Lumen Light Repair (Haven't yet been tried in the water)

Hello everyone. I am still trying to build a simple drop camera but am now experiencing issues with the lumen lights (2 chained setup). The setup was supposed to be the lumen lights directly connected to a 12V 8ah Li-ion battery pack (no servo). During my initial trials with the wiring, I could not seem to get the lights to turn on but after a few conversations with the authorized dealer, I found out that the yellow wire should be connected with the positive along with the red wire and the black to negative. When I did that, only one of the lights turned on but the brightness was alright. After attempting again however, both of the lights no longer seem to be working. I am afraid if I have damaged something internally in lights (current theory is the internal regulator) and I was wondering if I could get some info about 2 things:

  1. Would it be possible to get parts to repair the lights if I shorted them? and;
  2. If I open the lights, will the depth rating no longer be up till 500 meters?

Appreciate all your help in the past and continuous assistance. All the best!

Hi @Tides, sorry to hear you’re having issues with your Lumens.

Shorting the (yellow) signal wire to the (red) power wire sets the lights to full brightness. It’s possible to have control over the brightness by providing a PWM signal to the yellow wire, as specified on the product page.

That said, when the lights are daisy-chained they should operate together. If only one light is working then there’s likely an issue with the other light, or the cable between it and the first one (assuming the failing one is second in the chain). I would recommend you contact support@bluerobotics.com to determine what is wrong with your light(s), and to sort out a potential replacement or refund as relevant.

Potentially, depending on the nature and extent of the damage, and assuming the cause is able to be determined. Not every problem is repairable, but if it’s determined that a partial replacement would solve the issue (e.g. a cable, lens, PCB, etc) then we can likely send the part(s), assuming it’s something we have available (e.g. we generally get PCBs populated by a supplier, so we could send a replacement PCB but likely not a single capacitor or microcontroller).

Note that if you’ve received a faulty product from us then we’ll make sure you’re provided with either a partial or full replacement, or a refund, depending on what makes the most sense for the situation.

I’m not sure what you mean by this - the only way “shorting them” could be detrimental is by shorting one of the wires to an external signal or voltage it’s not able to handle. Shorting the light’s wires to each other will either turn the lights on (signal to power), turn them off (signal to ground), or provide no power (power to ground).

If you’ve provided a negative/reversed or overly large voltage then some components may be damaged, but it’s not guaranteed which ones, and may not be simple to determine. The simplest repair in that case would be replacing the PCB.

If you’re electronically inclined and want to replace individual components then you can find out what they are from the schematic on the product page, but would need to source them and any relevant tools (e.g. soldering iron, cable insertion tool, etc) yourself.

Opening our lights should not affect the depth they can operate to (in the same way that opening an enclosure doesn’t), but you’ll need to be careful during re-assembly to properly clean and lubricate the o-rings and flange, and properly tighten the penetrators and screws.

I would recommend you contact support@bluerobotics.com to determine what is wrong with your light(s), and to sort out a potential replacement or refund as relevant.

Much appreciated as always, @EliotBR. I have already contacted support@bluerobotics.com in order to try to find a solution to this.

If you’ve provided a negative/reversed or overly large voltage then some components may be damaged, but it’s not guaranteed which ones, and may not be simple to determine. The simplest repair in that case would be replacing the PCB.

This is what I theorize I may have done: reversing the positive and negatives but yes, I agree that determining whether or not the lumen lights are damaged or not (and where the damage has occurred) is quite complicated as I am also not that electronically inclined.

Opening our lights should not affect the depth they can operate to (in the same way that opening an enclosure doesn’t), but you’ll need to be careful during re-assembly to properly clean and lubricate the o-rings and flange, and properly tighten the penetrators and screws.

Great to know this. Much appreciated.

Hello everyone. So we’ve gotten a diagnosis from the BlueRobotics Support Team and turns out a component of the PCB has burned which caused the lights to fail so we have to replace the PCBs. Just so that this doesn’t happen again, would you happen to know what would have caused this?

To clarify, in a setup without a servo, positive (red) would be connected to positive (red), negative (black) to ground (black) and signal (yellow) to positive (red)…? Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Cheers!

Not without knowing which component it was, or at least which type of component.

Statistically speaking sometimes electronic components just fail (even within their ratings) - such issues are just supposed to occur at very low frequencies. That said, it’s also possible a voltage spike (which sometimes occurs when turning on a power supply) or a reverse voltage (if the power and ground are switched around) could have gone outside the rating of the components and caused a failure.

Without using servo-based control, it is indeed possible to turn on our Lumen light by connecting the yellow signal wire to the red power wire, assuming a suitable voltage is supplied between power (red) and ground (black) :slight_smile: