MaxSpect G2 110 Watt LED Light Fixture

trilinearmipmap · #1 05-20-2010, 06:04 AM

I ordered a MaxSpect G2 110 Watt LED light fixture from Fish Street in Hong Kong to replace the 96 watt PC light over my 30 gallon cube. It arrived today and here are my initial impressions:

1. Ordering

Ordering from the Fish Street website was a little difficult due to the language barrier. A couple of e-mails went back and forth but it was difficult to get straight answers to my questions regarding details about the light.

2. Shipping

The promised shipping date was postponed a week, then postponed by another week. It did arrive today. Shipping was upgraded to 4-day courier shipping without any extra charge. The unit was packed extremely well using foam inserts and padding and it arrived in good condition.

3. Instructions and setup

The instructions are a bit lacking. You need to figure out how to put together the rail mounting system yourself as it has no instructions but that is not too difficult. The instructions have errors, this is a little frustrating. I had my unit up and running within about 15 minutes.

4. Included in the box

110 Watt LED lighting system - mixture of white and blue LED's
Hanging mount kit
Rail mount kit
Power supply/timer controller unit with separate timers for the blue and white LED's
Power cord for power supply
Low-voltage cord to connect the power supply to the light fixture
Instruction sheet

This fixture runs on North American 110 Volt power.

5. Build quality

The unit seems pretty solid. There are some nice details. For example the power cord that runs from the timer/controller unit to the lamp fixture plugs in at each end and also has a metal ring that screws down tight to keep it in place and protect it from splashes. The mounting legs are more sturdy than I expected. One flaw in the unit is that the mounting legs don't lie flat but sit at an angle when initially installed. The fix I read on Reef Central is to loosen the screws that attach the rails to the mount, I will try this tomorrow.

6. Operation

The fan is barely audible 2 feet away, a very faint whisper. The unit barely gets warm to the touch after several hours with all the LED's on. The light seems subjectively quite bright, of course this does not correlate well with PAR, PUR etc. My anemones and corals in the tank clearly appreciated this light more than the previous PC lamp. With both white and blue LED's on, the tank is a little too blue for my taste however it still looks good.

I will try and post some pics when I have time. From the threads about this light on Reef Central, it seems that it does not compare to high-end LED lighting such as the AquaIllumination fixture, which has several times the light output of the MaxSpect fixture. However the price of this unit is much more reasonable than higher-end LED fixtures. So far I am happy with my purchase.