Open letter to the LED industry

Can you post link to the technical spec on this LED? I'm not aware of any product (LED or not) that is able to convert entire light output into another light spectrum. Typical LEDs with phosphors are white ones, and it simply converts part of the blue to others providing white look to it.

White LEDs are only "white" becuase they let some of the blue thru. Otherwise they would look orange if you slathered on a heavy enough layer of phosphor you'd only be producing some green and red light which would look orange.
 
White LEDs are only "white" becuase they let some of the blue thru. Otherwise they would look orange if you slathered on a heavy enough layer of phosphor you'd only be producing some green and red light which would look orange.

Well, of course there must be blue in it but the spectral charts I've seen show the strongest intensity at blue spectrum on all white LEDs made this way. So would you say with heavier layer of various phosphors you can eliminate the blue spectrum altogether just like on PC amber LEDs?

So, this all boils down to what LED manufacturer's would do - if there's enough demand, they can produce pretty much any spectrum LEDs within visible spectrum with reasonable efficiency? Or there's still lack of variety in appropriate phosphors to fill in the gaps we see?
 
White LEDs are only "white" becuase they let some of the blue thru. Otherwise they would look orange if you slathered on a heavy enough layer of phosphor you'd only be producing some green and red light which would look orange.

I'm not sure if all the whites are that way. It could be true for the some of the cool white though. However if you look at the older LED's designs under 1/4 Watt many were built using semiconductors that glowed at specific wave lengths without the use of any phosphor coating. You would aso see some of newer LED's like Crees 10 Watt emitters offered in royal blue if they worked on this principle since it would less expensive to create and there is a big market for them.
 
Never once had problems with Rapid LED's Chips and those published graphs go down to near 400nm. Even the Old button style I've had running now at near full power for almost 3 years now.

It's still a problem with the material used and the construction of the chips. Rapid has always carried a slight premium price tag and there is a darn good reason. Quality materials! Steve's LED now uses the right stuff also, but so far no one stocking the 430nm that I've used as paid that much attention to detail. They also seem to have a broader spectrum from the few limited graphs I've seen but it doesn't extend particularly low compared to the 410/420nm that Rapid Sells which looks more like a 405 if you ask me........

I've had some of the RapidLED violets running along side my Hyper Violet and True Violet diodes from the get-go. So far the RapidLED diodes are A-OK. The other diodes are fine once the burned acrylic plastic primary optic is removed. I think the lens is the issue as opposed to the emission spectrum as the HV is definitely bluer and the TV definitely more violet than the Rapid(C35?).

I'm not sure if all the whites are that way. It could be true for the some of the cool white though. However if you look at the older LED's designs under 1/4 Watt many were built using semiconductors that glowed at specific wave lengths without the use of any phosphor coating. You would aso see some of newer LED's like Crees 10 Watt emitters offered in royal blue if they worked on this principle since it would less expensive to create and there is a big market for them.

I don't know of any other way to make white light with LED. It's Stokes shifting via phosphor with an RB diode all the way. I don't know why high powered RB emitters haven't materialized employing the latest tech. We never saw XML RBs from Cree. I expect there's little demand compared to white. Most of the product is destined to illuminate things for humans rather than coral.
 
I'm not sure if all the whites are that way. It could be true for the some of the cool white though. However if you look at the older LED's designs under 1/4 Watt many were built using semiconductors that glowed at specific wave lengths without the use of any phosphor coating. You would aso see some of newer LED's like Crees 10 Watt emitters offered in royal blue if they worked on this principle since it would less expensive to create and there is a big market for them.

All the Cree white chips use phosphor converted blue light, if there is any blue in the spectrum this is how they work. No way around it, period.
 
I don't know of any other way to make white light with LED. It's Stokes shifting via phosphor with an RB diode all the way. I don't know why high powered RB emitters haven't materialized employing the latest tech. We never saw XML RBs from Cree. I expect there's little demand compared to white. Most of the product is destined to illuminate things for humans rather than coral.

I always expected an xml Royal Blue but all they released was a red, green, blue, white emmiter with four channel control in the XML class nice but not much demand even for those.

Luxeon has the M model and the K emiter arrays, but the main reason is they get very dangerous. if you looked directly at anything more powerful than a luxeon M Royal blue for just a split second you could be blinded. so most of these type systems are limited to special comercial applications using remote phosphor and generally those use dense single chip arrays for greater spread..........
 
All the Cree white chips use phosphor converted blue light, if there is any blue in the spectrum this is how they work. No way around it, period.

How about the other colors? Could this be why they do not offer some of the colors that Phillips offers?
 
Check out the Rapid led Borealis chip. Has 550nm leds. I just wish they had 5 channels to separate the reds.

Seen them, been out for a while now, wasn't terribly impressed with the layout/control, nor do I have a tank large enough to justify an array that size.
 
Interesting that's why I never understood why people put "full spectrum"

They do this to see better colors of their fish, clams and corals...
Without yellows, reds and oranges in the lamp you would only see blue parts of fish and rest of the fish would look black to your eye.

when a red and yellow have been proven to grow algae. There is a reason wetlands and seaweed would thrive close to the surface.

Yes, there are major reasons wetlands and seaweed thrive close to the surface but they have little to do with the color spectrum:
1. close proximity to land and getting lots of nutrients from rain water run off
2. shallow water heats up under the Sun and high temperature promotes algae growth.
 
I've always been a T5 guy but have been gauging interest in making the move to LED's for all of the obvious reasons (cost, lifespan, low heat, etc).

I'm slowly building my 50g cube and starting to think about which LED setup may work best for my needs. My tank is a 24x24x20 rimless. I'm an SPS guy so this is going to be an SPS dominant tank. Barebottom with nothing more than approx. 20-25lbs of LR.

I'm leaning towards PAR38's; if I decide to go this route, can anyone tell me how many bulbs would be sufficient enough for the depth and size of my tank to successfully keep SPS alive and thriving?

TIA
 
I've always been a T5 guy but have been gauging interest in making the move to LED's for all of the obvious reasons (cost, lifespan, low heat, etc).

I'm slowly building my 50g cube and starting to think about which LED setup may work best for my needs. My tank is a 24x24x20 rimless. I'm an SPS guy so this is going to be an SPS dominant tank. Barebottom with nothing more than approx. 20-25lbs of LR.

I'm leaning towards PAR38's; if I decide to go this route, can anyone tell me how many bulbs would be sufficient enough for the depth and size of my tank to successfully keep SPS alive and thriving?

TIA

This isn't really the thread to be posting this question in.

It depends on the optics of the bulbs, the height you place them at, and the wattage they run at. (make sure those are dimmable as well, or don't get them)
 
This isn't really the thread to be posting this question in.

It depends on the optics of the bulbs, the height you place them at, and the wattage they run at. (make sure those are dimmable as well, or don't get them)

My apologies....thanks for the tip!
 
problem is when we forgot that leds are monochromatic type of lighting.
They produce narrow band and built proper spectrum without using many different types of leds is not possible..
When we started our research two years ago(before SMT(S) series was released ) we firstly measured all available "best" lighting setups for growth/coloration(t5, t5+mh etc).
That allowed us built led panel which have very wide spectrum without any gaps.
If you will compare spectrum of most popular(actually) t5 tubes which give best pigments on sps dominated tank(Aquablue/coral plus bulbs and other manufacturers models + blue plus type tube) to newest technology panels - you will see thats actually its possible to mimic needed spectrum by them without problem.
Coral plus t5 tube (and similar type) spectrum:
1496403_260067037480184_1381624873_o.jpg


Aquablue ans similar tubes:
1496375_260067124146842_257336268_o.jpg


Blue plus and similar:
1399211_260066970813524_47827813_o.jpg


SMT matrix:
spectrum_smt.jpg


Only one gap which can be observed is near 550nm - that light is not so important in pigment built, because in this area there is not so many GFP pigments:
pigments.jpg


Most important area is between 490-510nm - there we can find many pigments and many manufacturers still dont remember about that important fact, typical multi chip fixtures have still gaps in that area ...
If led panels dont use white leds - spectrum built by leds(placed very,very close together) give perfect color blending and not comparable spectrum control.
Other charts to compare:
figure_13_spectral_comparison_all.jpg

This is what we need for LEDs, spectrum based comparisons to really dial in
 
The problem is that they added 689 channels to that fixture giving you a total of 6897456258741258965412 different setting with 99.99% of those being sub optimal.

Said it a million times but I can never be said enough it seems. The main problem with LED isn't the technology, it is the failure of LED reef light producers to realize that not everyone is as interested in the topic as they are.
 
I've been following the various discussions about LEDs and have been interested about what "it" is that many of the LED fixtures are missing. In doing so, I started looking at European reef forums since there are some extremely successful reefs there that use LED. For the most part the common denominators both there as well as here seem to be the following:
1) More emitters to improve coverage, no lenses used
2) Total wattage is closer to traditional lighting
3) Use of full spectrum but not too much yellow or white.
4) Use of Violet LEDs(~420-430nm)

Then I found the best LED lit reef I've ever seen and a contender for top 10 in my book, the Triton Shop reef, using Lani LEDs made there. There is no secret to what they are using, but what they are doing as far as spectrum goes against almost everything Ive seen regarding LEDs:
1) Per 16"X16" square, the base model uses 32 Cree cool white and 32 Cree Blue(not royal blue)
2) They also use 16 true violet LEDs, exact spectrum not known, but I'd guess 420-430 since they refer to them as "purple"
3) They cover the tank almost completely with emitters, and run them at max 1watt each for efficiency. Heatsinks with no fans, no lenses used.

The Lani Pro adds 8 red, 8 deep red, and 8 royal blue to the above set of emitters for "color rendition" which makes the corals look even better from what I can gather but not much else.

In looking at a bunch of threads from there, people who see these tanks say that the corals look electric, and rave about the color(the pictures look good too). Corals grow like weeds. 1Meter deep tanks have no problems with penetration. No ramping of LED outputs are done for acclimation, corals don't seem to get burned like with some LED systems.

Have we been missing something here in the US when it comes to what emitters we choose? Most LED experts warn to not use Blue LEDs except as accents to the normal royal blue, and almost everyone seems to have moved away from cool white LEDS these days. Is having a massive peak of 420nm light enough to overcome the issues with these LEDs or is there some other synergy that happens?

I know this comment on the Lani is a bit old but just one point about the triton tank, being on the Triton method myself, is that the reason for the appearance of that tank is to do with the Triton Elementz system which is being used. I know I am using it and I don't have a Lani Led light.
 
I'm sure that the coral health is significantly affected by the water conditions, but even the best system will have corals that suffer if the lighting doesn't cut it. I've seen other tanks from Europe that use LEDs(a lot of vertex illumina tanks) and Triton method and they look good but nothing like the Lani tanks Ive seen.
The creators stated goal was to emulate T5 diffusion and spread with that light system(rather than MH intensity), and I think that is a big part of why they are successful.
I also think that the higher number of Violet/UV LEDs is part of it. I think they use 405NM UV LEDs based on what I was able to come up with. There is one UV for every 2 blue and 2 cool white, that is a higher ratio than Ive seen elsewhere.
 
Back
Top