LFP's Xenon Projection and Cree LED DIY lighting system.

[liveforphysics]

I can't be upset with you guys, because areze also lured me into lousing up my own thread with needless banter.

This is part of the reason I'm choosing to feature the things I build off-site in a respectful atmosphere.

I fully appreciate and will answer questions about wanting to understand theory of operation. These things contribute to learning and advancing the hobby.

I spent a full hour of my time yesterday responding to foolishness from areze. I often work 12-16hr days, and I only have a couple of hours of personal time in a day. I'm not going to spend it defending the existence of my project or my testing. Anyone who doesn't want to believe it's possible or believe Xenon is efficient, or believe it can produce photosynthetic spectra is welcome to believe that way. I have too many other projects that need my time to spend it in back and forth banter trying to convince anyone of anything.

If you don't like it, don't trust it, don't want it, don't want to see it, are convinced that only lots of 250-400w MH bulbs can light a reef, then simply stop viewing the thread please.


Bean- "Luke is my friend and I support his DIY efforts no matter what the outcome is."

You brought a big smile to my face. The feeling is mutual.

Whenever trying new things, it's a risk of an investment in time and money, and for things like this, the biggest risk is in the health of my corals. So far I'm observing the normal reactions to lighting that I saw with my previous lighting. If I begin to see my corals take a turn for the worse, I do have my previous lighting on hand to throw back over the tank and hopefully recover.

Things are looking healthy and promising so far, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

For everyone who had nice things to say, thank you, I appreciate your kindness.

Best Wishes,
-Luke

 

[liveforphysics]

Top down shot just for fun

 

[ReefEnabler]

wow that looks awesome. I see possibilities for supplemental lighting even for people who have MH lights.


I dont understand why you two are fighting, Bean and Jaco
I just read the thread for the first time and Jaco was merely stating the fact that there was a confusion about the bulb technology being discussed. No need to let the confusion carry on, seems everybody is on the same side here

Lets just support Luke in this awesome experiment and await the next installment with more PAR numbers oh and more pics would be sweet too

 

[ReefEnabler]

Luke I just read that Dana Riddle article yesterday and have been pondering the red issue too.

I want more data on the red subject It seems alot of people have had good results when adding the ATI procolor bulb to their T5 setups, which is a heavily red bulb. I wonder if in the experiment on red bleaching events if the red light was the only light or just a supplemental light?

"that corals exposed for more than 60 days to light composed of mostly the red portion of the spectrum resulted in corals that "

that makes me think the red lighting was the main lighting and not a supplemental light. so I wonder how harmful a small red peak in a bulb with other spectrums would be.

 

[Horace]

I do have to echo the concerns on replacing the HID bulbs and the cost associated. My buddy (who we put an HID kit in his car), had to replace bulbs almost yearly as they would burn out on his RSX. If you have to replace all those bulbs every year, your talking some MAJOR replacment cost.

I lOVE the idea, but economically, im just not sure its worth it. I think I would rather see a all LED unit instead, at least those will last.....

 

[Whalehead9]

How long has this project been running on your tank? I like the idea, and might want to use a few spots on some tanks, that want shimmer with t-5's. Can't wait for the Par readings. this application could also work very well for pico, nano, and a qt sps tank.

Keep up the good work!

 

[ReefEnabler]

Luke already said he calculated the bulb cost and for him its worth it. If you read the glassbox stuff its in there and this thread.

To re-lamp my previous setup required 12x T5 bulbs and 4x MH bulbs. I would normally spend about $500 yearly to re-lamp. To completely re-lamp my current setup I will spend around $200.

I'm glad somebody is out there experimenting all the crazy stuff that I wish I could try but haven't the engineering skills or the free time Sounds like he doesn't have much free time either with all this going on.

 

[Horace]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14083932#post14083932 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
Luke already said he calculated the bulb cost and for him its worth it. If you read the glassbox stuff its in there and this thread.




I'm glad somebody is out there experimenting all the crazy stuff that I wish I could try but haven't the engineering skills or the free time Sounds like he doesn't have much free time either with all this going on.

If that is the case then thats awesome... I def think its a cool idea... I just remember those bulbs being alot more expensive than his seem to be. Perhaps hes getting them at a big discount to what my buddy was paying for his HIDs?? Heck from what I recall his kit for this RSX was ~$300 (ballast + bulbs), and the replacement bulbs were ~$90/ea.

 

[nattarbox]

Thanks for sharing your experiment, I was very pleased to read about it on Glass Box as well as here. It was really interesting to get some perspective on the HID lighting, as I have been curious about it since noticing some commercial options appearing on the market.

 

[hummermaniac88]

I don't understand why everyone is hating on a out of the box idea... I bet the same responses were thrown around went LEDs were first experimented...

 

[tarzan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14080795#post14080795 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by liveforphysics
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/12/aafeature1

It makes me want to re-evaluate my bulb choices to exclude the purple bulbs that had a few heavy red lines... The more I learn about corals, the more I realize they do not want anything like full spectrum lighting. I'm glad most of the Xenon bulbs and all of the LEDs are mainly composed of strong blue spikes in useful photosynthetic wavelengths.

Best Wishes,
-Luke

First i need to say it's an interesting approach, quite a costly one (compared to T5 only setup), but if the electricity bill will be lower, the lifespan of lamps better and coral growth same or even better than with T5's, it's definitely a way to go (if in 2 years the investment difference is covered), but we'll have to wait and see how it will go first... I do not want to be skeptical, i would just like to encourage you to take some more precise spectral measurements of Xenons used. I don't know what their spectral color distribution is , i hope that it doesn't just have few spikes on right areas (if it emits light just in a narrow area of 10nm on blue and red part of scale). Sure hope to see some graphs.

Regarding the articles you posted I hope you don't plan to go "all blue" (as the articles suggests), blue is the wavelength corals gain most from, but hey, what about us? Don't we want them in our tanks just to be able to see part of nature in their actual colors? What is the point in having a yellow coral and watching it just under blue lights (I know you are not doing this, I'm just joking).

Just love your work, keep it coming !!!
For some nice graphs of chlorophyll's light absorption capability and PAR value theory here's a link to paper.

 

[liveforphysics]

I reached 200 hrs of burn-in time on the lamps, and I took new spectral data. This time I was able to gain the use of a very nice machine to use. You can see the output graphs on the most recent update.

http://glassbox-design.com/2009/part-25-lfps-xenon-and-led-reef-lighting-system/

Enjoy!
-Luke

 

[ReefEnabler]

wow.... the 12k and 25k bulbs have some of the most natural spectrums I've ever seen according to those spectral analysis graphs. bravo!

so when are you going into full production... taking preorders yet??? :lol:


your comments on why you upgraded to your current tank make me want to upgrade for the same reason (damn you). I thought a tall tank was the way to go, but wet armpits are no good!

 

[liveforphysics]

Those 12k and 25k blue bulbs sure do look like a delightful coral spectrum don't they Oddly, they are from different manufactures, yet very similar.

Before I could recommend anyone to try this sort of lighting, I need to make sure that my corals continue to look healthy for a longer period of time. I also feel a need to get some idea of the real lifespan of the bulbs. I know the manufacture states 3000-5000hrs, but I think nothing beats real world testing.

Thanks for the kind words!

-Luke

 

[Adrianvh]

is it possible to mention bulb brands and models?

 

[JustinReef]

I know someone who has been using HID lighting over his reef for about 6 months now and it looks great. I will get more details or see if he is a member here and will post.

Actually I know someone else on my local forum using them over a nano for the past 4 or 5 months too. It looks great as well. There was a lot of talk about this on my local forum.

I even bought a bunch of them for supplemental spots over my tank but have not gotten around to using them yet. My brother works for a car parts shop and gets them and the lamps at cost, so its something I am interested in for sure.

For me though I could never light a whole tank like this...looks way too unnatural. IMO they are better for supplemental light but just because of aesthetics.

 

[liveforphysics]

I think about 3/4 of all reefkeepers use HID lighting I assume you mean Xenon HID lamps right? Projected or reflected? If projected, did they find a more economical source for projection optics? I would be VERY happy if you could find a link to share with us. It would be very comforting to get to see how well they grow coral over a longer time period, and how the bulbs maintain output over time.


My snails must be ****ed! They've given up even searching the glass for algae, and seem to be mostly roaming the rocks only. I am certainly not missing needing to clean my glass every week!

The unlit glass disappears so well, I've actually bumped my nose into it a few times while watching the tank. I enjoy the animals floating in air illusion much more than the animals behind a well illuminated clear barrier appearance I used to have.

 

[Paul_PSU]

Luke,
Bravo! Your endeavors are always fascinating to follow (loved your tank thread). It is refreshing to see people like yourself that are in the community and continually doing so much to try to advance it. Keep up the great work.

Paul

 

[ReefEnabler]

Luke hope you don't mind me posting these comparisons (not sure how valid the comparisons are due to different intstruments but I assume a somewhat relative comparison is valid):

Spectral analysis and PAR values of a natural reef at various depths. It's from advanced aquarist, Hahn posted it over in the lighting thread:

Now Luke's 25k xenon HID:

Looks alot like the natural curve at about 5m depth.

Anybody who has spent alot of time looking at spectral graphs for MH bulbs knows that its just about impossible to get that close to the overall lighting curve without supplementation schemes.

Most MH bulbs have an ackward spikey spectrum of some kind.

I'd say the XM10k comes *close* but the overall shape of the curve is different, and far spikier. Every single blue MH bulb I've looked at has a spike in blue without the gradual descent into red that happens in nature.

Bluer bulbs seem to have a blue spike and then the rest of the graph is pretty boring.

Anybody who wants to browse through MH bulb data should check out the new location for Sanjay's lighting info:
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting

Browse by Color Temp. Check out XM10k and Radium 20k as examples....

 

[liveforphysics]

To save folks the trouble, I hosted a few of Sanjay's graphs of the bulbs I often see used, most of them I've used myself at some point. You can read the bulb type in the upper corner of each graph.