LED Fixture - cheap

[mark]

helps, thanks Dez.

[riceboy]

Thanks man, I will wait to see your review in the next couple months before I make my decision.

Thanks
Victor

Originally Posted by mark

helps, thanks Dez.

Originally Posted by Dez

It was this seller:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Aquarium-LED-90w-...#ht_958wt_1141

Except I bought the 120watt version. They have a 300 watt version as well.

Hope this helps. I'm going to give it 6 months of testing before I sell my halides.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Dez

First impressions is that it's got good build quality. It doesn't have heatsinks but seem to stay very cool. .

they use a PCB board as the heat sink. I was asking my buddy about this as he lives in china and his company is producing a lot of LED products. that is why the fans are needed on these as the parts are all surface mount so they type of board they use has heat disapating propertys and then the fan cools the other side of the board.

I am actualy trying to design something with him, but the problem is to keep it cheep enough I would have to order a container load.. or part container load so I am waiting to find out how many units that entails before I go any further. I was hoping I could get 3 to 10 units at a reasonable price but it is soundling like I would have to buy a lot more than that. but who knows.. maybe I could flood the market with cheep high quality lights.. good thing I have a new job that pays real good

Steve

[Milad]

You realize these are cheap, cheap quality lights. I hope no one is putting these on anything deeper than 10in tanks. 1w LEDs, no optics aren't going to penetrate the water well enough to give you good growth.

Also I cant tell which LEDs they are using from the description but in most cases, these fixtures from China are using sub par cooling and LEDs. This will mean you will be replacing them every few years and you will be using more electricity than a standard CREE LED setup so in the long run they will cost you more than a higher quality setup within a couple years with less growth.

Please don't consider these anything close to equivalent to a AI Sol or CREE DIY fixture. These are the reason people say "LED don't work, ive seen it first hand"

Stick to fixtures with 3W CREE XP-G, XP-E or XM-L LEDs that have been proven.

My 2 cents

FYI I sell and work with LEDs on a daily basis so I know a few things about them.

[mark]

Originally Posted by Milad

You realize these are cheap, cheap quality lights. I hope no one is putting these on anything deeper than 10in tanks. 1w LEDs, no optics aren't going to penetrate the water well enough to give you good growth.

Also I cant tell which LEDs they are using from the description but in most cases, these fixtures from China are using sub par cooling and LEDs. This will mean you will be replacing them every few years and you will be using more electricity than a standard CREE LED setup so in the long run they will cost you more than a higher quality setup within a couple years with less growth.

Please don't consider these anything close to equivalent to a AI Sol or CREE DIY fixture. These are the reason people say "LED don't work, ive seen it first hand"

Stick to fixtures with 3W CREE XP-G, XP-E or XM-L LEDs that have been proven.

My 2 cents

FYI I sell and work with LEDs on a daily basis so I know a few things about them.

have you seen Dez's tank?

[Milad]

Originally Posted by mark

have you seen Dez's tank?

Actually no I haven't. Have you seen all the reviews, studies, posts, and comparisons all over the net on these 1w LEDs?

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by mark

have you seen Dez's tank?

I've seen Dez's tank. At least the pictures anyway. It is beautiful, but it was grown out under MH, not LED. I don't think you can use this tank to support LEDs. At least not yet.

I've done my share of research. I wouldn't buy these lights.

- Brad

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Milad

You realize these are cheap, cheap quality lights. I hope no one is putting these on anything deeper than 10in tanks. 1w LEDs, no optics aren't going to penetrate the water well enough to give you good growth.

Also I cant tell which LEDs they are using from the description but in most cases, these fixtures from China are using sub par cooling and LEDs.
"

Stick to fixtures with 3W CREE XP-G, XP-E or XM-L LEDs that have been proven.

My 2 cents

FYI I sell and work with LEDs on a daily basis so I know a few things about them.

I need to make it clear that I am not suporting this e-bay light nore and my saying it is junk. but rather questing the post

so you think edison and bridglux LEDs are sub PAR? not saying thats what these spicific ones are but there are a lot of china made fixtures that are using them. the problem with a blanket statment like yours is it is totaly false. things made in China are made to the spec YOU design, if you spec high quality parts, you will have a high quality fixture.

If you do some real digging most products you are seeing are probably more properly labbled "designed in germany, or US ect... Made in China" but instead they say things like "German enginering" ect

when it comes right down to it I order a run of so many pieces. they gear up for my order and get the parts as per my spec tool up and then make my run. now if I spec a lumin output and temp in kelvin then I have no control over the LED used and they will use there own that they make in house. this is the cheepest option. I can also spec a brand name LED which ups the cost slightly.

now I don't know about this spicific e-bay light but the one I am looking at is a bonded board. so the PCB board which is made of thermal clad, which mean they use a thermal epoxy for the PCB part of the board and they clad that to an aluminum, or copper backing. now even here you can go cheep on the backing as you have the choice in thickness between 1 to 3mm I am looking at 3mm but I guess if I wanted to go cheep I could pick 1mm.

so basicly its not the fact that the product is from china that makes it cheep but rather it is the specs of the person in Canada or the USA that makes it cheep.


One other thing I would add is year there are a lot of bad LEDs out there but not all are bad, there are several very good quality brands of LEDs. do they have as high of an output as the Cree's? some yes some no, are they as efficient as the cree's in Lumin/watt.. no but some are close. is that efficiency difference going to cost a lot of extra power.. nope. pennies a month in the range were talking about. the biggest complaint about the no name LEDs are that the coatings are flaking off changing the output color. if you are using one of these ones then ya you have a hugly cheep setup, but any of the major brands are not like this, so there is Cree, bridglux, edison, philips, and a few others I can't remember right off the top of my head.

edison and cree are both 3 watt LEDs but they come about it different. cree uses lower voltage higher current, edison uses higher voltage lower current which is why you use 700mA max for the edison LEDs. Bridglux makes high power LEDs which are producing some pretty wicked outputs. Now a LED that is starting to become very popular is the "Steve's LED" all this is, is a guy name steve gets a deal on spec edison LEDs and resells them. edison LEDs are slightly less output then crees but they are more than enough and 1/3 the price. If you look at people running cree LEDs most are setting them up at 700 mA which is 70% to start with then using dimming circuts to run them at 70% so they are realy running there fixtures at about 50% which surprises me, very few are actualy running 100% so what does this say.. cree is actualy way more power than we need on a normal tank.

Steve

[mike31154]

Read the specs in the listing provided by the OP in Post #1 carefully and you will see that the fixture uses BridgeLux LEDs:
"LED configuration: BridgeLux 1w/LED"
I also mentioned that in my Post #8.

So unless the seller is lying or misrepresenting the product.... and to reiterate, not everyone's system needs the intensity of 3 watt Crees beaming down on their livestock. I have to agree with StirCrazy here, in that blanket statements about a certain wattage of LED aren't that informative and helpful in the broader sense of our hobby.

How about, 1 watt LEDs will run cooler than 3 watt LEDs, perhaps reducing the requirement for monster heat sinks? Or you have more flexibility with colour options since you can use more 1 watt LEDs in an array than 3 watters?
"LED quantity: 119pcs x 1 Watt LED (71 White + 48 Blue)"

Ask the folks who spent thousands on the now defunct company that produced the first generation of controllable LED fixtures how they feel about the quality of that product.

eBay like any other source for goodies, has its pros & cons. I've made many good purchases and also a few lemons, but generally, if you do your homework, you can often get a very good deal there.

[abcha0s]

I think saying that products manufactured in China should be considered based on the merits of the specs is somewhat of an over simplification.

There is a reason companies use China as a manufacturing source. It is cheaper. Even after international shipping costs, it is still cheaper.

One must also consider QA and QC.

Chinese employees are paid pennies on the dollar compared to other countries. There are very bright people in China but these are not the people that work in factories for enough money to eat for the day.

Companies like apple that use China to manufacture products don't go to the lowest Chinese bidder. They work with companies where they can own the QA and QC aspects of the manufacturing process. When you go to the lowest bidder, you lose control of the process and "you get what you get"

Let's be honest - the majority of products "Made in China" are not of equal quality to the same product manufactured elsewhere.

Overseas outsourcing, whether to China or India, can make sense, but for the most part it is a cost savings measure and the old saying "you get what you pay for" still hold true.

- Brad