chinese led lights

[TropTrea]

Also, aquariumleds.com said he can't get the dimmable LEDs because of the Orbital patent issue.

Patent infringement is starting to ba a bigger issue every day. A lot of the research that went into LED's was Patented by US Companies like CREE. While all LED's are dimmable there dimming is realy done by controlong the drivers so it should be the drivers that are limiting them rather than the actual LED's. Interestly every driver I have purchased to date has "Made in China" stamped on it someplace.

However we are talking about a complet fixture here would have a total patent as well. So the possibility that someone holds a patent on the fisture itself with this feature is a possibility. If that is true and Patiernt rights are observed than we should only have on vendor world wide that offeres thes feature on there fixtures. Untill someone comes up with a completly different method of dimming LEDs.

 

[TropTrea]

Yes, and then the thread evolved.

Although technically the thread was started about Chinese LED fixture in general, with a direct question about those specific fixtures.


The thread stopped being about the OP halfway through page one. Hell, it stopped being about 1 watt LEDs for the most part around the same point.

I still think we are on the topic. If we are going to compare the prefirmance of Chineese fixtures we need to compare them to everything on the market to only be fair. This includes the American made fistures as well as home built fixtures.

How would feel if you thought you bbought the latest and greatest Chineese fisture only to discover that it fell short of an American made fixture that costed less? If not for patient laws I could easily start a small company competing with the Chineese building a limited number of fixtures that would be superior and cost less today. My R&R costs would be minimal compared to the US companies alredy holding the patients and I would not have to worry about revovering the heavy R&R and legal costs.

Just think if Customs were to check every imported product against patient rights in the US how much would be turned down at the port of entry compared to what is turned back today which in the muli millions.

 

[tntneon]

good points you pointed out to us troptea :thumbsup: !
I've learned alot more about leds in just a coupple of pages , well done.

what do you think of this chinese eshine system's fixture i just bought (see attachment)
It's an 48 X 3 w xp-g (white) xp-e (roy bleu) fixture with sunrise controller

I already have the 60 watt version over a year on my nano , very happy about it !
greetingzz tntneon

 

[BigCountry74]

Just think if Customs were to check every imported product against patient rights in the US how much would be turned down at the port of entry compared to what is turned back today which in the muli millions.

X2

aquariumleds.com is working out of Canada though (right on the border actually), not sure if that makes things more difficult for him, patent wise, or what.

I use to work for a product design firm. And if you had a good lawyer that knew what he was doing, that filed your patent - it's hard to get around it! Put it this way, there is sometimes more money involved in buying and selling of IP (intellectual property) than the actual products themselves....lol

 

[mwminer]

I've been lurking around on this thread and got to looking and comparing. I too found the same ones on Alibaba and got a quote on the 48" HY-A01-240Watt for the 8' 450 I'm putting up. I only need 2 units according to them which with shipping puts me in at @1267.70 including shipping. I've got a 165 now and I will test them out on it and see if I think this will do the 450. Currently I have Maxspect g2's on it.

The only other one I am waiting for a quote on (but I think it will be more than I want to spend) is the PHAROS which has itself listed on alibaba. I should have a price on them tonight. I know they are being sold by US retailers for around $1149 per unit and I would need at least 4 so I want to see what kind of a deal the manufacturer will give me.

I really don't think that these chinese black boxes are such a bad deal because face it all the big name lights are built in China anyway and then again in another few years there will be something "new and better" that we will all just have to have and lay out more $$$.

 

[mwminer]

In previous post I tried to include the quote of Dojic60 (post 508) but it didn't show up. Sorry if I confused anyone.

 

[convict3]

led

led

Ok so my wife blew my lighting budget on a new bedroom set so if i want leds i heve to get the little black box. Aquariumled.com is sold out till march 31 is tjere any other trusted place to get a 14 k version

 

[mwminer]

Hi! This is Mrs. mwminer....good for your wife...it will make your life more interesting , hopefully for you. On the other hand I love the tank as much as he does. As a matter of fact I'm the one who bought him the 450 we are putting up. While she may have blown the LED's that you want [with the bedroonm set] From what I can see if you can choose the right LED's for you at a more reasonable price you found the best of both worlds!

Honestly from what I see and can compare to the Black Boxes can be every bit as good and efficient as the "Big Names". I am really consdering a chinese LED for my 450 which as you know shouldn't spare a dime...they [the Chinese manufacturers] are the ones building the lights with soeone else's design with tieir logo...but they still have the prototye that they are building on themselves.

 

[TropTrea]

Ok so my wife blew my lighting budget on a new bedroom set so if i want leds i heve to get the little black box. Aquariumled.com is sold out till march 31 is tjere any other trusted place to get a 14 k version

Welcome to married life. For years me and my wife disagreed on what was a higher priority and she wills out 95% of the time.

This is what got me into doing a lot of my Aquariums on a DIY level. There was a point where I had over 100 tanks in my basement and my wife wanted them out. That is when I opened a store front and then had 100 tanks at the store and only 60 at home.

since going to DIY I found that with a little effeort you can build something twice as good for usualy 1/2 the money. And LED lighting is an ideal place to start as it is simple, does not take a lot of time, and the cost difference is realy extreme.

 

[TropTrea]

Removed.

 

[GroYurOwn]

Just wanted to update on my non-waterproof lights. I contacted aquariumleds.com and he offered to send me two replacement transformers for free, I just had to pay shipping. I thought that was pretty fair, but i took the thing apart and dried everything out and it all works now. One of the two fan drivers got fried (the one that comes on with white lights) but luckily the other fan driver has a spare plug, so i plugged in to that and i am good to go! Awesome customer service!

 

[BigAirHarper]

Just wanted to update on my non-waterproof lights. I contacted aquariumleds.com and he offered to send me two replacement transformers for free, I just had to pay shipping. I thought that was pretty fair, but i took the thing apart and dried everything out and it all works now. One of the two fan drivers got fried (the one that comes on with white lights) but luckily the other fan driver has a spare plug, so i plugged in to that and i am good to go! Awesome customer service!

Wow! Impressive on both customer service and that the light works. Congrats.

 

[tntneon]

For my new system i bought chinese leds because i tested it on my nano and they where/are great .
And with the money saved i bought a German royal exclusive returnpump :spin3:

greetingz tntneon

 

[IZZY'SREEF]

Hi,all! Enjoying this thread. I'm seriously thinking of getting back into the hobby with a 29 gal nano. I would really like to use one of the black boxes over the tank with minimum spillover. What would anyone recommend(wattage, optics et.) for a tank of this size(30x12x18h)

 

[BigAirHarper]

Hi,all! Enjoying this thread. I'm seriously thinking of getting back into the hobby with a 29 gal nano. I would really like to use one of the black boxes over the tank with minimum spillover. What would anyone recommend(wattage, optics et.) for a tank of this size(30x12x18h)

I'd check out eshine. The problem with the black boxes is they have no optics so they have a 120 degree light emission angle. With eshine you would be able to get a comparable fixture to the $165 black box (bridgelux instead of Cree) for almost the same money and these fixtures have optics to point the light down and decrease spillover. For your dimensions i would say a 36x3W with 90 degree optics would be plenty.

 

[mwminer]

I do not want to get into politics here but that comment urks me to no end. 90% of the problems this country is facing is because of unemployment. High unemployment forces more government spending on welfare programs. Where have the jobs gone but to countries that use slave labor. Us companies spend millions of dollars on research and development and getting there products and ideas patentend. Yet some of these countries steal our ideas and make poor replicas of our devices so American companies start loosing profits as people buy the cheap imitations.

There was time you could buy an American made refigerator that would last you 30 to 40 years. Today you cannot find one that will last you 10 years and where do 80% of the parts for that refregerator come from?

I don't disagree with you at all, I was just making the point that some of these lights could be just as good as the big brand names.

Honestly I have Maxspect G2-230 and G2-160Lights on my 165 and really like them, these are made in China and they are very good lights. But they were not purchased direct from the manufacturer, I bought them through a US distributor. So on this purchase I added to the economy of the distributor who made a very healthy profit on each piece. When I bought them I didn't really think about they were made in China. They were just as expensive as any of the other US brands.

What I did find out however while researching these chinese lights is that there is a very large markup. While I will not mention the brand of these lights anyone who really wants to know PM me. They are being pre-order sold right now and priced very high. They have all the features you can imagine, sunrise/sunset, cloud mode, timers, dimmers anyway I sent a request for pricing and I can actually purchase these lights which are being sold online for $500 LESS per light! I need 2 so I would be saving $1000...that's a lot of money

Which brings me back to what Phishguy said "...At least buying from China directly saves people money to purchase other things inside US..."

Yes I would have to pay around $300 for shipping BUT they are shipped DHL which is now a division of UPS (an American Company) so I am still giving to the US economy and with the $1000 that I save on the lights I can put that back into the economy.

This whole topic is a double edged sword.

With that said, let's get back on topic...Back to our regular programming!

 

[clownfool]

Last night I ordered a 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs from aquariumleds.com

I had read this thread from the start a couple of weeks ago and from what I read I thought the 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs would be OK.

After I ordered I read the 3-4 pages that were made since the couple of weeks ago.

I don't know a whole lot about LEDs and thought the 1 watt would be ok for my
28g JBJ NanoCube. Then I read that the 3watt would be better because there driven at 2watts. So my question is are the 1watt ones driven too high in wattage and will burn out sooner?

Since I'm using them for my 28g NanoCube wouldn't the 1watt ones be bright enough since it's so shallow? And how high off the top of my tank water level should I hang them?

 

[submersible]

Last night I ordered a 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs from aquariumleds.com

I had read this thread from the start a couple of weeks ago and from what I read I thought the 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs would be OK.

After I ordered I read the 3-4 pages that were made since the couple of weeks ago.

I don't know a whole lot about LEDs and thought the 1 watt would be ok for my
28g JBJ NanoCube. Then I read that the 3watt would be better because there driven at 2watts. So my question is are the 1watt ones driven too high in wattage and will burn out sooner?

Since I'm using them for my 28g NanoCube wouldn't the 1watt ones be bright enough since it's so shallow? And how high off the top of my tank water level should I hang them?

The general consensous is that they are not strong enough. Although people have had success using them.... :hmm3:

One person who posted in this thread with a link to pictures of growth:

I have had the "Hong Kong" lights on my tank for almost 7 months now. I have four fixtures each with 56 white and 56 blue about 13" over my 220 gallon. I also have two of the same fixtures over my 95 gallon wave tank. So that is 112 1watt chips in each fixture.

In the 220 gallon my old fixture had 3-250 watt MH and 4-96 watt pc.

Par went from 580-880 at 1" under surface and 80-180 at the bottom.

I have lost some of the red in my acans, but not my chalices. THe acan went from red to orange, so still beautiful. My pizza face chalice is just as red as when i bought it. The greens have gone from green to nuclear-glowing out of the tank- green. ALL of my corals are growing like mad. I've had devil's armour polyps go from 2 to 10 in under two weeks.

Below is my link to my milli growth under these leds. The growth has been amazing as far as i am concerned. I have another milli and two acros that are growing just as well if not better. I know 7 months isn't the year everyone is looking for, but in 7 months i think the coral would have suffered and/or died if the lights were bad. Just my opinion, but I absolutely love these lights!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2072657

One word of warning though- When I first put my LED on my tank, everything went pastel. I thought I had screwed up and bleached everything. About a week later they started getting color back and after two weeks everything was brighter than before. I also started with them about 10" off the tank and moved them up.

And this guy who had them for 20 months and sold these frags:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2048765


So either the pics are photoshopped, or they can actually grow corals.

 

[clownfool]

Last night I ordered a 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs from aquariumleds.com

I had read this thread from the start a couple of weeks ago and from what I read I thought the 120 Watt Aquarium LED 14K 1 Watt LEDs would be OK.

After I ordered I read the 3-4 pages that were made since the couple of weeks ago.

I don't know a whole lot about LEDs and thought the 1 watt would be ok for my
28g JBJ NanoCube. Then I read that the 3watt would be better because there driven at 2watts. So my question is are the 1watt ones driven too high in wattage and will burn out sooner?

Since I'm using them for my 28g NanoCube wouldn't the 1watt ones be bright enough since it's so shallow? And how high off the top of my tank water level should I hang them?

Does anyone have the 1 watt LED lights from aquariumleds.com and seem to have coral growth with them?

 

[IZZY'SREEF]

I'd check out eshine. The problem with the black boxes is they have no optics so they have a 120 degree light emission angle. With eshine you would be able to get a comparable fixture to the $165 black box (bridgelux instead of Cree) for almost the same money and these fixtures have optics to point the light down and decrease spillover. For your dimensions i would say a 36x3W with 90 degree optics would be plenty.

Thanks, BigAir! I want to keep mainly softies ( Rics and Zoas) and a few LPS) I want to go LED mainly for for the energy saving and not having to change bulbs As long as I get good growth and color I'll be happy.