Quote:
Originally Posted by Delphinus
When I ran with halides it was a constant battle against humidity in the house. Ended up with an HRV and wow, does that ever eat up the humidity (basically because it's always so dang dry outside around here). Now with LEDs and T5's I find it's actually a battle for the opposite, it's TOO DRY in the house. I have to water my plants daily otherwise they start to wilt. (#firstworldproblems ?). I've shut off the HRV for the season some time ago but it's still a mystery to me where all the water is going.
It's nice not having to worry about humidity and heat but the truth is I miss my halides. I know I can up the intensity of my LEDs (and I really need to get on with that, I suppose). The few corals I have do not retain their colour, and when I had Radiums over the tank everything just popped with colour.
The nice thing about the LEDs is the shifting colours over the day, although on the flip side I really need to get on with fixing it up a little because it's just weird when you look at a orange fish that should be yellow normally, or a crimsom red fish that should be orange. Or a purple fish that, thanks to the strength of astigmatism correction of my eyeglasses, appears as two separate fishes swimming side by side, one that is pure blue and one is that pure red. 
When time/budget allows I'm going to fit two halides back over my tank. I'll keep the LEDs for the dusk/dawn effect. I'm pretty sure the T5's I have for dusk/dawn now aren't really doing much for me given that for the size of the tank they probably should be doubled (but this isn't a possibility because there's no space anyhow). So maybe I'll pull them off, use them for overwintering my more light hungry plants. That's the dream anyhow. Time and money don't seem to fall into my lap though, despite that I keep hoping they will. But I digress.
Getting back to the topic of humidity though (which is what started my random thought ... sorry .. hey this IS the "random thought thread" so .. meh.. ). Wouldn't the Radions need to have vent holes for heat dissipation and ventilation? I assume that you can't achieve any kind of IPxx-whatever ingress protection because of that? |
Yes ventilation has to be there but that's where the designer's experience come in. For example, the radion has a fan to dissipate the heat and the fan should not have have any issue with humidity as long as the fan is sealed to say IP65 or is outdoor rated. For IP65 sealing, the exposed wires (wires from the fan to the circuit and the termination points) need to be sealed by a compound that won't dissolve/react with water, silicon for example. The head sink connected to the light engines need to be sealed with proper gaskets to keep moisture from getting in through the vent into the engines via heat sink. Similarly, all seem will need some sort of seal (gaskets/silicon) to keep moisture from getting in. So basically, the seals have to be such that only the light engine and the circuits are protected.
The company I work for has a IP65 fixture that has two fans and ventilation holes on the sides but has seals in such a way that moisture/water cannot get into the light engine or circuits. Many drivers are already sealed to IP65 now-a-days so drivers do not need to be sealed.
In the end, it all depends on how crafty the light enclosure designer is.