GroktheCube
New member
This is a big part of why I use LED + T5 rather than LED alone. I love my buildmyled.com strips, but I think the tank looks better with my ATI 4 bulb running along with them.
Open letter to the LED industry
- Thread starter Vannpytt
- Start date
wildman926
Active member
How many strips are you running? What do you have in your tank, and what is the tank size?
marc price
Active member
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_CRI_LED_Lighting
Partial list of LED lights with a CRI above 90 as of July 2, 2013[edit source | editbeta]
A19[edit source | editbeta]
Form factor Base Brand Name Incandescent equivalent Watts Lumens Efficacy Color temp CRI Dimmable Lifespan Notes Retail price
A19 E26 Philips Hue Connected Bulb 50 watt 8.5 600 70 2000–6500 K 91 With app 15,000 hours Network controllable; lime-green, red-orange, and royal-blue LEDs $60[4]
Directional[edit source | editbeta]
Form factor Base Brand Name Incandescent equivalent Watts Lumens Efficacy Color temp CRI Dimmable Lifespan Notes Retail price Exclusive retailer
6-inch Downlight E26 Cree CR6 EcoSmart 65 watt 9.5 625 65 5000 K 90 Yes 35,000 hours Integrated trim $37[7] Home Depot
4 Inch Downlight E26 Cree CR4 EcoSmart 65 watt 9.5 625 65 5000 K 90 Yes 35,000 hours Integrated trim $45[9] Home Depot
PAR35 Proprietary Wattsaver DL9-1400 80 watt 14.5 1076 75 4000 K 92 Yes 50,000 hours Uses Edison Edi-Power HR LED chips $69 (AUD)[14]
Video Lights[edit source | editbeta]
Form factor Mounting Brand Name Equivalent Watts Beam angle Lux Color temp CRI Lifespan Notes Retail price Power source Battery option
Panel Stand FloLight MicroBeam 1024 1000 watt 97 30° or 60° 5600 K 93 25,000 hours $799[23] 12V DC AB Mount or V-Mount
Panel Stand FloLight MicroBeam 512 500 watt 48.5 30° or 60° 5600 K 93 25,000 hours $549[24] 12V DC AB Mount or V-Mount
Panel Center, Yoke, Pole Kino Flo Celeb 200 DMX >750 watt 100 2700- 5500 K 95 $2629[25] 18- 28V DC 3-Pin XLR input
Light Source Stand Fiilex P360 90 64°
(29° with Fresnel Lens)
3000- 5600 K 90- 95 $695[26] 12- 28V DC
Fiber Optic
Light Source
Stand Fiilex P200 60 N/A 3000- 5600 K >90 $795[27] 12- 28V DC
Light Source On camera, stand Fiilex P180 40 3000- 5600 K >94 Not for sale yet 12- 28V DC
On camera light On camera Fiilex P100 12 54° 3000- 5600 K >90 $395[28] 10- 16V DC Proprietary
Circular Panel Various Rotolight Anova 1000 watt 38 110° 3150- 6300K $2655[29] V-Mount
This is the CREE chip of the two 5000K 90 CRI EcoSmart (home depot), 9.5watt spots http://www.homedepot.com/p/EcoSmart...75L-50K/203423169?N=bm79Z1z0xeuk#.UhKQdRZGxlI
Going down to 80 CRI 5000K we have the Phillips PAR 38 19.5watt 5000K 1300 lumens spotlight - http://www.usa.philips.com/c/led-li...04680DD818CCD9F5.app102-drp4?t=specifications
and the Utilitec Pro by Feit, 23watt 1400 lumens 5000K 84 CRI spotlight http://www.lowes.com/pd_150661-7577...tt=utilitech+pro+23watt+par+38+led&facetInfo=
I've been playing around with all three over a 40 breeder. It would be nice to see more 90 and 90+ CRI daylight LED's both commercial and diy made available to us.
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High CRI whites:
http://ac-rc.net/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22_28_32&products_id=174
Basically whites with a thin spike of red and some green+yellow. It's missing a bit of cyan, but there's no way to get that without adding discrete cyan anyway. Definitely better thna a normal 14k white.
http://ac-rc.net/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22_28_32&products_id=174
Basically whites with a thin spike of red and some green+yellow. It's missing a bit of cyan, but there's no way to get that without adding discrete cyan anyway. Definitely better thna a normal 14k white.
marc price
Active member
Whats the CRI rating of those Epistar 20W 15,000K multi chips? Are you using these chips? If so how uniform is the color?
I ask because i'm very disappointed in the CREE 9.5 watt 5000k 90 CRI chip performance. There clearly is a blue/green - white - red color shift at the edges. Nothing uniform about the light -
So far the best CRI daylight's i have found in regard to uniformity are the two ≥80 CRI Par38 spots (Phillips 19.5w and Feit Utilitec 23w 5000K's), i'm playing with.
I wasn't aware of a 90CRI neutral white that Cree offers. Which one is this?
And I have not tried the chips before. Lasse suggested them to me, and they look really nice as primary lighting IMO. It looks like a full-spectrum chip that only needs violet and a little red to function well.
And I have not tried the chips before. Lasse suggested them to me, and they look really nice as primary lighting IMO. It looks like a full-spectrum chip that only needs violet and a little red to function well.
marc price
Active member
Idk, it may be CREE proprietary for Lighting Science Group EcoSmart??
Pacific Sun RD
Przemek Cybulski
I dont think so that you will get spectacular effects with high CRI white leds - IMHO not that way...
Too much white/warm light will decrease coral fluorescence - so all others(like pink/red) will look nice, but all other will look brown/dark(like fluo blue corals or fluo green looks in the sunlight - taked out from the water..)
They are cream with small colour tint.
Using high CRI leds together with many blue leds is without sense - you will "loose" that CRI index when you will mix white with blue.
That a reason why on that 5 leds chip above is used red chio together with 4 pcs white(XP-E as I see). Red color is most important for increase CRI index and we used it in SMT matrix only from that reason - not for pigments..
Too much white/warm light will decrease coral fluorescence - so all others(like pink/red) will look nice, but all other will look brown/dark(like fluo blue corals or fluo green looks in the sunlight - taked out from the water..)
They are cream with small colour tint.
Using high CRI leds together with many blue leds is without sense - you will "loose" that CRI index when you will mix white with blue.
That a reason why on that 5 leds chip above is used red chio together with 4 pcs white(XP-E as I see). Red color is most important for increase CRI index and we used it in SMT matrix only from that reason - not for pigments..
marc price
Active member
Correct, only i'm not looking for spectacular effects, sure i'm in the minority here but it's much to artificial looking for my taste.
With those CREE 90CRI 5000K daylights, and the two PAR38 80 CRI's the blue tips of my ORA Cali blue tort and the blue of my Superman Monti still look good to me.
The 90 CRI give the sand a more natural look and are closest to what i get when the sun shines thru the window into the aquarium. Only as i pointed out in my two previous post, the mix of colors in that chip create a off color red to overlapping red/gree-blue to green-blue halo at the beams edge.
The PAR38 80 CRI's by Feit Utilitec Pro are greenish exactally likethe old VitaLight T12 Fluorescents. The Phillips PAR38 80 CRI's give a pinkish-blue cast like the old Triton T8 Fluorescents. Both not so good but they have the output power i need, where as that 9.5watt 90 CRI CREE does not.
Unfortunately it appears LED technology has yet to produce a useable single chip or higher power multichip Daylight/high ≥90 CRI.
for a simple fixture (maybe not best possible, but only a few LEDs or only a small LED string) a mixture of blue's/violet, with a mix of high CRI (90+) whites and cooler green heavy whites creates a good ballance. not the best but not "without sense" in the proper ballance with blues. more suplemental colors seem to produce better results but are not always practical for say a Nano size tank.
Nicha (sp?) has a 90 CRI 4000k chip (single LED, not an array), close enough to "daylight" when you add in more blues. It's available from cutter electronics presently for the DIY crowd, much broader spectrum graph than any of the cree or luxeon chips available.(essetnially what you'd get combining a high CRI warm white with a cool white, but in one chip.) I've not used it but from the spectrum graphs it looks promising if you only can use one white chip to fill in the non blue spectrum, this one seems the best so far, or possibly one of the other's they manufacture (seem to have much broader spectrums than cree and luxeon with several that look much better suited to reef use, less yelow and more of an RGB type spectrum graph on many.
marc price
Active member
Thanks...I'm liking what i'm reading about this one - http://wattsaver.com.au/dl7-1400/ uses Edison-Opto's latest chip:
Specifications
"¢Model Number: DL7-1400
"¢Light Source : Edison-Opto HR Series
"¢Total Wattage: 12.4W Excluding the driver
"¢Total Lumens: 1400 across all color variants at 350mA
"¢CRI-90+
"¢Light Efficiency: 113 lumens/watt (excluding driver)
"¢Driver "“ standard dimmable (3 year warranty)
or Premium quality (10 year warranty)
"¢View Angle: 60 degree
"¢Warranty: 10 yearss
"¢Suitable for commercial application
"¢Made in Australia
Dimensions Height: 115mm (roof cavity space needs to be at
least 120mm) Profile: 90mm (diameter of face)
Cut-out: 72mm "“ 75mm
Options
"¢Cool white 5500-6000k
"¢Natural white 4000-4500k
"¢Sunrise white 3000-3200k
"¢Warm white 2800k "“ 3000k
"¢12V/24V DC Driver can be supplied
"¢Diffused or clear glass
Pacific Sun RD
Przemek Cybulski
@zachts
Can you tell me ratio used leds(and models)?
We have in our laboratory almost all popular LEDs(philips, cree etc) so I can try to build it in our test panel and measure spectrum - probably(as I think) high CRI leds are only few(low ratio white:blue/violet) so they work like "spectrum filler")
@Marc
|Yes, that bulb can be a nice source of high CRI light - but sometimes when I read(even on RC) that somebody used high CRI leds with CT above 7.000K - this starts to be a fun ...
(there are several manufacturers such as LEDs use of CT as above 10KK and write about CRI close to or greater than 90)
Can you tell me ratio used leds(and models)?
We have in our laboratory almost all popular LEDs(philips, cree etc) so I can try to build it in our test panel and measure spectrum - probably(as I think) high CRI leds are only few(low ratio white:blue/violet) so they work like "spectrum filler")
@Marc
|Yes, that bulb can be a nice source of high CRI light - but sometimes when I read(even on RC) that somebody used high CRI leds with CT above 7.000K - this starts to be a fun ...
(there are several manufacturers such as LEDs use of CT as above 10KK and write about CRI close to or greater than 90)
Lassef
Member
@zachts and marc price: I would totally agree with you if it not were corals we talk about. If we only has to deal with reflecting colours - your right but IMO around 60 -70 % of the coluor we see in corals is not reflecting colours - they are instead created by fluorescence.
In reality you have a lot of light radiation from corals, not only light reflection. Most corals are their own light source driven mostly by radiation with higher energy. They are weak light sources and if you put in radiation that hit our eyes more sensitive areas these colours will totally disappear and you will only see the colour of the pigments that is reflecting by nature.
Most reefers turn their white light down during evenings just to see the beautifully fluorescence colurs. I have noticed that if you use high Kelvin whites (16 000 K) you still will have the reflecting colours and you will not "block out" the weak fluorescence with a lot of light just at your "lumen window" (500 - 600 nm).
I have read tons of posts talking about POP up the colours with only having light sources between 400 - 470 nm. I have try to put down my high Kelvin LEDs but not experiences the big POP (I have 60 % of my light in the area of 400-470 nm so I have plenty of blues)- only a small pop from a few corals. Now I understand why - I already see most of the fluorescence colour in spite of the fact that the white LEDs are turned on.
Lately there has been some development with red phosphorus that is even better.
Pacific Sun has another method to achieve the same results (and maybe a better method - I have not tested it) but the bottom line is to take the beautifully fluorescence colours to the front even if the light looks like a white light.
Sincerely Lasse
In reality you have a lot of light radiation from corals, not only light reflection. Most corals are their own light source driven mostly by radiation with higher energy. They are weak light sources and if you put in radiation that hit our eyes more sensitive areas these colours will totally disappear and you will only see the colour of the pigments that is reflecting by nature.
Most reefers turn their white light down during evenings just to see the beautifully fluorescence colurs. I have noticed that if you use high Kelvin whites (16 000 K) you still will have the reflecting colours and you will not "block out" the weak fluorescence with a lot of light just at your "lumen window" (500 - 600 nm).
I have read tons of posts talking about POP up the colours with only having light sources between 400 - 470 nm. I have try to put down my high Kelvin LEDs but not experiences the big POP (I have 60 % of my light in the area of 400-470 nm so I have plenty of blues)- only a small pop from a few corals. Now I understand why - I already see most of the fluorescence colour in spite of the fact that the white LEDs are turned on.
Lately there has been some development with red phosphorus that is even better.
Pacific Sun has another method to achieve the same results (and maybe a better method - I have not tested it) but the bottom line is to take the beautifully fluorescence colours to the front even if the light looks like a white light.
Sincerely Lasse
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Pacific Sun RD
Przemek Cybulski
Not only red - also green phosphorus
Yttrium aluminium garnet(called "yellow phosphorus) is patented by Nichia - some companies started production with red and green phosphorus with very good results.
Red phosphorus helps bringing warm colours - that technology is called SSL(solid-state lighting) and actually is applied in general lighting and TV/display backlight(most popular).
We did some tests with that kind of leds - but "this is not it."
Yet..
PS. I see you understand which direction we went - that there is not something "opposite" but rather another way to achieve the same (or better) results - beautiful looking aquarium
Yttrium aluminium garnet(called "yellow phosphorus) is patented by Nichia - some companies started production with red and green phosphorus with very good results.
Red phosphorus helps bringing warm colours - that technology is called SSL(solid-state lighting) and actually is applied in general lighting and TV/display backlight(most popular).
We did some tests with that kind of leds - but "this is not it."
Yet..
PS. I see you understand which direction we went - that there is not something "opposite" but rather another way to achieve the same (or better) results - beautiful looking aquarium
Ron Reefman
Active member
Lasse,
I'm not disagreeing with you, but when you say,"...but IMO around 60 -70 % of the coluor we see in corals is not reflecting colours - they are instead created by fluorescence." I'd like some documentation rather than just "IMO". Can you link us to any articles that confirm your opinion?
Thanks,
Ron
Lassef
Member
@ Ron Reefman: I have no documention of this or any scenic proof - thats the reason I wrote IMO - just to stress that is only an opinion from me. I can be wrong or right - I just don´t know. My opinion is based on experiences of my own tank ( I´m not a SPS fan - more fan of the mushrooms) and many tanks I have seen - especially with or without a very heavy blue tint
Sincerely Lasse
Sincerely Lasse
Ron Reefman
Active member
Lassef, I appreciate your honesty. I don't have any knowledge of how much color in our corals is reflection and how much is emission. Heck, I don't know if there is even a good way to quantify an answer to such a question. I have my own humble opinion, but it's just that, an opinion. I wonder if anybody has anything better than opinions on the subject.
My tank was under MH for years and most of what I looked at was reflected light. About 8 months ago I switched to leds and I have to admit, I'm thinning out some of the corals that are mostly reflective and adding some that have more light emissions. My dawn and dusk lighting is very blue, but my midday is still very white. It's almost like having 2 different tanks!
Ron
Ratio breakdown:
Rebel ES chips
1 x 5000k (LXW8-PW50)
1 x 2700k (LXW9-PW27)
1 x Royal Blue (LXML-PR02-1100)
1 x Blue (LXML-PB01-0040)
Semi chips
3 x Violet (417nm peak, ~800mW@700mA)
two pods fit nicely on a single string from an ELN-48
for a "simple" light the results are very good
it's very white looking as the violets don't produce much visible light but they enhance the flourescent pigments greatly.
I'd be interested to see that spectrum graph if you measure it, best I can do is use some of the web tools to approximate what it would look like.
@ Lassef
I completely aggree with your statements, there is a very fine line that needs to be found for that 30%-40% reflective pigments as you put it. Flourescent pigments are easily achieved, it's the rest than are not so easy without masking the other colors, as has been a major discussion in this thread. different aproaches to achieve this, but no clear answere yet which is best, and it seems still a long way from a single chip solution if that ever happens anyway.
that fine line is the point where you maximize your coral pigments and flourescence but still provide enough "white" light that the tank doesn't look overly blue or un-natural, unless you want that look (granted the colors we get in our tanks are wholly un-natural and I won't debate that, we like bright colors).
Lassef
Member
As Pacific Sun has pointed out - there are a lot of important wavelengths over 470 that corals use for fluorescence. For me its very difficult to judge if I see a reflected colour or if it is a colour due to fluorescence - and it makes it not easier when you understand that the colour you see is a mix of reflected photons and photons from fluorescence.
However I have not only corals in my aquarium - I have fishes also. The pigments of fishes we have in a home aquarium is mostly reflecting (I don´t say to 100 % but rather close to).
If my fishes shows all of the beautifully colours they have - when its enough of full spectra light for me.
The bottom line is: If the fishes do not show "washed out" colours but the corals do - I´ll think that rising the CRI is a dead end track in order to get better looking corals
Sincerely Lasse
However I have not only corals in my aquarium - I have fishes also. The pigments of fishes we have in a home aquarium is mostly reflecting (I don´t say to 100 % but rather close to).
If my fishes shows all of the beautifully colours they have - when its enough of full spectra light for me.
The bottom line is: If the fishes do not show "washed out" colours but the corals do - I´ll think that rising the CRI is a dead end track in order to get better looking corals
Sincerely Lasse
Pacific Sun RD
Przemek Cybulski
We dont have all that led chips already in stock, but I will try to get them and do mose tests..
That Semi led chip - which bin exactly it is?
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