Could someone leave a vendors name here? I bought 2 bulbs and they turned out to be Artemis. They are horrible. One was bright green and the other is way too blue and dark(10000k).
Thanks
The vendor is Light Spectrum Enterprises, Inc. I ordered through
http://www.lightspectrumstore.com. The owner, or at least I'm fairly sure he's the owner, is Arthur Altbregen. After I had issues ordering online, I emailed him and got a response within an hour. From the brief conversation I had with him, he seems like a pretty nice guy, and he seems to be willing to work with you if you have any issues. As reefcolors said, you can also order through Ebay via "trust_deals". I'm fairly sure that this is the same company, but it may not be.
Here is some additional contact info for LSE.
xJake, if you have time, I am interested in seeing the readings after a week or so of burn in.
I'm just as interested to see how these bulbs perform after they've been "broken in"
. I will probably take weekly PAR readings for the first couple of months I run them, and then reduce the frequency to monthly or even bimonthly.
I should probably clarify, when I said that I had to "find the time," I was only referring to this week. Next week I don't have any exams or major assignments to worry about, so I'll definitely be able to post some of the data then.
Thanks for the nice write up Jake.
No problem.
Hopefully I'll have some visuals to go with that write up pretty soon...
Anybody Know how the 20K Plusrites compare color wise to the Radium 20K's?
I can't help you with these specific bulbs, as I've never seen either bulb.
All I can really say that would be of ANY help is that the 10000K Plusrite's I'm running look virtually identical to (if not better than) the other 10000K bulbs I was running - XM 10000K 175w, Blueline 10000K 175w, and IceCap 10000K 175w. I would assume that the 20K Plusrite bulbs also produce similar color rendition to that of most "brand-name" 20K bulbs, or at least a color rendition that is as equally pleasing.
Personally, I say for $25 why not just order one and fire it up to see if you like it? If you absolutely hate it then you can send it back (LSE has a "money back guarantee if not satisfied"), and if you DO end up liking it, then you basically just saved yourself $50 on a light bulb. At the very least, you could keep it as a "back-up bulb" in case yours burns out unexpectedly (not that having a back-up bulb is even remotely a necessity or anything... :lol: ).
Thank you Jake. I do hope you will inform us as time goes on how the par rating fluctuates. I am impressed that the initial reading is higher than the name brand ones. WE shall see what happens
You're welcome
. I'll try to keep everyone updated when I can. I was surprised as well that the PAR values were so much higher. I was, at the very least, expecting some increase because I was moving from 15000K bulbs to 10000K bulbs.
From the data I've seen regarding kelvin rating vs. PAR values, it seems that the lower the kelvin rating, the more PAR a bulb puts out (in terms of "PAR per watt"). I don't specifically remember where I read it, but I do remember reading an article that discussed how electricity is, in-general, used more efficiently (in terms of the watts needed to produce the same amount of PAR but at different kelvin ratings) when it is used to produce light with a lower kelvin rating.
In actuality, a "blue" photon of light contains far more energy (PAR) than a "yellow" photon, however, in terms of ARTIFICIAL lighting, since it takes less electricity to produce the "yellow" photon, a bulb that is designed to produce a lower kelvin (yellower) light actually produces many more yellow photons than it would blue (if it were to use the same amount of electricity). Of course, then you also have to take into account the coral's ability to manipulate light to use it more efficiently (via their fluorescent pigment-proteins), but that's a-whole-nother can of worms.... :lol:
Basically, before I begin to ramble, I was already expecting some kind of increase in PAR from the previous bulbs solely due to the decrease in kelvin rating from 15000K to 10000K; however, the PAR increase I observed ended up surpassing my expectations.
Anyway, I should hopefully have a chunk of free time tomorrow, so I will try to create a PAR diagram similar to what Marc Levenson (melev) has done here:
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/08/03/par_0322_new_bulbs.jpg
Also, an interesting side-note that I thought I would share. I was comparing the Plusrite bulbs to the bulbs that I replaced (the actual, physical bulbs themselves - not the light they produce). Surprisingly, unlike every other brand of bulb I compared, the Blueline bulbs look virtually identical - right down to the odd shape of the electrical contact at the threaded end of the bulb(s). The only major difference seemed to be the identifying text printed on the bulb itself; the shapes and sizes of all the components seemed to match up almost too perfectly to be coincidence. So, I'm starting to suspect that either Blueline brand bulbs are repackaged/re-branded Plusrite bulbs, or at the very least, both bulbs originated from the same manufacturer.
Or perhaps it's just a fairly typical design of MH bulb and I'm being paranoid
.
