Quote:
Originally Posted by StirCrazy
actualy your not corect at all, I am sorry that you are pushing them for you group led buy, but they are running them at 70% because they don't need to run them at 100% so yes they are also reducing the requirment of the heat sink a bit also.
I do agree watt to watt cree is the most powerfull out there, but don't let that fool you into thinking that they are built better than the other major brands. all the major brands are that for a reason.. they are good.
with the emergent of briglux and there 5, 10, 50 watt LEDs the 3 watt Cree is starting to go the way of T5's where they are being used for actining surounding more powerfull high quality LEDs. you should start selling briglux and edison also to give people more of a choice.
better yet, you should try out a 120 watt LED like the one I was playing with a few days ago.. I am still seeing spots 
Steve |
If you have very good cooling and very good heat transfer you run them at 100%. Everyone everywhere will tell you to run them at 70% because of the hobby cooling/heat transfer.
Im not trying to sell anyone anything, haven't even mentioned our website. Im just trying to make sure canreefers don't get stuck buying something that is going to cost thousands because their corals die or just dont grow.
120w, 50w, 50000w LED doesnt matter when it uses more power than equivalent 3watters. The point behind LEDs is efficiency not wattage. Go pick up a industry LED magazine, you will see the XM-L from CREE showcased all over the mag, its because its ridiculously efficient. You are buying LEDs to save money on power and replacement bulbs so why take that number 1 reason away just so you can have a 50w LED that you will have a hard time cooling that uses more power than equivalent XM-L LEDs?
Ill give you an example. Lets for instance have CREE XR-E vs CREE XM-L at 1A
XR-E 250lm
XM-L 415lm
thats 66% more light but you need 3.7v to run each XR-E at 1A. Not a big deal? wrong.
So if you have your basic 48v driver, you can do 12 XR-E or 16 XM-Ls for the same power.
That is 3000lm vs 6640lm. Big difference as you start adding more LEDs. So for the same power you are getting more than twice the light. So the end result, you use LESS leds and less power which equals more $$$ in your pocket.
This is why everyone is using CREEs for their aquariums (AS OF THIS POST)
Now lets check out your favorite 50w bridgelux.
I believe its 36v @ 1500mA producing 4000lm
So for the same power you can do 11 XM-Ls. That would be 590lm per for a total of 6490lm. thats 1.61x more lumens for same amount of power. Which is huge if you are doing a big setup. But thats not the kicker, cooling a 50w LED is no where as near as easy as cooling an array of 3w LEDs spread out.
So the 50w is most likely not going to last anywhere close to a standard 3w array.
And hopefully you have some crazy optic or reflector for that bad boy because you are going to loose half of the light onto your living room floor if you dont put optics on those LEDs because most of them are 100-125 degrees.
Right now, Im liking the XM-Ls from CREE. If another company comes along, has the right color that is more efficient than the XM-Ls, im all for giving them a try.
The real question is, why are you posting on canreef when a Canucks playoff game is going on?