Revolutionary New Lighting System ?

[beefcake]

Does anyone know anything about these lights ? I'm very interested in these babys ...

The website (http://www.pfolighting.com/Aquarium-LED-Lighting.aspx) says coming in july. Has anyone had a chance to see these lights in action ?

 

[jdenton]

I saw them at IMAC. They are equal to 250 Watt MH. They had a lux meter and it was actually brighter than the 250MH. The color temp is adjusted by varying the intensity of the blue led's from 6500k to 20000k. But they are expensive. The "show" prices were:

13" - 449.00, 24" - 799.00, 36" - 1229.00, 48" - 1499.00, 60" - 1799.00 and 72" - 1999.00 plus 139.00 for a control module.

I suppose when you add in the cost of MH bulb replacements over the expected 5 yr lifespan of the led's and the lower electricity costs, it probably is worth it.

There was a talk given at IMAC about led reef lighting, the speaker who develops reef lighting for other companies to manufacture recommended waiting about 18 months before getting a led light fixture. Apparently, the technology is just beginning to mature and more intense led's (meaning either fewer are required or you can get even more intensity) are coming and manufacturing costs will be dropping significantly.

 

[allen00se]

Seems interesting, however I was under the impression that LED's were more of a focused beam, so I wonder if the light would spread out evenly through the tank?

 

[jdenton]

LED's come in different widths, it has to do with the optics of the "bubble" that the LED is in. The Solaris, though, has each LED in a circular enclosure, sort of looks like short pieces of 3/4" PVC and a plastic light diffuser is over each one. The LED's were in a 5X5 array and each array would be about the size of a MH pendant. So the number of arrays would depend on the width of the fixture. The effect was just like a MH fixture.

 

[horkn]

thanks for the info jdenton

i can wait to see how others do with these solaris before i plop $$ down, and if the price does go down, which i am sure will with competition, thats even better

 

[larryl]

They are equal to 250 Watt MH.

I have read that each bank of 5x5 LEDs is equivalent to a 250 MH (give or take). So depending on the fixture and how many banks of LEDs it has you might have the equivalent of multiple 250W MHs.

 

[travisurfer]

how much is the replacement cost of the led's?

 

[ambaratur]

Replacement cost would be a good point. Also - knowing when to replace would be interesting too: Do they burn out completely or do they just start going off color like other lighting systems.

 

[Her Johnny]

These lights look very cool. I can't wait for the price to come down.


One problem is that I don't think they'll give the shimmer effect that MHs do.

 

[beefcake]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7424982#post7424982 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Her Johnny
These lights look very cool. I can't wait for the price to come down.


One problem is that I don't think they'll give the shimmer effect that MHs do.

Actually from what others have been saying, they actually produce shimmer lines as a MH lamp would do.

 

[intenseimage]

Just like the LED moonlights on my sunpod, these will definitely create shimmer lines

 

[jtemple42000]

There web page states led life as follows: the white LEDââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s are expected to last 50,000 hours and the blue LEDââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s are expected to last 100,000 hours.

AS far as I know LEDS do not lose their intensity.....

 

[dga]

revolutionary? not hardly. these lights use luxeon's that have been out for awhile. buy from luxeon who has these type at a greatly reduce cost. but if your looking for that high brightness or extreme cost its the way to go.

you can purchase up to a 24 watt luxeon strip for $168.00
the below link i found from another thread on another forum courtesy of "supernip"

luxeon

luxeon list

 

[hahnmeister]

Yeah, weve been talking about it for a while in other threads. I agree that waiting a bit longer before buying would be a good idea. The technology in LEDs is still rapidly advancing, and although it could be a contender as is...Im sure prices and quality will still increase at an alarming rate for a while still. The luxeons are just the tip of the iceberg. Besides, as is, there is some debate as to the actual output of the LED's over time.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...337077&perpage=25&highlight=LED&pagenumber=23

Thread where PFO announced to us there new product...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=821464

For those who want to tinker...check this out...
http://autolumination.com/home.htm

As for shimmer lines...that depends on how you space/arrange the LED's. The more of a point source the LEDs are, the more shimmer you get. Its nothing magic...the more LED's you have, and the more space you put in between them, the less shimmer you will get. PFO says that they do make shimmer, but not quite as much as halide...which makes sense since their output is spread out over an area about 2x the area of a halide. If you were to use just one LED, then the shimmer would be more intense. If you were to create a linear array of something like 100 leds across the top of the tank...there would be no shimmer.

 

[wds21921]

I was very happy with the shimmer effect of my homemade 5mm blue nightlights. I used 5 across a 48" strip and the effects were VERY good. They were the radio shack type led's.
The shimmer effect was immediatley noticeable too.

I made in error in placing the resistors at the end instead of the beginning though .

 

[BLockamon]

I don't think I'd worry about replacement. The 5 year life assumes you burn them 24 hours a day. At 8 hours a day for the whites, 50,000 hours comes to about 17 years.

 

[charlesjordanjr]

This sounds great! I would love to see them.
-Chuck

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7423271#post7423271 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jdenton
I saw them at IMAC. They are equal to 250 Watt MH. They had a lux meter and it was actually brighter than the 250MH. The color temp is adjusted by varying the intensity of the blue led's from 6500k to 20000k. But they are expensive. The "show" prices were:

Yeah, theyre equal to the XM15K bulb on an electronic ballast with a totally unneeded piece of glass shielding (it was an SE bulb).

THats a really impressive test. Its like saying my honda civic is faster than your ferrari, and not telling anyone that your ferrari has no tires.



As to bulb life, life expectancy on LEDs is rated in the time it takes for 50% of them to die. Take that 50000 hour life expectancy with a HUGE grain of salt.

 

[hahnmeister]

Im not buying in at this point...not with an expense that is greater than halide, with a risk even higher...for parts that are most likely cheaper than halide anyways (no ballast or high-pressure bulbs).

OTOH, it is very nice to know that these are starting to come out...Im sure its first of many that various makers will be coming out with. And considering the pace that LEDs have been developing in just the past few years, Im sure they will become a premier choice for reef lighting (even more so than T5s and halide). They can run at a better watt/lumen efficiency than T5 or halide (Ive seen figures that place them at 10:1 compared to tungsten bulbs), will be very easy to make cheaply, can be made with very narrow or wide frequencies of color, etc. But due to reliability & longevity, I'd rather make my own and be able to swap out LEDs if the time comes.

 

[Blugobi]

FWIW............I was able to find some LED bulbs with both 10K and 20K type output. I have 3 of the 10K and 2 of the 20K on a home made set up. These type do screw into a standard light fixture with 24 LED lights per bulb, so it was easy to make. I used for one week on my sump 24/7, which has chato among other types of macro's. I took it off after 1 week to see if there was any difference, and I did get some growth and did not see any retention. Yes they produce some nice shimmer effect. These paticular LED's seem to have a rather narrow beam so light was focused pretty tight, I did spread them out a bit to get better coverage...I think over time we will see some nice set ups with LED's and the cost should drive MH and Florescent type lighting down. Take a moment and look on Ebay...just type in LED bulb and yo uwill see a lot of bulbs and guess where a lot of them are made?.....China..so they are cheap.

GR