Evergrow IT2040 First Impressions/Review:
Evergrow's Nova A4 was my first LED light that I ever used after 3+ years of Metal Halide and T5 bulbs. I was always interested in the heat and electricity benefits of leds, but I felt the cost was way too high for what you were getting from most commercial fixtures. Along came the D120 and Nova A4, and finally led lighting seemed affordable for the budget reefer such as myself.
The Nova impressed me very much in build quality. I loved the light and its standard 12k 1:1 blue:white look, but eventually the upgrade bug got to me, and some coral colors seemed dull. That's when I started playing around with different combinations of leds, modifying the light, and took the knowledgeable advice of many DIY reefers making something good even better. I kept in touch with Sam at Evergrow with all the findings, and they took all the advice and offered many new things to us, such a DIY led layouts.
The IT2040 is Evergrow's newest 120W led fixture, and it is a culmination of all of our feedback and findings on what we wanted and liked in our fixtures.
Upon opening the box, I was greeted with another well built, quality light. The light looks sexy and sleek, and welcome atop any beautiful reef.
One of the first things I noticed that took me by surprise, was the addition of a brand new, adjustable and tilt-able hanging kit! It is nearly the exact same one I used that came with the Apollo Reef Led Solarblast light, and it was something I suggested they use awhile back. These normally cost around $30 alone, so I was very much excited to place it over my tank.
I then saw a wireless remote with buttons that said "cloudy", "sunny", "custom", "moon", "manual". I couldn't wait to fire it up, as those buttons intrigued me.
Upon firing it up, I was greeted to a very clean and detailed LCD screen complete with graphics and easily readable text. The first thing I did was lightly touch the touch sensitive "ok" button, and I was able to change modes. The light smoothly dimmed into a "cloudy" mode. I then tried the others.
The "moon" mode surprised me too. One of the problems with moonlights on many fixtures, is that they are too bright. At their "highest" setting of 5, the moonlights were much dimmer than most moonlights, and actually looked really nice. I think they nailed the brightness (another suggestion that they used well), and the moonlights are very much usable.
I tried a new ratio of leds... 10 NW, 8WW, 4CW, 18RB, 6B, 6V, 3Moon RB, and it ended up looking very similar to what my DIY fixture looks like. It is right around 14-16k and shows color nicely. It looks awesome. I have to test some more to see if it brings out color as much as the DIY with separate red and green leds.
The only thing I need to see more of and play with, is how the custom mode sunrise/sunset works. It comes with its own default sunrise/sunset brightness, but you can edit it. I have to see if you can edit more than every hour, and I need to see how the brightness shifts. I am unsure if it progressively gets dimmer, or if it just dims once the hour strikes. I'll update once I find out. I also have to see how the linking feature works.
Overall, this is an exciting light, and the price of $280 for us RC'ers is just awesome for what you get. Once again, as with the D120 and Nova, it would be tough to make a DIY light with a controller with a look this clean for the same price.
This is one of the most feature filled lights you can get for under $300, with a custom led layout of your choosing. The D120 and Nova's are still great value fixtures, especially with the D120 at under $200, but this is my new favorite of Evergrow's by far. They did a great job with the light, and based upon feedback, will improve upon it as well.
More impressions as I get to them.....
lol j/k sorta
