Chinese LED Lights

[bhazard451]

Another question (or two):

The first light (the SD) having fewer lights, does not appear to use any active cooling - only the aluminum heat sink. The D120 uses two fans and has manual knobs to control the blue and white channels. How much of a risk is it to rely on an active cooling system?

From what I understand, the SD has a remote that more or less allows to independently control the different color LEDs - of which each color of LED is on their own channel. So it isn't just a "blue" and "white" channel, but 10K, 14K, 18K, 460nm, and 453nm channels that can each be turned up or down. I guess the biggest question is about whether or not 96 3W LEDs can replace two 12K 400W metal halides.......really not sure and don't to gamble and find out the hard way.

I'm actually interested in how the first light is too, but no one has tried it. The price was a bit high when I got a quote, especially for Crees. Like you, I wasn't willing to gamble and didn't see the value. The leds are spread a bit far for my liking too.

96 3W leds will not match up to two 400w halides. You would need nearly 180watts of leds per 36" of length. My DIY is 180watts over 24" and just about compares to 400w MH.

 

[clownfool]

Reef Aquarium LED Lighting Basics




I am new to LED lighting. I have no idea what the wattage and amps and stuff mean.

I do have LEDS on both of my tanks. I have a 120w LED light like on ebay. I want to replace it because it uses 1 watt leds. It's over my 24g aquapod.

I also have LEDs on my 28g JBJ nanocube. It has 10 bridgelux whitess, 7 blue, and 2 UV or violet I don't know. I'm thinking about changing out some of the LEDs to different ones, but like I said, I have no idea how to change them out because of wattage and stuff. The whites are 10k and the blue are royal blue. I have seen a lot of growth.


Reef Aquarium LED Lighting Basics

Does anyone know of any good articles or websites to learn more from, besides this thread.

 

[aandfsoccr04]

What is your opinion of the apollo solarblast, bhazard?

 

[bhazard451]

What is your opinion of the apollo solarblast, bhazard?

There's a solarblast thread which has a lot of info in it. I did a review on it and took pics.

It is another great light to get if you have an Apex. If you don't, I think adding a DIM4 controller to run it would make the price a little high.

To compare, the IT2040 would have the same features... more actually, for $180 less.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[bhazard451]

After more swapping of lights between my Cree unit and the IT2040, I've come to the conclusion that you need red and cyan/green leds, even if you use warmer whites, for the best color. I have a watermelon zoa that is my reference, and it just looks better with my Cree unit.

The easiest way to add this, would be to just remove 4 whites from the ratio I used, and use 2 reds, 2 greens instead. This is another reason why I like these lights, if you aren't 100% happy, you can do something about it.

Another thing I found... if you edit the sunrise/sunset schedule and unplug the device... it loses the settings and the clock freezes until it turns back on. You won't be able to use a timer, but luckily you won't need to anyway. Not sure if the final version will be like this. This can get annoying if you need to unplug the device quite a bit like I've been doing.

I also think a lighter blue led would be better for the moonlights. The 450nm royal blues can get very purpleish when dimmed 5% and under.

 

[livingseas]

I picked up a bunch of extra leds for my 7x IT-120 lights to experiment based on
bhazard's feeback. These should cover the full spectrum beyond what I
already laid out below (I tweaked it before it went to production). Hopefully I
will get everything in another week or so.

42x 10k
28x 520nm
28x 595-600nm
28x 440-445nm
28x 400-410nm
28x 660nm

 

[bhazard451]

28white to 24blue is a lot of white. When the lights are dimmed to 60% blue to 80% white in my layout, it almost has a power compact type crisp white that overpowers the blue, and mine used more blue. This is where it is most apparent that you need the reds/greens for better color, as some colors look dull instead of crisp like I would have thought. It reminds me of my old Red Sea Max Power compact white bulbs alot.

 

[jefftse]

bhazard, can you pm me for your email? do you have the tutorial for the driver installation for dimming?

 

[nasoisking]

Im looking at buying a couple cheap leds for my 120 (4x2x2). I have a mixture of sps,lps, and softies. I am currently running 8 4ft t5s overdriven with icecap 660s. I was wondering what you guys thought of this fixture conpared to aquariumleds or taotronic? http://www.ebay.com/itm/120W-Dimmab...302?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43b357181e

I would like to avoid needing to add additional lighting to suppliment if possible, but I dobt want a washed out,look. What do you recommend?
Thanks in advance!

 

[1mbrews8]

what would the layout for a d120 look like with your specs and the "added" red and green like you were talking about above? thanks!

Mike

 

[livingseas]

28white to 24blue is a lot of white. When the lights are dimmed to 60% blue to 80% white in my layout, it almost has a power compact type crisp white that overpowers the blue, and mine used more blue. This is where it is most apparent that you need the reds/greens for better color, as some colors look dull instead of crisp like I would have thought. It reminds me of my old Red Sea Max Power compact white bulbs alot.

actually its 26 to 24.. two reds are in there. I'll also be adding some green when there get here. so about even. 24-24.

 

[bhazard451]

bhazard, can you pm me for your email? do you have the tutorial for the driver installation for dimming?

I can no longer PM for the time being. Search my posts on the old thread for "driver swap" or "apex". It'll give you the specs of the drivers you would need to buy, which I also bought from another chinese company. The drivers may not be able to fit inside a d120 however, they were pretty thick, and a standard Meanwell wont work the way things are wired.

 

[bhazard451]

Im looking at buying a couple cheap leds for my 120 (4x2x2). I have a mixture of sps,lps, and softies. I am currently running 8 4ft t5s overdriven with icecap 660s. I was wondering what you guys thought of this fixture conpared to aquariumleds or taotronic? http://www.ebay.com/itm/120W-Dimmab...302?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43b357181e

I would like to avoid needing to add additional lighting to suppliment if possible, but I dobt want a washed out,look. What do you recommend?
Thanks in advance!

what would the layout for a d120 look like with your specs and the "added" red and green like you were talking about above? thanks!

Mike

That light is basically the d120 and every other chinese standard black box. Aquarium shops buy them in bulk and resell them from the chinese companies. You could buy from them, or buy directly from the chinese company itself.

The leds used would look good. I think it might lean towards 16-18k with the amount of cw and blue used. I personally prefer warm white and neutral white.

My layout with 2 red 2 green instead of the 10k whites per say would look 14k like at 100% with color pop.. which would come across on clownfish and zoas at first glance.

 

[marco_1962]

Just ordered an IT2040. With red and green leds like reefbreeders layout. Two questions for Bhazard
Moonlight as a 28 days cycle? Fans are termostatically controlled?

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

[bhazard451]

Just ordered an IT2040. With red and green leds like reefbreeders layout. Two questions for Bhazard
Moonlight as a 28 days cycle? Fans are termostatically controlled?

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

Unsure of the 28 days cycle, I doubt it. The light basically returns to defaults if you unplug it, so I can't tell. You can manage how bright they are however, all the way down to 1%.

The fans might be thermo controlled, or preset for certain brightness. They are basically off under 50%, and they kick in when it gets brighter. It explains why I couldn't hear them much. The fans are audible when on, but not distracting.

 

[nasoisking]

Bhazard,

Do you think two of those fixtures would be equivalent to my current t5 lighting? Do you think the colors would be good enough not to need to suppliment in order to get my colors to "pop"? What overall color temp do you think I would end up with? Would it look look an xmas tree with the different color leds? Do you think it would be bright enough?

 

[psusocr]

Hi guys,

Ive been running three LEDS over my tank for ove a year now with amazing results but i just ordered and got three more...i was goign to use 5..but i also have the option to you all six. my question is this.

my tank is 72x31x31 but i have black braces at 2 feet from the left and right of the tank( typical bracing for a 72" tank). should i put two leds in each section so i miss the braces or can i spread all 5 out and not worry about the braces? they sit only 4 inches from the brace though so i assume it would block alot of light.


Also i have three with no optics and three with 90 degree optics.. any opinions how i should set them up alternating? 90 on the inside? no optics on the outside??

Any help is appreciated

 

[bhazard451]

Bhazard,

Do you think two of those fixtures would be equivalent to my current t5 lighting? Do you think the colors would be good enough not to need to suppliment in order to get my colors to "pop"? What overall color temp do you think I would end up with? Would it look look an xmas tree with the different color leds? Do you think it would be bright enough?

It depends. There are lots of variables here. You can create any color temp you want and choose your own layout, which is one of the cool things about these lights. If you space out the leds evenly, and only use a few reds, greens, and violets, it blends evenly.

Are you currently happy with your T5s? Would you want to run T5s and leds together? With T5s, you know what you are getting, it is tried and true. With leds, everything is so experimental and new that I myself learn as I go along, as there are so many different ways to go about things. If you are unwilling to experiment a bit, or to have to replace a led or two to be 100% happy if you use your own layout, you might want to stick with T5s.

T5 supplementation would look and work great with the leds, but it is not needed. It can give that extra bit of growth and color, but one of the main reasons I switched to leds was to not worry about bulbs anymore.

 

[bhazard451]

Hi guys,

Ive been running three LEDS over my tank for ove a year now with amazing results but i just ordered and got three more...i was goign to use 5..but i also have the option to you all six. my question is this.

my tank is 72x31x31 but i have black braces at 2 feet from the left and right of the tank( typical bracing for a 72" tank). should i put two leds in each section so i miss the braces or can i spread all 5 out and not worry about the braces? they sit only 4 inches from the brace though so i assume it would block alot of light.

Also i have three with no optics and three with 90 degree optics.. any opinions how i should set them up alternating? 90 on the inside? no optics on the outside??

Any help is appreciated

This is tough. Are the lights in a canopy? If not, you really should think about putting optics on the ones that don't have them with 31" of water. You'll get very little PAR to the sandbed without them, and it would even things out a bit better.

 

[RiddleEagle18]

Bhazard - That new grid unit you got. Do you know how they are dimming the lights. Are they using a PWM driver. Could their display be unhooked and hook up an APEX right the the driver?