Electronic – How to power the blue LEDs separetely on this aquarium light

led striplightmainswire

I have a Beamswork LED aquarium light like this. It has a 3 way switch:

  • All LEDs off
  • Blue LEDs on only
  • White AND blue LEDs on

It has a single mains power plug.

What I want to do is make it have two mains wall plugs. I want one to power the blue LEDs all the time, always on.

I want the 2nd plug to power the white LEDs only, and this will be plugged into a plug timer like this, so the white LEDs will independently go on and off by time, while the blues stay on (because that will be plugged in separately – I hope).

I opened the cover and found this:

enter image description here

The 2 black wires connected to the brown PCB is where the mains adapter plugs into. Then there are 3 blue-covered connectors which are connected to the 3 way switch. I don't know which ones control which colour as I didn't test it plugged in, but I think the white one is white LED, the middle one is power, the one I'm holding had a blue wire so probably blue LED. Is there a way to connect a 2nd mains plug to that blue LED connector (if it is that) so it powers separately? Drilling through the plastic to get a wire in is fine, but I don't know how what electric connectors or connections I need.

I don't know much about electrics, first-time project! Thanks.

EDIT: This is is the spec of the adapter:

enter image description here

And here I have done a few tests:

enter image description here

  • Wire 1 controls the "blue ONLY" LEDs from the switch
  • Wire 2 comes from the mains adapter
  • Wire 3 controls the "white AND blue" LEDs from the switch
  • Wire 4 goes to a metal thing on the LED board saying "Ground"

If I disconnect wire 1 and put the switch into the "blue only" position, the blue LEDs don't come on. But if I put the switch into the "all on" position, the white AND blue LEDs do come on.

If I disconnect wire 3 and put the switch into the "blue only" position, the blue LEDs do come on. But if I put the switch into the "all on" position, the white AND blue LEDs don't come on.

I'm thinking of getting a second power adapter and a male connector to fit directly to wire 1 (so disconnecting wire 1 from the original switch above), so I can keep the blue LEDs always on. But I'm worried, since wire 3 turns on both the blue and white LEDs (even if wire 1 is disconnected), will this make the blue LEDs get double power and cause a problem?

My goal in the end is to have the blue LEDs always on (because they will be powered separately from a new mains adapter) 24 hours a day. And the white LEDS (which also turn on the blue LEDs too) to be plugged into a plug timer and turn off at certain times of the day. Any suggestions?

Best Answer

This is only an educated guess given the pictures and description. You need to do more testing and convince yourself that this works.

It looks like you could take wires 1 and 2 and connect them and get blue LEDs only, and 2 and 3 and get blue and white LEDs. if this is true you could buy a little timer relay kit from any electronics hobby store and connect it between wire 3 and what wire 3 plugs in to. Set the switch to "blue only" and leave it in that position, using the timer relay to do the white+blue cycle as you want.

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