Okay, so I’ve had the ballasts for ages, and should have done it long ago (preferably before the majority of the plants died), but I put it off because I wasn’t sure of what I was doing, and then put if off again when I discovered that the new ballast and the old one had a different number of wires. Anyway, I finally buckled down and did it yesterday, so the one lone (and very tough) cory that remains in the tank has light…lots of light.
When the first fixture went out, I thought I’d just got a bad one, so I bought another. That one lasted three months, and had no warranty whatsoever. I was going to buy an LED fixture, but even the least expensive (that seemed reliable) were $150 or more, so I decided to try to figure out what had gone wrong with the T5 fixtures. I had two, so I took one apart, and figured it was unlikely that the bulbs were simply burned out so quickly and without having flickered. That left one of: a) power, b) switch; or, c) ballast. Knowing the fixtures were cheap Chinese crap, I guessed the most likely culprit was the ballast. I hopped online and found a couple of reasonably priced ballasts that were UL-listed and from a reputable manufacturer. I’d never switched out a ballast before, but figured if others could do it, then so could I. I’d pulled out the old ballasts to look for markings that I might use to identify them and buy replacements, but once I saw them, I immediately decided not to buy the same ones. They didn’t even have a brand, and were literally held together with tape. I also took them apart to see whether I could find out why they had failed. The photo is a bit blurry, but I think the bulging capacitor is evident even with a bad photo. The other one was the same. For about five seconds, I considered just unsoldering and replacing the capacitor, but since I prefer my home to be un-burnt down, I went for entirely new ballasts.
New ballast beside the old. There appeared to be enough space along the length the fixture to accommodate the longer ballast, so I thought at first it would be fairly simple. Remove old ballast, marking wires, shorten wires where necessary, install new ballast. Alas, that was not to be; the old ballast had seven connections on the end, and the new one only six. Apparently, I was going to have to sort out some wiring. The wiring diagram for the new ballasts is printed right on the case, though, which was helpful.
After a bit of paying attention and following wires, I determined that one wire for each set of bulbs appeared to serve no purpose. I’d daresay it had on the old ballast, but the new ones’ wiring diagram didn’t seem to need it, so I’d guess it was required because the old ballasts were half-assed in some way. I carefully checked the wiring to make sure, and made sure that there was ground, and checked to see whether it would affect the LED moonlights (they’re direct-wired, which is why they’re always on) but everything matched up nicely except for the odd wire, so I just removed it.
One new ballast in place, ready for a fingers-crossed test! Red and yellow wires controlled the bulbs furthest from me, so I put in bulbs that I thought were most likely good, and gave it a shot.
It worked (HALLELUJAH!), so I was ready to remove old ballast #2.
New ballasts installed, wires shortened (and a splice in one where it was unavoidable). Fingers crossed again!
Let there be…light! I actually didn’t take a photo because four of those bulbs would be so bright that the camera lens would be greatly confused, and I might as well use a screenshot of a white background, but here’s everything put back together. Since I had the first fixture, and one of the LEDs was out in the second one (the one I fixed), and another was a bit dim, I scavenged and got four good LEDs. I put the cover back on, and put it back on the tank. The tank looks sooooooo bad that I did not take a photo, but amazingly, the swords in there are still alive, and there are baby swords that I can use in place of the crypts that died. I’m going to do water changes on that and Cliffie’s tank, which is overgrown with ludwegia, so I’ll put some cuttings in the 55. It’ll be a while before it’s fit to look at, but I’m very glad the light is fixed!
