chinese led lights

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How do you know which LED system will work with an Apex or other controller? Is it only the DIY leds that come with dimmable drivers?

Will the Ebay leds with dimmers on them work with an Apex?
 
cdivine said:
How do you know which LED system will work with an Apex or other controller? Is it only the DIY leds that come with dimmable drivers?

Will the Ebay leds with dimmers on them work with an Apex?
Click to expand...

There are only a few units out there that will work with Apex or Reefkeeper. I just ordered 8 that will work with either. They are nice with sun rise and sun set. There is another reef site that a group buy is taking place at. $235.00 each. With 3 uv leds in each and fuses for each led. Any 0 to 10v controller will work. I would post the link but I think RC rules will not let me.
 
cdivine said:
How do you know which LED system will work with an Apex or other controller? Is it only the DIY leds that come with dimmable drivers?

Will the Ebay leds with dimmers on them work with an Apex?
Click to expand...

Some might others might not? Unless the specificly say they will work with any specific controler your realy gambling. There are basicly three different types of drivers that work with different controling signals.

D series which work DC filtered signal to control them with 10 Volts being full power and lower voltages on the control circuit resulting in lower driver output. An example would be 9 volte = 90%, 8 volts = 80% etc.

P series Drivers work on pulse width modulation. Basicly your running a DC power source at 10 Volts but your rapidly turning it on and off at a frequency of between 100 and 3,000 times per second. The intensity of the LED's is determined by the time the voltage is at 10V compared to the time the voltage is at 0 Volts.

Then there are the most expensive Type D Drivers which can be wired to either the type D or P standards as well as simply using a 0 to 100,000K resistor to control the dimming. While thes are the most universal you also pay big bucks for this adaptability.

On a DIY driver with rougly the same range the cost difference per driver is
none adjustable =$26
Type D= $34
Type P= $34
Type B= $115.

If they are truely running 3 Watts on the LED's chances are they are using one driver for 12 or less LED's. So when you get into a fixture using 60 LED's you are talking about 5 Drivers. With an average cost of $4.00 per LED look at the comparitive cost.

none adjustable $370
Type D or P $410
Type B = $815

They save cost by using less expensive LED's as well as there wholesale price break from buying in large quantities. However the difference in there cost is still proportunate to the type of Driver they use. A top of the line high bucks system might use B drvers but the lower cost systems cannot use them at there price range.

Also keep in mind some can say they are adjustable dimming but not even be compatable with any controlers. There adjustable dimming may be a simple pair pot where can adjust the intensity of the White or Blues.

If the literature does not specificly say they can be controled by a specific type of controler you have a 50/50 chance it will work with that controler.

If I were to use a controler It would be either a Rockwell or a Seimens controler since that is what I'm used to working with. However there not inexpensive which is why I probably will never run one.
 
bruce 1 said:
A few have Pm me about the link. It has pictures and all. Here is the link if that is not ok to post please delete.
http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=69175&page=2
Click to expand...

Unfortunatly that link does not give a lot of important details.

"The overall ratio of LEDs are 35 blue, 17 white and 3 UV."

It does not sound like a bad ratio however what whites and what blues are they using. If they are using neutral whites it should look good. But if the are using cool whites it could be too blue for many people and the reflective colors could be lacking?

Then what wattage is this fuxtre running at. 55 LED's run at 3 Watts each = 165 Watts. if they are running at 2.5 Watts they are 137.5 Watts but if there only running at 1 Watt each that is only 55 Watts.

"the manual dimmable one:
15" 3/4 long 8 3/8 wide and
2 1/2 thick not counting switches and plugs"

so you have basicly 130 square inces that they are cramming 55 leds into. That is roughly 2.36 square inches per LED. or a spread of 1.5 inches between LED's. This is typicial for some fixtures running at 1 Watt per LED or less. If they are running at the 3 watt range they better have some deep finned heat sinks as well as some power cooling fans.

Now do not get me wrong chances are this is a great light for smaller tanks. Something like a 20 Gallon tank with a 24" X 12" surface area. Or a p[air of them possibly for a 24" cube tank. But when I here of people buyng 4 of them to cover there tank I don't think they will be spending there money in the wisest way. Four of these fixtures to cover tank 48" X 24" surface are is realy around a $1,000 in lights for something questionable.

I would want a lot more data on this fixture before realy judging it. If it is a 120 Watt fixture then it may be too powerful for a small tank alone, and the three of them might be enough to handle a 72" X 24" tank.
 
You can ask those questions on there. I will be putting 4 over a 72x27x27 tank. I have seen 3 over a 72x24x24 and it looked great the corals were growing very good and color was good. And you can get any combination of blue to white you want. Or add 2 more UV. I do not have any affiliation with these lights I am just buying some. I seen them last night and they looked very good. The ones I bought are controlled by a APEX or REEFKEEPER.
 
OK, here is some additional info:

The entire fixture draws 130 watts.
It has two drivers at 65 watts each.
It is driving the LEDs at 2.3 watts per LED.
Although they are 3 watt LEDs, driving them at 2.3 watts is the sweet spot (gives the most light output for the least power consumption.)
The whites are what they call a Natural White which is not a warm white or a cool whit. It is in the neighborhood of 7000 degrees Kelvin. It is the same color spectrum as the Radium Metal Halide.
The warranty is a 2 year parts warranty. They will ship replacement parts to you free but labor to replace the parts would not be covered.

I don't get on this site much so if you are interested, please go to http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=69175 and PM me or post in the thread.

Orders and payments must be received by next Friday at noon. Payment can be made via Pay-Pal. I will send you contact info if you commit. Shipping to you from Atlanta will be extra. Once they arrive, I will try to determine what the shipping cost will be an PM you. Once that payment is received I will ship to you.
 
hey

hey

Wow is all I have to say! These light ( long w there other lights) look absolutely amazing. For this price plus the quality of leds used, I honestly don't see were you could go wrong :-) , (haven't read everyone's replies yet but I love them). The absolute only, if any ( and im no expert on leds), is well actually what I've read and heard about how you want some UV light:rolleyes: but than again I could be wrong! Hey, I'd go with them, and haha, order some for me while ur at it!:wavehand:
 
Last edited:
tmr11driver said:
Wow is all I have to say! These light ( long w there other lights) look absolutely amazing. For this price plus the quality of leds used, I honestly don't see were you could go wrong :-) , (haven't read everyone's replies yet but I love them). The absolute only, if any ( and im no expert on leds), is well actually what I've read and heard about how you want some UV light:rolleyes: but than again I could be wrong! Hey, I'd go with them, and haha, order some for me while ur at it!:wavehand:
Click to expand...

Sorry my mistake, forget what I said about the UV, as these do have them, an extra +:thumbsup:
 
rdnelson99 said:
OK, here is some additional info:

The entire fixture draws 130 watts.
It has two drivers at 65 watts each.
It is driving the LEDs at 2.3 watts per LED.
Although they are 3 watt LEDs, driving them at 2.3 watts is the sweet spot (gives the most light output for the least power consumption.)
The whites are what they call a Natural White which is not a warm white or a cool whit. It is in the neighborhood of 7000 degrees Kelvin. QUOTE]

Well with this added information these are looking good for the money.
However Neutral Whites are not at 7,000K.

The Color Temp break down for Cree is

R-5 8,300K Cool White
R-4 6,800K Cool White
R-3 5,300K Cool White or Neutral White
R-2 4,000K Neutral White
Q-5 3,700K Neutral White or Warm White
Q-4 3,000K Warm White
Q-3 2,600K Warm White

I personaly like the mix of 1 R-2 to 4 Blues. which this fixture seems the clsest to compared to most comercial fixtures I have seen.

The running a 2.3 Watts of power is not realy bad as it is true that the sweet spot as far as most LED's are concerened in closer to 1 Watt. But at one watt per LED it would take 130 LED's and sice LED's doo need room for heat distribution it would tyrn out as much larger fixture. The 2.3 Watts is a nice compromise. I know I run most of my DIYU at 2.56 Watts unless I'm trying to get more light per square inch of surface area.

For your 72" X 27" X 27" I would be looking in the range of 300 Watts of total CREE LED power. At 130 Watts per fixture I think you would happy with the light from 3 of these fixtures.
Click to expand...
 
There has been some great Par posted with these lights. I like the fact that they work with a Apex or Reefkepper. Everything I have looked at that does that th price goes way up. They are a deal for $235.00. And you can change the LEDs to what ever you want.
 
You get what you pay for..

You get what you pay for..

Ok so I saw the other led site... All bridgelux... Nice prices..

However the price for the retrofit kits run $100 cheaper than the Cree led retrofit kit on rapid...

That big of a price difference made me run all the numbers again...
Cree comes out on top...
The spectrum and par #'s are way better.
Heat tolerance is better with the Cree ( that point blank says the can last longer then the bridgelux when powered correctly... )
Oh and check the bridgelux cool white out... Yeah that's not good either...

Here's my rundown

Best quality ( options,customs,quality, selection )
1. Cree retrofit kits
2. Cree Chinese NAME BRAND fixtures
3. Bridgelux retrofit kit
4. Bridgelux chineese NAME BRAND fixtures.
5.Chinese GENARIC fixtures

Best pricing ( lowest to highest )
The 5 above in reverse
1.Chinese GENARIC fixtures
2.Bridgelux Chinese NAME BRAND fixtures
3.Bridgelux retrofit kit
4. Cree Chinese NAME BRAND fixtures
5. Cree retrofit kits

Bridgelux retro is your best bet if money is an issue.
Cree retro is your best bet if money isn't a problem.
The GENARIC Chinese black boxes are... For beginners and hobbiest...
A true reefer is going to have issues with quality, spectrum, and other things.

Please remember: lighting is the most important part of home aqutics.
:deadhorse: you get what you pay for :deadhorse:
 
Is reefing not considered a hobby anymore? haha. I've always had the outlook of using what works regardless of price. The generic black boxes work. Mine are growing SPS coral faster than my 6 bulb ATI sunpower ever did. I'll pay a premium when I see a need to, but these work just fine.
 
Is that so...

Is that so...

So I saw a previous post that said Eshine doesn't like to have there prices posted. But they didn't tell me that...:wavehand:


Eshine 4G unit
$350 for the 48x3w CREE unit with solar simulator.(march price) creeps...

$120 shipping was quoted for 2 units...but don't expect it to be much cheaper if your only getting 1. ( I looked it up and the duty fee PER SHIPPMENT run like $60. )

Also, jeremy has the cheat sheet on pricing he'll let go cheep...

Strange they gave me a different price then they gave J...

Those suns of bees. I'm gonna, I'm gonna.... Go place an order... :hmm2:
 
bruce 1 said:
There has been some great Par posted with these lights. I like the fact that they work with a Apex or Reefkepper. Everything I have looked at that does that th price goes way up. They are a deal for $235.00. And you can change the LEDs to what ever you want.
Click to expand...

Please do not put all your marbles into par numbers. If you want a high par numbers there are PAR bulbs that will give you twice the PAR numbers as any salt water light fixture but will not grow any corals. They are great for terestial plants and fair for fresh water tanks but useless for corals.

Corals need blue light and it takes a lot of blue light to get good PAR numbers. Red lights are of very little little use to corals but will skyrocket the PAR numbers. If you took 6 warm white LED's and 6 Led LED's your ar meter would be 2 times as high a reading as if you had 6 Blue LED's and 6 Cool white LED's. But the first group you would probably not get any coral growth and could get a heavy pleaching of the corals.

Par numbers are only slightly better for evaluating Light for Corals than Lumens are.

The ideal lighting is simply high in the 420 to 490 nm ( Blues and Cyans) range and only produces enough light in the higher wave lenghts to please the viewer so they are not looking at an all blue tank.

CRI rating is how close all the wave lenghts are balanced to sunlight in the shade. If you have a CRI of 100 then you suposedly have perfect white light and balance. But as the number goes lower you will have a greater and greater tint to some particular color. For Reefs we acualy need a tint to blue. so we do not want a real high CRI rating.

Color Temperature indicates the direction of the balance of the tint of the lighting away from white. Anything above 10,000K is a blue tint, and below 5,000K is a red tint.

Remember color in light is usualy a three dinesional chart as seen by the eye. mainly red, green, and blue. But thatin reality there are hundreds of dimensions to it and many frequencies look blue to us and each frequency can have a different intensity.
 
Dont b like that

Dont b like that

jrp1588 said:
Is reefing not considered a hobby anymore? haha. I've always had the outlook of using what works regardless of price. The generic black boxes work. Mine are growing SPS coral faster than my 6 bulb ATI sunpower ever did. I'll pay a premium when I see a need to, but these work just fine.
Click to expand...



Ofcourse it's a hobby...
Some take it mor seriously than others...
When's the last time you checked your magnesium ?:thumbsup:
Some people with tanks never do.... Other people with TANKS say its one of the most important levels to check...

Live and learn the black box over the 30 gal at the fish store I work at has rust on the fins after a year...
Some black boxes aren't as good as others and the numbers they are reporting may not be what you accuqly get...

"to some it a hobby, to others it's life" -me
 
Dont b like that

Dont b like that

jrp1588 said:
Is reefing not considered a hobby anymore? haha. I've always had the outlook of using what works regardless of price. The generic black boxes work. Mine are growing SPS coral faster than my 6 bulb ATI sunpower ever did. I'll pay a premium when I see a need to, but these work just fine.
Click to expand...



Ofcourse it's a hobby...
Some take it mor seriously than others...
When's the last time you checked your magnesium ?:thumbsup:
Some people with tanks never do.... Other people with TANKS say its one of the most important levels to check...

Live and learn the black box over the 30 gal at the fish store I work at has rust on the fins after a year...
Some black boxes aren't as good as others and the numbers they are reporting may not be what you accuqly get...

"to some it's a hobby, to others it's a life" -me
 
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