warning about Juwel lights!

[Bigpig]

If you are thinking of buying a Juwel Tank here is a bit of a warning;
I have a Juwel Rekord 96, about 2 years old. The starter switch, (not the on/off, but that small white cartridge thing), has stopped working. a new tube lighting switch costs about £2, but with the Juwel Rekord 96 everything is built into the unit. Meaning that I need to by a complete new lid, which costs about £50!!!
Imo this is really out of order as these things usually need replacingevery couple of years.
I have rigged up some different lighting, and I am wondering if I can safely remove the Juwel unit from the lid, without destroying the lid..
Ideally I would love to be able to cut some of the lid away to get access to the lighting unit, then just replace the cartridge???
Have any of you tried this?
Any tips would be great.

[MatsP]

I would think that some suitable "surgery" with a junior hack-saw and suture in form of silicon-sealant would work.

Although I'm not sure it's the "igniter" that is gone - as I understand it the Juwel uses an electronic (as opposed to a pure load) ballast, in which case the unit is somewhat more complicate to directly replace. However, you could always chop up the lid [try to figure out where the unit is at first, then remove as little plastic as possible to avoid loosing too much strength in the lid] and replace the whole thing with a double light unit from Arcadia, like these: http://www.swelluk.com/aquarium/aquariu ... -6666.html [Other brands and models do exist, check with your LFS].

If you are at least a little bit handy with your electrics, you could just rewire the thing from the existing wires onto the new unit.

Edit: But if you don't know what you are doing, you may want to seek an electricians advice - which will probably set you back further than the cost of a new Juwel lid...

--
Mats

[grokefish]

Ive got one and it just has a plastic cover over the starter that pulls out.

Matt

[Bigpig]

thanks for those replies.
I will have a go at cutting the lid up and see what I can do with it.

[racoll]

This is the reason I never buy "off-the-shelf" set-ups.

I always DIY my equipment.

More expensive initially, but cheaper in the long run.

[Jools]

I had the same trouble with my juwel at work (yes, Jools' juwel - ha ha). Anyway, the thing is a nightmare to get into, apparently this makes it the safest light on the market - but at £50 a replacement, not brilliant. Pun intended.

Anyway, I did the following: get a wide bore drill and drill the sealed holes at one end over size by about 5mm. The end will then slide off with some "persusion" and you can play around with the inside. This was no use to me as I couldn't find what was wrong, but it did seem like the best way to get into the thing.

Jools