year I've been spending to keep my lights on before even talking power consumption. And, actually, I'm not into the cost savings as much as I am into just having one fixture... that works... period.