AI Prime owners: Passive cooling at low power?

[lucabrasi]

Hello,

I am considering outfitting my 24x12x16 (width x depth x height) mixed reef tank with two AI Prime 16 HD for better light distribution and more PAR (currently running two Fluval Marine LED 3.0 with 22 watts each). I really prefer as little noise as possible and I am wondering if the fan in an AI Prime 16 HD at for example only 30 watts output is turning on at all.

I would really appreciate if someone owning this light could let me know their experience!

 

Thanks!

[AllAboutDatWrasse]

I doubt the fan would turn on at all, unless your room is really warm. In the winter I rarely if ever hear the fan on. 

[Nixperience]

It only turns on after long periods of high power. If you set a lot of gradual ramp up and down points and have a shorter peak, it won’t run the fan much. 

[05XRunner]

I ran my AI prime 16HD at like 31watts. I even thermal pasted the heat sink because they don’t. I will say the fan ran a lot more than I expected it to. 

[reefer_evo5]

I have a ai 16hd running on my tank now with the "david zaxby" schedule running and it does kick on my fan at almost full speed sometimes its kinda annoying and im barely finding out about the thermal paste heat sink thing to try and help reduce this. Do you have more info or a how to do this? 

14 hours ago, 05XRunner said:

I ran my AI prime 16HD at like 31watts. I even thermal pasted the heat sink because they don’t. I will say the fan ran a lot more than I expected it to. 

 

[05XRunner]

1 hour ago, reefer_evo5 said:

I have a ai 16hd running on my tank now with the "david zaxby" schedule running and it does kick on my fan at almost full speed sometimes its kinda annoying and im barely finding out about the thermal paste heat sink thing to try and help reduce this. Do you have more info or a how to do this? 

 

 

just follow that to disassemble then paste the heatsink 

[reefer_evo5]

12 minutes ago, 05XRunner said:

 

just follow that to disassemble then paste the heatsink 

do i apply the paste between the led lights and the heat sink or between the heat sink and the cooling fan thats whats confusing me thanks 

[05XRunner]

14 minutes ago, reefer_evo5 said:

do i apply the paste between the led lights and the heat sink or between the heat sink and the cooling fan thats whats confusing me thanks 

between the led puck and heatsink. so the paste would be ontop of the LED puck and bottom of heatsink

[reefer_evo5]

Just now, 05XRunner said:

between the led puck and heatsink. so the paste would be ontop of the LED puck and bottom of heatsink

ok cool thank you im gonna try this when i get home did it make a big diffrence for you my fan goes on all the time and its loud and i wanna reduce this noise because running my return pump at full power and nero 3 at 50% i cant hear anything but my ai fan is so loud lol 

[05XRunner]

it did help some but it wasn't a drastic difference I dont think. It seem to run just as much but at lower speeds and at times would ramp up some.

They need to not use a cheap .25cent fan for the price of these lights and use a quality fan like from Noctua that is very quiet