Pentair Microbrites - no more red?

[Auburn02]

I think I already confirmed by searching I'm just out of luck here, but two of the three Microbrites in my pool are now unable to emit red light - there is a very, very dim red light in one of them, nothing in the other. So if the dial is set to white, blue or green they all work - set it to red you get one light and two off, set it to magenta you get one magenta and two blue. And of course nearly all of the color-change modes include red or magenta in the sequence so you lose a lot of that effect.

I don't have any automation or an Easy Touch, the 3 lights are controlled on a single Intellibrite controller. Like I said I think I know the answer but just looking to confirm, is there anything worth checking at the connections anywhere or is this an obvious failure in the lights themselves and replacement is my only option?

"Magenta" - you can see the purple hue in the lower left from the one that's working correctly:


Red:

 

[ajw22]

Nothing is serviceable on the Microbrites. They need to be replaced when anything fails.

 

[Toxophilite]

2nd year on mine, and as expected from reading here I now have one only spitting out white. Truth be, I don't use them due to living on lake and year round bug of some kind fills immediately, but guess they really are short-term investment bulbs, especially being LED this ain't right!

 

[ajw22]

especially being LED this ain't right!

It is the electronics that control the LEDs that fail.

That is the dirty little secret about LED lights. LEDs last a long time. The electronics needed to drive the LEDs are often low cost designs and components that are prone to failure. Long lasting LED lights of any kind need to use high quality electronics.

 

[Auburn02]

2nd year on mine, and as expected from reading here I now have one only spitting out white.

Yeah, my follow-up question was going to be if I got a couple of duds or if 2.5-3 years is really about all I can expect if I want to replace them.

We did have a lightning incident earlier in the summer that got my SWCG control board and my Dolphin power supply (I think), so it's possible that maybe these were impacted by that. We too do not use them all that often so I can't remember specifically when they started acting up.

 

[Toxophilite]

It is the electronics that control the LEDs that fail.

That is the dirty little secret about LED lights. LEDs last a long time. The electronics needed to drive the LEDs are often low cost designs and components that are prone to failure. Long lasting LED lights of any kind need to use high quality electronics.

Thanks! Sad part is that I bet over the 2 years I don't have more than 10 hours total on these lights. Maybe if they had come in yellow bug light they would have had more

 

[ajw22]

Thanks! Sad part is that I bet over the 2 years I don't have more than 10 hours total on these lights.

It makes you wonder how much failure and stress testing they do on this product and other before bringing it to market.

Consumers are the undisclosed beta testers for many products and manufacturers are happy if the warranty returns are reasonable and most of the time the product lasts until the warranty has expired.

We have a low cost disposable society that does not value long term life of what they buy.