AI Hydra 26 HD issues, need help

GnMarley

New member
I purchased a pair of Hydra 26 HD's Dec. 2016 and I've been loving them (with the exception of getting them set up on wifi which was a huge pain) until last week when the blue LEDs in one of the fixtures stopped working.

Has anyone else had issues like this?

All the other colors on the unit work and my other unit works fine. So my best guess is that either some aspect the driver component for the blues is cooked or one or more of the LEDs themselves is burnt out.

Contacted AI customer support and they said they will repair but I have to cover shipping and cost of replacement parts. Apparently there is only a 1 year warranty and mine are a little over a year and a half old. I'm not too happy with this since these lights aren't cheap and I expected they would last a bit longer than this... There's also the issue that half my tank will be without lighting while I wait for them to repair and get it back. I have some well established corals that won't be easy to move without damaging and won't survive an extended period of time without lights.

I'm tempted to open them up and see if I can trouble shoot my self (I've dabbled a fair amount in DIY LED stuff) but wanted to see if anyone else has dealt with this first.

Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated! Thanks!
 
The lights are pretty easy to service. Once you have the plastic case and heatsink open and take off the lenses, there's a small board inside that the light pucks just plug onto. You could open them up and test the pucks from the faulty fixture in your other light to see if they work and it should determine whether the control board or the light pucks is the issue. Just buying the parts from AI and fixing yourself should save some time instead of having them sent out.
 
since they are out of warranty anyway, it won't hurt to open it up to take a look if you are a handy diy'er.
 
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