Chinese LED Lights

[bobafett]

I just want to share my experience with these cheap LED lights. I have been following this thread since the beginning and decided to try them out. I purchased three units from the alibaba site that included the white/blue/red/green/uv bulbs. At first I was impressed with the lights but that didn't last long. After using them for only two months one of the units failed. The white LEDs were blinking like a strobe light. After two weeks of going back and forth with the vendor via email and trying everything they suggested I asked them to send me a few leds to swap them out thinking that was the problem. Their answer was that shipping the leds alone would be very expensive and asked if i were to purchase one of their newer style lights they would throw the leds in when shipping the new lights.

Are you kidding me!!!!- Your light fails after two months and you want me to buy more from you. After an angry email reply they agreed to send me the LEDs. Luckily I'm pretty good with a soldering iron otherwise i would be stuck with a $200 boat anchor. Once I got the LEDs i spent over two hours trouble shooting the light. In the end I wound up pulling all the diodes off the board and the LEDs then lit up. There was never anything wrong with the LEDs, only the diodes. Why werent their engineers able to tell me this.

Now it comes to today, 5 months after using the lights, I notice thsome of the LEDs were not that bright. After further investigation I found that ALL of the UV LEDs are burnt out. I dont mean not working but litterly burnt out as if they caught fire. I knew these lights were cheap but this is rediculous.

Bottom line- These lights will not last, the warranty is useless because its too expensive to send back to china for repairs, save your money and buy a quality product.

 

[Dapg8gt]

So did all the units fail? Or just 1? What brand is it? That sucks that that happened. I have been running mine for about 4 months with no issues...... Bad apples come with even the expensive ones. A friend had a radion swapped out due to faulty drivers that fried FWIW

I just want to share my experience with these cheap LED lights. I have been following this thread since the beginning and decided to try them out. I purchased three units from the alibaba site that included the white/blue/red/green/uv bulbs. At first I was impressed with the lights but that didn't last long. After using them for only two months one of the units failed. The white LEDs were blinking like a strobe light. After two weeks of going back and forth with the vendor via email and trying everything they suggested I asked them to send me a few leds to swap them out thinking that was the problem. Their answer was that shipping the leds alone would be very expensive and asked if i were to purchase one of their newer style lights they would throw the leds in when shipping the new lights.

Are you kidding me!!!!- Your light fails after two months and you want me to buy more from you. After an angry email reply they agreed to send me the LEDs. Luckily I'm pretty good with a soldering iron otherwise i would be stuck with a $200 boat anchor. Once I got the LEDs i spent over two hours trouble shooting the light. In the end I wound up pulling all the diodes off the board and the LEDs then lit up. There was never anything wrong with the LEDs, only the diodes. Why werent their engineers able to tell me this.

Now it comes to today, 5 months after using the lights, I notice thsome of the LEDs were not that bright. After further investigation I found that ALL of the UV LEDs are burnt out. I dont mean not working but litterly burnt out as if they caught fire. I knew these lights were cheap but this is rediculous.

Bottom line- These lights will not last, the warranty is useless because its too expensive to send back to china for repairs, save your money and buy a quality product.

 

[Travis1787]

Yea mines been running for 6 months or so and I have no problems at all....

One thing I noticed recently is that my violets are blackish at the tip of the led but they still are lit up seems like there burning out possibly? I dunno its weird but its only with the 4 violets and nothing else

 

[bobafett]

1 of the 3 currently running had the issue with the blinking LED. A different one has the UV LEDs completely burnt out. There are smoke stains on the reflector from where the bulbs actually blistered open. The others have working UV LEDs but they look browned out when turned off. I only noticed this today since I'm doing tank maintenance before the lights turned on and I realized one of the lights looked different (they are blindingly too bright to look at normally when lit plus the UV is barely visible to begin with). I dont expect these to last much longer and will replace them with white and blue LEDs when I have the time. As I mentioned before they have only been used for 5 months. These units are a PIA to take apart because they siliconed the reflector to the circuit board. If these lights work for you, great since they are a fraction of the price of name brands but if you are not handy with tools I would stay away since you have to fix them yourself or pay almost as much as the price of the light to return them to china.

 

[bobafett]

I dont remember the brand but they look like all the rest of the generic LED boxes sold on ebay (rows of LEDs, not pucks). All the other LEDs look fine. It is only the UV (Violets) that look burnt out or have already burnt out. Looks like Travis is having the same issue. I forgot to mention earlier that these were supposedly built with Cree LEDs but I highly dowbt that now.

 

[mlott132]

If you slowly ramp over time, and move frags from the bottom to top, you can use 100% just fine.

At 100%, the Chinese lights is about 50% of my Cree setup, and I run those at 80%. I've fried some sps by not putting them in the sandbed first and acclimating right. I can hit 1400 par at the top of my tank

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

How high are you running your new Evergrow unit?

 

[dviper150]

I got in 3 IT2040 fixtures from EG. I had 2 of them with optics sitting about 7 inches above my 24" deep 65 gallon tank. Now I am moving them to my 6' 21" deep 125 gallon tank. They will be sitting about 3" from the water surface.

Should I remove the 90 degree optics on them or will it be okay with the optics? I left the optics on them for the 24" deep tank and now that they are going to a 21" deep tank and sitting lower, not sure if I should leave them or take them off.

 

[bhazard451]

I dont remember the brand but they look like all the rest of the generic LED boxes sold on ebay (rows of LEDs, not pucks). All the other LEDs look fine. It is only the UV (Violets) that look burnt out or have already burnt out. Looks like Travis is having the same issue. I forgot to mention earlier that these were supposedly built with Cree LEDs but I highly dowbt that now.

Brand is important. Some are built much better than others. I would throw a fit if I got a board siliconed to the reflector.

Cheap UV LEDs that are advertised as 400-405nm are prone to burning out. 420nm are normally fine.

The best thing to do is buy these lights through a US reseller that will service them, as you won't have to send the units back to China if they fail. Reef breeders resells Evergrow, but I don't know the us resellers of other brands

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[bhazard451]

I got in 3 IT2040 fixtures from EG. I had 2 of them with optics sitting about 7 inches above my 24" deep 65 gallon tank. Now I am moving them to my 6' 21" deep 125 gallon tank. They will be sitting about 3" from the water surface.

Should I remove the 90 degree optics on them or will it be okay with the optics? I left the optics on them for the 24" deep tank and now that they are going to a 21" deep tank and sitting lower, not sure if I should leave them or take them off.

Try it both ways. They only take seconds to remove once the fixture is open

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[dviper150]

Try it both ways. They only take seconds to remove once the fixture is open

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Would the fixture still give off good par to grow corals on the sand bed with the optics off if I liked that look better?

 

[tennisstudrogie]

Question, Bhazard I've been running those LED's with your custom layout and everythings been going well.

I'm currently running at around 75% whites and blues. I just picked up some new SPS frags and put them on my frag rack which is about 3/4 the way down the tank.

Should I dim the lights down again back to 25-35% and slowly ramp up again?

 

[tennisstudrogie]

Or anybody on advice for this manner from picking up SPS frags from a guy who had T5's?

Roger

 

[mlott132]

Or anybody on advice for this manner from picking up SPS frags from a guy who had T5's?

Roger

I would place them on the bottom of your tank and then slowly raise them up to where you want it.

Sent from my Thunderbolt via Tapatalk 2

 

[cmac23]

I have been away fro a while, what is the latest/best option for LEDs as far as Chinese LED's

 

[rldcpa]

What is the method for determining optics angle for your tank. Most I have seen are either 60, 90 or 120 degrees.

 

[tidewater]

What is the method for determining optics angle for your tank. Most I have seen are either 60, 90 or 120 degrees.

I like 120's or 90's depending on the height of the fixture. The 60's seem to create "rays" of color through the water IMO.

 

[rldcpa]

Does the 120 degree optics cause any light splash? It would be great to have a chart of these lights which show the coverage all the way around the light so you can really figure out how many lights you need and the optics that are needed. I guess the chart would be affected by height of the hanging fixture which makes it tough. Does anyone have any charts for these lights?

 

[bhazard451]

Does the 120 degree optics cause any light splash? It would be great to have a chart of these lights which show the coverage all the way around the light so you can really figure out how many lights you need and the optics that are needed. I guess the chart would be affected by height of the hanging fixture which makes it tough. Does anyone have any charts for these lights?

This is mentioned multiple times in the old thread.

The majority of the time, 90 degree optics are the way to go, and they are removeable anyway if you need more coverage

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[Travis1787]

And eg doesn't do 120 degree lenses and more so its just 90 and 60 lenses .... plus the optics of 90 60 or 120

 

[MORGANpl]

I ended up buying a different layout to cover my 60G 32 x 32 x 20. I went with a 40 x 3W unit, ran me around $400 with shipping around $100 of it from houyi lighting. Has a remote and LCD and has an integrated dimming module built in (which I find useless). I believe I am the first to go with these folks, will post my findings about the light as it gets along. I am putting it over the tank this weekend to replace a single 250W Phoenix 14K.

Here are the pics:

Well packed:

Powered on:

Canopy build:

Canopy finished:

In case anyone is curious, I am using a swing arm TV wall mount (rated at 60lbs) to secure the canopy to the wall - and allow me access to the tank when needed:

And for fun - anyone ever seen an Annularis smaller than a razor blade?

How are your lights doing? I was looking at those 900x320x60mm-64x3w 192W for my tank 40"x20"x29"high . Will the unit be ok?? Its deep so should I go with 60 or 90 degree lens?