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View Full Version : New member and an electrical question

JZinCO
08/22/2016, 09:39 AM
Hey everyone. I'll make this short for now but might talk more about my tank in the future.
I have a sumpless/skimmerless 29g. I'm in the process of moving to a 50g. I've got a 20g sump hooked up to it and all the plumbing done. I also have made a foam/dry rock/ crushed coral back wall. Over the past month or two, I've cured dry rock. Yesterday I finally went ahead, added 100# sand, added the dry rock, added salt. Everything is ready to cycle the back wall and sand.

It's working great. I even got the Current Orbit Marine 46w light for $80 off craigslist. I've tested it a couple of times and everything seemed to work great. Last night I had it on for an hour to see how my scaping looked. I went to grab the gf to show her the tank. We came back in and the lights were off. Where the ramp timer hooked into the LED bar smelled like electrical smoke and the adapter to the ramp timer was HOT (with a touch of melted plastic). The timer itself was cool to the touch.

AGH! So I have ordered a new adapter from Current via Amazon ($40). I'll plug it in and see how that works. If that doesn't work, I'll then replace the timer ($80 to replace the PRO, else $50 for the base timer). Thankfully Amazon is so easy to return things if the fix isn't found. If that doesn't work... new light?
Any experiences? Anyone with experience in electronics have an idea of what went wrong? I'm hoping that the adapter, 12v60w btw, was just faulty.
mcgyvr
08/22/2016, 10:07 AM
Well.. corrosion (salt creep/water exposure,etc..)..failed solder connections,etc.. are all possibilities..
Only way to know for sure is to examine it/open it,etc...

The previous owner could have dropped it into the water,etc... or just neglected cleaning off the salt creep,etc..
JZinCO
08/22/2016, 10:23 AM
It was super clean when I got it (though that's no sign of past use).

I'll talk to the seller as they run a hobby saltwater biz out of their home.

Just sucks because I had played with it several times for durations of 10 min or so and hadn't left it on long enough for the adapter to heat up. I just hope the adapter did not damage the downstream (timer, leds) components.
billdogg
08/22/2016, 12:52 PM
what mcgyvr said.

As a note - in your post, you said you added the sand, and then the rock? If so, take the time now to move the sand and place the rock directly on the bottom of the tank. That will prevent any rockslides due to shifting sand and/or burrowing critters.
JZinCO
08/22/2016, 01:33 PM
what mcgyvr said.

As a note - in your post, you said you added the sand, and then the rock? If so, take the time now to move the sand and place the rock directly on the bottom of the tank. That will prevent any rockslides due to shifting sand and/or burrowing critters.

Sorry, I did not mean to say I did those things in that order. In fact I have rocks on egg crate bottoms. As a side note, I've read varied opinions on egg crate on the bottom, rather not get into that debate here.
I guess I wrote all that for context, as in "Yippie, I'm all ready. Everything is in place, let the curing begin..wait what?! agh...". I guess that's not 100% true.. I still want to try out a couple designs on the Eshopps overflow to cut down on noise and maybe replace the mag 5 with a quiet one 2200 b/c that pump is too load.

Back to mcgyvr's point, I'm not comfortable opening an AC adapter; I think just replacing it and hoping for the best is all I can do within my capabilities. If nothing works, then I'm probably SOL because Current-USA seems to have a strict warranty policy.

I'll let you guys see how it turns out. I'm sure I will have more issues/questions. For one, I have designed a tee in my return. I am going to make the 29g a seagrass planted tank once its inhabitants move over. Both tanks will feed into my sump. I hope a valve on each tank's return and fiddling with outflow rates from each tank will result in a happy medium.
I'll wait till that comes to fruition to handle my pump debate since my gph needs will change. Plus I will drill an intank overflow for that :)
billdogg
08/22/2016, 01:50 PM
Cool! It sounds like you have thought this out pretty.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - without any help from Siri.
JZinCO
08/24/2016, 04:22 PM
New adapter solved the problem. Phew.