how efficient are LEDs really?

[Whalehead9]

for me the large problem with LED's, is the lack of long lived reliable LED fixture manufacturer. With PFO Bankrupt, and a new components and manufacturers coming out all the time, there is no technology that isn't obsolete relatively quick. Once we get two or three main manufacturers that have been out for three or so years, then I'll bite tilll then I will cheer from the sidelines, and continue with my T-5's.

 

[TheFishMan65]

I think there are maybe two issues going on here: efficiency and reliability.

The first LED manufacturer did not design correctly and I think gave LEDs a bad reputation. I also would agree that it will be a while before they can build back up the reputation.

As far as efficiency goes LEDs do a better job of getting usable light into the fish tank for the same amount of electricity.

So if you are a DIYer then go LED. Want to just buy something - then I think you need to wait a few more years.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

And yes your cost analysis works for your application but what I meant is it's out of whack for the average application

If, by "average application" you mean "person who buys things off the shelf" then yes, I agree, it's very clear that my cost analysis is not appropriate.

and is a little bias towards your side of the argument.

Again, let me repeat myself - I did the numbers and THEN chose LEDs. I didn't make up that cost analysis after becoming a fan so I could use it to win arguments.

for me the large problem with LED's, is the lack of long lived reliable LED fixture manufacturer. With PFO Bankrupt, and a new components and manufacturers coming out all the time, there is no technology that isn't obsolete relatively quick. Once we get two or three main manufacturers that have been out for three or so years, then I'll bite tilll then I will cheer from the sidelines, and continue with my T-5's.

That's a very valid and understandable position. Honestly, I too am a little frustrated that there hasn't been better participation from vendors of finished products but it's a new enough technology that I guess none more can be expected - it's not the fault of the technology for sure, just an R&D and marketing decision by the vendors. This is what drove me to DIY - it's not for everyone, but it's also not as hard as it looks.

 

[Skeptic_07]

do you really expect me to do this? Ok, lets start here:

Also let's not get too carried away and start demanding evidence for this and that as this is all speculation on both sides. LEDs aren't exactly proven technology in this application and only time will provide the true answers.

If you are going to call all this 'speculation', saying that it isn't proven technology and aren't willing to backup your own statements why bother even having a serious discussion?

 

[beeker]

well when 2 250w MH setup with reflectors bulbs and ballast would cost me about 600-700 bucks

and i'm going with a LED setup(not a 100% DIY setup)

i''m buying PAR38's and just rigging up track lighting and adding sockets and then screwing them in and plugging them in, i wouldn't consider that much DIY...but it would cost me around 2k for everything

a DIY Led setup for a tank this size, would probably be 300.00 less than doing the PAR38's but it would be a lot more involved than i want to get at this point in the hobby

Either way i'm buying the lighting i want, not the lighting other people think is better, it's all apples to oranges and in the end you will always go with what you feel comfortable with doing wether that's T5's, VHO, PC, MH or Leds

i wish all the manufactures of these New led lights all used Cree Led's and some form of optics...but they don't this is the main reason i'm not buying one of their Overpriced fixtures...AI and Maxspect are all too much money for what you get sure i'd love to have even spread of Led's all over my tank, but even all the new manufactures don't use the best of the best in their fixtures which is off putting by itself when your spending over 2k for any type of lighting

Would MH's get the job done? yeah

Would my dad be happier paying for 500+ watts of electricity or happier paying for 240+ watts.... i think he'd be happier if i didn't have a tank at all but honestly when the electricity bill comes he won't be hating me for going witt the LEDs even when the upfront cost is 1,300-1,400 more but it means he will be saving a ton in the long run, and i'll be able to replace the whole setup in 10 years since i won't have to spend any of that money on bulb replacement like i would with MH setup

 

[returnofsid]

Beeker, I have a question regarding the Par38s. From what I've read, in a quick Google search, Par38 LEDs are only available in 2700K, 3000K and 4200K. Well, that's only from a couple of the Google results.

I'm VERY unfamiliar with LED lighting, but would like to attempt my own DIY, over my 40 breeder. Heck, eventually, maybe I'd do something for my 200DD.

 

[mstrpln03]

I may have missed it or may be going off topic, but it seems to me, the environmental impact needs to be called into play. Florescent and incandescent bulbs are made with heavy metals and harmful gases. Your not even supposed to throw them in the garbage, but take them to reclamation facilities. LEDs don't contain any heavy metals or harmful gases and therefore, have very little, if any, environmental impact.

 

[wld1783]

I totally agree with der_wille_zur_macht.

His reply is based on facts.

If you can glue a LED to a heat sink and solder a wire to a LED then LEDs are easy.

I've had issues with BuckPucks burning out. That's the ballast for 6 just replace it its 15.99 online.

The only Cree LEDs that failed me were a pair I tested on a Mean Well Driver.
Oops my bad you need at least six LEDs. They are wired in series very easy just put too much juice through them.

I've switched over to the Mean Well Drivers. BTW they are brighter.

I don't drink the cool aid and I'm only sold on the results. My 330 SPS is now all LED/T5 6 months no failures even with BuckPucks that made it past 1 week. Great Growth BTW

My Mixed is coming. The downside is for a 48 LED fixture its a whole day of gluing and soldering.

BTW the price of LEDs are dropping quicker than Tiger Woods pants in a Swedish Massage Parlor. You can get the Cree for around $6 online.


Bill

 

[sphelps]

do you really expect me to do this? Ok, lets start here:

If you are going to call all this 'speculation', saying that it isn't proven technology and aren't willing to backup your own statements why bother even having a serious discussion?

Yes I do expect you do do this if you're going to say that most of the things I've stated are incorrect.

And start with something else as it seems most here agree that the current technology available to us isn't sustainable and the use of LEDs in this hobby is dependent on future development. So it's all speculation but that doesn't mean you can't have a serious discussion about it. Threads like this can get carried away buy people asking for evidence for this and that meanwhile it's not really relative anyway and more about being difficult than anything else. I was only trying to avoid this in hopes of having a proper discussion rather than a competition based on who can use google better.


My comments have been based on current products available to us, that is current off the shelf products. This to me seems more relevant to the topic as it's clearly not about what will be available in the future but how LEDs currently compare to alternatives, mostly the halide. It's easy to say that something will be better in the future but the fact is we can't travel to the future so that doesn't really help someone trying to make a decision now. Yes perhaps DIY is the way to go with these right now but you can also save significant money by using DIY MH or T5 kits as well or even buy used. The fact is there are so many variables and ways to look at this so I was trying to avoid the complication but if you really want to get into it you should consider resale value as well and look at shorter times since a lot of us don't keep the same tank for 10 years.

But if we're going to talk about the future what makes everyone so sure things will be cheaper? The way I see it current LED systems are priced well, they will obviously have higher labor costs and have significantly more components which results in higher manufacturing costs and the current price reflects this fairly.
There are two main ways to compete in a market, commodity and quality. Commodity is price competitive, large quantities with a small margin. You may get some cheap Chinese products that use this method but I'm not sure the market will accept such products with open arms. Quality is the obvious answer and clearly the way things are already. Forget trying to make something cheap and make something better by introducing something new like a controller which no other option can match. Quality may increase with time as new more powerful LEDs are used but with these new advances prices will have to go up not down.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

But if we're going to talk about the future what makes everyone so sure things will be cheaper? The way I see it current LED systems are priced well, they will obviously have higher labor costs and have significantly more components which results in higher manufacturing costs and the current price reflects this fairly.
There are two main ways to compete in a market, commodity and quality. Commodity is price competitive, large quantities with a small margin. You may get some cheap Chinese products that use this method but I'm not sure the market will accept such products with open arms. Quality is the obvious answer and clearly the way things are already. Forget trying to make something cheap and make something better by introducing something new like a controller which no other option can match. Quality may increase with time as new more powerful LEDs are used but with these new advances prices will have to go up not down.

FWIW, your thought process might be accurate for some types of products but it's generally wrong for electronics; especially semiconductors like LEDs. Look at the price/performance of components used in personal computers 5 years ago vs. today. LEDs are essentially manufactured in the same manner, and to date, they've followed a similar price/performance curve. A few years ago, an HP LED that made 40 - 50 lumens/watt cost $10 - $15. Today, that LED is $2, and a $6 LED is three times more efficient. It's not a static product.

Just in the last year, the "best" HP LEDs have essentially gotten twice as good - we're seeing significant new products every 6 months or so, and while the newest product is always expensive, it's typically falling in price after another generation or two has been released.

In other words, LEDs are getting better AND cheaper right now, and they're just becoming accepted for general illumination (see: my earlier post regarding their use in parking lots, conference rooms etc.) As they become more commonplace in those uses, their price/performance will become even MORE favorable.

 

[g8gxp]

Yes I do expect you do do this if you're going to say that most of the things I've stated are incorrect.

And start with something else as it seems most here agree that the current technology available to us isn't sustainable and the use of LEDs in this hobby is dependent on future development. So it's all speculation but that doesn't mean you can't have a serious discussion about it. Threads like this can get carried away buy people asking for evidence for this and that meanwhile it's not really relative anyway and more about being difficult than anything else. I was only trying to avoid this in hopes of having a proper discussion rather than a competition based on who can use google better.


My comments have been based on current products available to us, that is current off the shelf products. This to me seems more relevant to the topic as it's clearly not about what will be available in the future but how LEDs currently compare to alternatives, mostly the halide. It's easy to say that something will be better in the future but the fact is we can't travel to the future so that doesn't really help someone trying to make a decision now. Yes perhaps DIY is the way to go with these right now but you can also save significant money by using DIY MH or T5 kits as well or even buy used. The fact is there are so many variables and ways to look at this so I was trying to avoid the complication but if you really want to get into it you should consider resale value as well and look at shorter times since a lot of us don't keep the same tank for 10 years.

But if we're going to talk about the future what makes everyone so sure things will be cheaper? The way I see it current LED systems are priced well, they will obviously have higher labor costs and have significantly more components which results in higher manufacturing costs and the current price reflects this fairly.
There are two main ways to compete in a market, commodity and quality. Commodity is price competitive, large quantities with a small margin. You may get some cheap Chinese products that use this method but I'm not sure the market will accept such products with open arms. Quality is the obvious answer and clearly the way things are already. Forget trying to make something cheap and make something better by introducing something new like a controller which no other option can match. Quality may increase with time as new more powerful LEDs are used but with these new advances prices will have to go up not down.

There are significant market indicators that show LED technology is continuing to advance and will continue to advance in the very near future. When we are looking at whether it is a viable technology let's not forget that it is only an unproven technology within the aquarium industry. LED's have been around for quite awhile, they are now mass produced in TV's, commercial and industrial lighting, cars, personal lighting applications, electronic displays, etc. etc.

Just because they haven't been used over aquariums doesn't mean that it's a different technology. The applciation is different but the technology is proven and very very well documented in being extremely efficient compared to conventional lighting. And they definitely will get cheaper, in fact between the time i bought my lights and now (approximately 6 months) they have dropped 25% in price and are readily available from a variety of sources. So i think in this instance it's ok to say that LED's will continue to improve and become cost efficient. As for quality, the majority of LED's being used in DIY applications and in commercial systems are largely from a handful of manufacturers that have somewhat longstanding reputations in lighting R&D (Luxeon, Cree, Seoul Semiconductor). Cree has been making outstading products for sometime and as mentioned above, their prices have dropped quite a bit in a very short time.

 

[sphelps]

Yes the LEDs themselves could become much cheaper, chances are you could already source large quantities cheaper from China and some manufactures are already doing so. Most electronic components are quite expensive when manufactured in NA, our company will source prototype quantities from the US and then production quantities through China.

This however doesn't mean you'll see a drop in fixture prices, perhaps a greater potential for profit and therefore more contenders in the market.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

If you price the few relevant commercial fixtures there have been in terms of $$$ per unit of light output, there has already been a drop in fixture price roughly corresponding to the drop in price of the raw LEDs. If anything, the profit margin is rather high among the fixtures out there and will drop once the concept becomes more mainstream and more vendors enter the market.

And we're not talking about saving money by deciding to "source large quantities from China" vs. parts built in North America - these are best-of-breed, high quality LEDs from Cree, Philips, OSRAM, SSR, etc. The prices are changing for all quantities for OEMs and end consumers. It's just a plain fact that the price/performance ratio is improving at a rapid rate right now, for both finished products sold in the aquarium hobby AND raw parts sold to vendors or DIY hobbyists.

 

[James77]

As for arguing that less heat results in more work for the heater, that's just silly. This is basically saying that a lighting source that produces heat is desireable because you want to see a decrease tank heating costs.

I don't really see it as silly; for some, added heat from lights might be desireable. Accounting for a heater being on more is not really different than accounting for a chiller being on less, it is all part of the overall energy use of a tank.

If my ultimate goal for my tank was to reduce power use by switching from halides to LEDS, but doing so caused my 500w heater to run 10x as much...how would switching to LEDs save me on electric costs? Not all of us live in hot climates or are concerned about heat. Opposite is true for myself, I take all the added warmth I can get .


One thing that bugs me about LEDs and the cost comparisons between them and halides is the LED life. I see they are "supposed" to last X amount of years. If they do- fantastic, but if they are blowing every few years, it adds to the cost greatly.

 

[sphelps]

If you price the few relevant commercial fixtures there have been in terms of $$$ per unit of light output, there has already been a drop in fixture price roughly corresponding to the drop in price of the raw LEDs. If anything, the profit margin is rather high among the fixtures out there and will drop once the concept becomes more mainstream and more vendors enter the market.

And we're not talking about saving money by deciding to "source large quantities from China" vs. parts built in North America - these are best-of-breed, high quality LEDs from Cree, Philips, OSRAM, SSR, etc. The prices are changing for all quantities for OEMs and end consumers. It's just a plain fact that the price/performance ratio is improving at a rapid rate right now, for both finished products sold in the aquarium hobby AND raw parts sold to vendors or DIY hobbyists.

Cree has locations in China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Where do you think these low cost yet "high quality" LEDs will come from?

 

[wld1783]

I don't really see it as silly; for some, added heat from lights might be desireable. Accounting for a heater being on more is not really different than accounting for a chiller being on less, it is all part of the overall energy use of a tank.

If my ultimate goal for my tank was to reduce power use by switching from halides to LEDS, but doing so caused my 500w heater to run 10x as much...how would switching to LEDs save me on electric costs? Not all of us live in hot climates or are concerned about heat. Opposite is true for myself, I take all the added warmth I can get .


One thing that bugs me about LEDs and the cost comparisons between them and halides is the LED life. I see they are "supposed" to last X amount of years. If they do- fantastic, but if they are blowing every few years, it adds to the cost greatly.

I think the drivers fail way more than the LEDs if you DYI its a quick fix.

Bill

 

[black_ice_pc]

edited due to someone posting the info earlier

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

If my ultimate goal for my tank was to reduce power use by switching from halides to LEDS, but doing so caused my 500w heater to run 10x as much...how would switching to LEDs save me on electric costs? Not all of us live in hot climates or are concerned about heat. Opposite is true for myself, I take all the added warmth I can get .

True, but think of it this way - if switching from halides to LEDs means that your heater needs to work harder, it's only because you've seen at least a corresponding drop in electricity use in your light fixture, so, worst case, in terms of what it takes to heat your tank, the switch won't be a change for the worst in terms of overall energy budget. And judging by the number of people who have chillers, the potential for an LED rig to add less heat is very real for a reasonably large percentage of hobbyists.

One thing that bugs me about LEDs and the cost comparisons between them and halides is the LED life. I see they are "supposed" to last X amount of years. If they do- fantastic, but if they are blowing every few years, it adds to the cost greatly.

Very true, but the same argument holds true for the other side - MH components (besides lamps) will fail from time to time over the long run. The difference is that we can expect the LEDs themselves to not require scheduled replacements. Again, I apologize if my cost comparison seemed unfair, I presented it because it had been asked for - certainly the numbers will be different for different situations. I agree that people shouldn't make decisions based on numbers in any case, it's largely a matter of taste - and as I said above, I'd chose LEDs even if they weren't cheaper.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Cree has locations in China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Where do you think these low cost yet "high quality" LEDs will come from?

My point was that the fact they're coming from China is irrelevant. The prices are dropping because of improvements in technology, not because they're made overseas. I guess I was confused about why you brought it up in the first place.

 

[syrinx]

First off I am not anti led- in fact they were invented about a mile from where I sit. I have had beautiful tanks with NO flo tubes,PCs,halides etc and don`t doubt I could do the same with LEDs. From what I have seen in real life- with tanks and land based gardens- doesn`t go hand in hand with what the vendors say- as well as their disciples. I don`t doubt in the future LEDs will be the standard- unless other tech passes their growth curve, but at this point the halide provides that certain Jena`se qua that the LED tech hasn`t provided. I don`t think its the LEDs themselves, rather the understanding of the spectums and their effect on the physiology of the organism. Plus i see single bulbs out all the time on stoplights- as well as my tailight on my bike has had to have 3 leds replaced in two years, so the they last forever thing is more about factoring quality control in as much as best case scenerio life.