LED lighting - Solaris

[pastina]

guess pc's mh's and vho's will join hands with 8track and vinyl records in the land up in the sky

[Geoff]

i am really curious about the penetrating power of LED's. not sure they can compete with MH's for deeper tanks.

if they are designed properly and are not overdriven then an LED will last a very, very long time. i hope that they are not overdriven like most of the silly moon light manufacturers. it does sound like it is well designed since it has many fans on it. having many resistors to keep the voltages constant if a bulb were to blow. one blown bulb is death to a badly designe LED array.

G~

[dobejazz]

I saw a display at the IMAC convention in Chicago they looked great and you couldn't tell which tank was MH and which was LED just from viewing the tanks I had to look up under the canopy to tell. They had 2 frags tanks side by side

[HowardX]

<<< if they are designed properly and are not overdriven then an LED will last a very, very long time. >>>


True, but like any other lighting now commonly used in reef tanks the LEDs will dim and degrade and will need to be replaced way before the 'bulb life' claimed by the manufacturer I suspect.

This is definately very exciting technology IMO, but I would guess LED lighting is still about 3-5 yrs. away from being an affordable mainstream product in the reefing hobby.

[Twitterbait]

Well someone must like them because they keep selling out.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Twitterbait

Well someone must like them because they keep selling out.

hEH!

Good concet, LED arrays, buit properly with a good design, should last quite a while with little degredation of color or intensity. I have to say that the price here is absolutely outrageous, especially considering the actual cost of the raw materials. Even with a custom driver ap and programming, this is a bit more than unreasonable.

Ideally, these should be programmable with a old 286 to do just abo9ut anything, so if the output is as claimed, especially at the rate of power consumption, then this may be the wave of the future.

I think the best one would be on linked to an array of photoelectrics on the roof, letting the power output of the photovoltaics directly drive the output of the LEDs... then you'd do the LED's without using an inverter to make low voltage DC current from the AC 110v mains, rather, you could control the direct output of the photovoltaics.


Where is junkzoo???

[tiburon]

this idea looks /really/ cool. I like the idea of having uber control over the lighting environment.. with real gradual sunrise/sunset and even cloud cover options!

"Cloud Cover
% decrease from Daylight Full Brightness 0
Frequency between Clouds
ersonname>Lenersonname>gth of Cloud cover"

that's too cool for school. It's a bit pricy, yes, but not out of the reach of a lot of peeps.. I am sure it will come down in price when the volume of units being sold increases and when others come out with competing LED products. But that amazing gradual lighting control is the best I have seen in one unit which can create a very life-like lighting env for the reef. pretty snazzy!

[Kullas]

What i have been reading on is that the one watt LED has a life span of about 100,000 hours. the 2-3 watt has a life span of about 50,000 to 60,000 hours. and if i am understanding this correct the light output we need is from the 5 watt LED and that has a life span of about 5000 hours that is just a little over a year depending on your photo period :shrug:

[fchidsey]

Great Thread! I love the Idea. Any thing to help reduce the power bill and the cooling of the tank. As for the prices will thats what you pay for new toys the price will come down over time.

Fred

[Twitterbait]

actually these don't use the 5w LED. they currently only use the 3w. these also have a lense on each LED group to help with intensity and focusing the light on the tank.

[reefBoyDc]

So has anybody gotten one? Who's gonna be our guiney pig?

[redwinger]

Actually the price on these is not really all that bad and there is no real gouging going on. I have been looking at the viability of doing a DIY version on my aquapod for heat reasons alone and figured that the DIY route would be much more cost efficient. To give you a idea the 3w luxeon star led's that they use are $6.90 each and the lenses are about $8.40. Now you need 25 (per 24") of each of these so between the led's and the lenses you are at $382.50. This is before you add in the heatsinks, fans, resistors and power supplys. It may seem like intial price inflation but it really isn't when you consider R&D, advertising and other overhead costs. Most LED's are relativelly inexpensive but the luxeon 3 from phillips that PFO is using is pretty spends and then the lenses on top of it. Intial reports have been good so far and it is as advertised. In order for the price of these fixturesto come down, the led's and the lenses themselves will have to come down. That is the bulk of the cost in the fixture. Long term in about three years it would have equaled the cost of the normal halide route and then start paying for itself. IMO these are the future in lighting as far as aquaria goes.

[Twitterbait]

I am inclined to agree. Plus buying from PFO you have some form of a gaurentee at least.

[afbengochea]

I would imagine that these wouldnt work for a tank with a canopy or am I incorrect?

[Twitterbait]

should work as long as they fit.