Quote:
Originally Posted by sphelps
The other day you seemed to agree that 10 years wasn't reasonable, what's changed??
Perhaps changing a ballast is as easy as changing a driver, that's fair enough, but how many drivers are used to drive 250W of LED compared to the number of ballasts for 500W of halide?
How is changing an LED as easy as changing a Halide or T5 bulb? Even the shear number of LEDs to replace in comparison, it wouldn't take much longer to start over. Sorry but if you have to break out a soldering iron it's not that easy. Plus I'd like to talk about actual fixtures not DIY approaches. Like I said let's stay in the real world.
My assumptions were very little, you're assuming way more including price drop when more realistically the LEDs you need to replace down the road will be extinct and difficult to source. You'll have to adapt new types of LEDs into the fixture which will add more complication. Maybe perhaps someone could provide a manual from a supplier of an LED fixture that shows the user how to replace the LEDs? I imagine such thing doesn't exist, for obvious reason.
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I think it all comes down to the design of any commercial fixture on how easy it is going to fix. Having quick disconnects on parts would allow the plug and play feature you see in most MH systems now. I still remember before when a MH system had multiple components to it before it would work properly. The same would apply here. until a set standard comes out for LED units and connections we are going to see a ton of ways to do it until a "user friendly" way is discovered. We are already seeing this in some of the fixtures coming out, Ron had mentioned the Maxspect fixtures using quick disconnects for there individual emitters (no soldering there). AI has 3 emitter modules (not as efficient but easy to change out)
Regarding the assumption of LED bulb prices droping is not all that off. LED lighting is moving at an incredibly fast pace. In 2000 the cost of a 5mm high intensity white/blue LED would cost $2.00 each from manufactures and now they cost a few cents. No doubt will the same thing happen with high power 3W + LEDs , look at when the luxeons first came out we were looking at manufacture cost of $10 and look at where is it now. LEDs are unique that they are current driven, so even if the specs on newer LEDs change it would be the total forward V and the amount of current taken thats not going to effect the way you pair up LEDs to drivers and should only take a few minutes to figure out how many LEDs can be in an array from simple math.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superduperwesman
I say we design LEDs that are easy to replace and make a killing  |
Watch someone is going to put a patent on quick disconnects now that we've mentioned it for LED purposes.