New Lighting Technology?...

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Check this thread out......

This is some exciting technology in lighting. The unit is still in R&D stage and will be forwarded to Sanjay for Spectral Analysis soon. Can't wait to get my hands on one of these to test.

http://reef2reef.com/forums/showthre...threadid=21646

Ian.

[banditpowdercoat]

Interesting.....

Wonder what cost is like?

[sphelps]

Cool I was waiting to see someone try this technology on an aquarium, looks and sounds quite promising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGsM9pplUs

[RuGlu6]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGsM9pplUs

the guy in the video says that its 6000K at 250W.
I wonder how hot would tank water get if the bulb heats up to 400C?

always nice to have something new on the block.

But remember the LED hype? where is it now with all the controllers failing etc.

[mark]

6000K

http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=40717

[Ron99]

It's good to see somebody trying this technology out. I still think LEDs hold alot of promise but mainly for DIY right now. The commercial fixtures are way to expensive and not always built well. I saw some pictures of a PFO Solaris dismantled and it was not very impressive. The heatsinks were a joke. So I'm not surprised they were failing. Maybe the Aqua Illumination ones are better but still pricey.

I'm going to build my own LED fixture for my new 65 gallon tank. Total cost of parts will probably be around $1000. But the equivalent Solaris fixture was close to $4000 and the quality of components for the DIY will be much higher. The only think I will be missing is the controller for sunrise/sunset etc. but that can be added later.

[Kryptic4L]

just get a decent aquarium controller for sunrise / sunset.

[banditpowdercoat]

If you've built the whole LED system, then building a fading controller is easy. One Quad OP Amp and some resistors makes a on/off dimmer

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

It's good to see somebody trying this technology out. I still think LEDs hold alot of promise but mainly for DIY right now. The commercial fixtures are way to expensive and not always built well. I saw some pictures of a PFO Solaris dismantled and it was not very impressive. The heatsinks were a joke. So I'm not surprised they were failing. Maybe the Aqua Illumination ones are better but still pricey.

I'm going to build my own LED fixture for my new 65 gallon tank. Total cost of parts will probably be around $1000. But the equivalent Solaris fixture was close to $4000 and the quality of components for the DIY will be much higher. The only think I will be missing is the controller for sunrise/sunset etc. but that can be added later.

I am starting to shy away from building an LED set up now, the more I read about LEDs the less I want them, so this plasma bulb is very interesting to me. this bulb is rated to retain over 80% of its output after 20000hours, which means if you run it for 8 hours a day every 6.8 years you need to change the bulb.

form what I have been reading about new High power LEDs is that they lose 60% of there output after aprox 2 years, and don't last 50K hours as the high power ones have a much shorter life span. I would say with a 60% average output loss in a couple years, you would be replacing LEDs every 2 years.. also the penatration is actualy quite pour compard to other point source lighting.

having said all this I am still concidering building a LED set up, but beforI do I have to do a lot more research and concider some pretty undesiriable trates.

Steve

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I am starting to shy away from building an LED set up now, the more I read about LEDs the less I want them, so this plasma bulb is very interesting to me. this bulb is rated to retain over 80% of its output after 20000hours, which means if you run it for 8 hours a day every 6.8 years you need to change the bulb.

form what I have been reading about new High power LEDs is that they lose 60% of there output after aprox 2 years, and don't last 50K hours as the high power ones have a much shorter life span. I would say with a 60% average output loss in a couple years, you would be replacing LEDs every 2 years.. also the penatration is actualy quite pour compard to other point source lighting.

having said all this I am still concidering building a LED set up, but beforI do I have to do a lot more research and concider some pretty undesiriable trates.

Steve

High Power LEDs will last the 50,000 hours as long as you keep them cool enough. I think failures were due to poor thermal management. LEDs do not like excessive heat. The Solaris units had pitiful excuses for heat sinks so that was likely responsible for most of those failures. I am going a bit with overkill on mine. But as long as you have adequate heat sinks and run a fan or two to move air over the heatsink the LEDs will last the 50K hours.

Penetration is poor because the output is something like 120 or more degrees wide so it is quite spread out. Adding even 80 degree optics will bump up performance quite a bit. 60 degree optics should give performance equal to or better than 150 Watt MH. 40 degree optics will equal or exceed 250 watt MH and 20 degree optics should reach 400 watt MH PAR levels. For any tank deeper than say 10 inches you need some optics to get better penetration and PAR at depth.