Led Light Issues... How Do They Work?

[MattL]

I have a 2008 Raindance hot tub with a Balboa 54585 control box. The tub has one large underwater light and several small hex-shaped lights around the inside perimeter of the tub just above water level. All the lights can light up red/green/blue/purple/white, or fade from one color to the next. Well, they used to, anyways. I noticed a couple of the small lights didn't work when I bought it (a Craigslist tub), but the price paid made up for a couple lost lights. After a year I had lost a couple more, but it still would cycle through all the colors. Last fall I noticed I when the perimeter lights were supposed to be showing blue or purple, they wouldn't light up. Pretty soon I only had red or green, and now I only have green, with a bunch of darkness during the cycle. The large underwater bulb still cycles correctly with all the colors, but those little perimeter lights, of which only half of them work nowadays, only spit out the occasional green.

I'm not really sure how LED lights work. Can I replace the little hex-shaped "bulb" with a new one, or is it something that the whole wiring harness or whatever has to be replaced back to the control box? If it's the latter, I'd have to disassemble a portion of my deck, as I built it to sit level with the top of the tub. Not impossible, but I'd rather not do it in the dead of an Ohio winter.

Any guidance is appreciated!

Matt

[dg98adams]

Found a couple options....

Individuals LEDs are easy to replace once you get the assembly out.. just gotta know the voltage for the replacement..... otherwise the entire assembly appears available, if not cheap. If you remove an LED (unsolder) you can test it with an OMH meter.... check bewtten each leg for resistance... one way should be "0-1" OHM the other way should be " " (nothing). Pay attention how you remove it as they are polarized (one leg is "+" the other is "-"... you can get LEDs in any color/voltage online.

http://www.balboawatergroup.com/MoodEFX-Lighting

http://www.cedartubsdirect.com/mood-fx-22-bulb-hot-tub-led-light-spa-light-bulb-p-325.html

http://www.hottubwarehouse.com/balboa-moodefx-22-led-hot-tub-light-23138

[MattL]

Thanks, but the big underwater light (like shown in your links) is working fine. It's the small perimeter lights that are going out on me. The "head" of the light that sticks through the spa wall is only about 1/2" in diameter and are hex shapes and looks as though they're made that way so you can screw and unscrew them into place with a small wrench. The pics below were taken a couple years ago when most worked as they should (I hope you can see the pics... they're linked from Facebook)

[MattL]

Sorry... double post

[MattL]

The more I'm researching it, maybe those perimeter lights are fiber-optic???

[demonstraten]

The problem with this is that the ballasts output a high voltage supply to fire the bulbs, and these are often designed with many protection circuits that will all need to be bypassed. It is a bit of an engineering nightmare to go through with this unless you can find a led bulb capable of dissipating/utilizing all the energy at the ballast. Even then, there might be a current sensor or something that may still need to be bypassed. I went through something similar when installing some explosion proof lighting paint booths, so that's why I am quite informed on this matter.

[Couch67]

lol