mr wilson i have a few questions
1 where can i get that panel ?
2 are all five colors on a separate channel ?
3 would i need to buy five drivers could i not get away with three ?
4 would all the LEDs go out if one burns out ?
5 do you think it is wise to put all your eggs (LEDs) in one basket ?
6 my wife said she thinks she has seen that some ware before is it available ? now
Marc
Your wife recognizes one of the most iconic toys of the 60s & 70s, Lite Brite. It is a pegboard panel that looks remarkably like the LED arrays we use.
I won't singe out any one brand because they all share the same weakness, but 3w arrays offer a surplus of one spectrum in one area while a deficit in another. The net result is red, white and blue hot spots throughout the reef. While some people like the look of a red spotlight on a particular coral, it certainly isn't natural, and it's arguably detrimental.
When we look at spectrographs of various LED fixtures on the market, they don't take into account the directional nature of the individual LEDs. The graph may show lots of UV light, but it may only be available in a couple of small locations in your tank. The all too familiar disco effect of purple and yellow shadows can be avoided with multichips and the lenses that come with them.
Multichips are able to mix the colours by simply locating them close together and through larger dome lenses which are harder to find in 3w array fixtures. I saw at MACNA that Acan Lighting has a fixture that uses a 3w array and clusters them together under a larger dome-like lens. Blueline and Orphek also had single dome lenses in their new 3w arrays, but colour separation is still an issue.
In the end, lens technology may prove to be more important than chip technology. Some manufacturers are offering lenses with phosphor coatings so one can alter an existing lens. In the future the end user may be able to manipulate these phosphors to alter the spectrum of the light, This could be a simple colour wheel application as seen with RGB lighting or a more sophisticated chemical method of achieving the same goal.
The idea of a fully adjustable LED fixture may appeal to many, but if your corals had a say in the matter, they would request a steady photoperiod at 100% illumination with a spectrum that represents that of the sun in their natural environment. The corals we buy are adapted to a depth of 6-10' and will be exposed to full spectrum light, including red.
There are so many factors that contribute to the colour and growth rates of coral, it is silly to think that one can change the programming of an LED fixture and expect to see a measurable change. Im not saying you wont see varying results, but keep in mind we (the hobby & scientific community) have been experimenting with reef lighting for 30 years so you won't make any earth shattering discoveries overnight.
Pick a colour you like that hopefully benefits your tank and build a light that will achieve that goal. I don't think we will be seeing cloud and storm simulations offered in the coming years, and a slow ramp-up of light will also be a passing trend. Dawn and dusk simulation has benefits for the viewer and inhabitants of the tank so it is here to stay. The single most important lighting feature in my opinion is a lunar simulation. It has been proven to induce spawning in fish and coral, yet many of the most complex fixtures on the market overlook this feature???
