Solaris Led lighting systems

[Drewcipher]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8461037#post8461037 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gregr
The technical reason has to do with the white balance system of the camera. The kind of color temps we seen in the aquarium hobby are far beyond what a camera sees in normal use, and beyond what the camera is designed to handle automatically.

Well duh! ...j/k. Thanks Greg

 

[Amphibious]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8460923#post8460923 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Drewcipher
Several times I have seen this said. It looks bluer in pictures than in person. There must be a technical reason somewhere.

It's in the way digital cameras handle something called white balance. I experience the same phenomenon.

 

[Drewcipher]

I love photography, but white balance has always eluded me. I guess I am an idiot. Oh well...time for rum.

 

[Amphibious]

Well, that must make it a consensus, huh.

 

[jnb]

for whole tank pics

also this artifical light really throws a curve - at 60 feet down on a sunny day with no strobe, you lose your reds - everything looks blue in a photo - But I can color correct my underwater photo taken without a strobe within photoshop

but the tank light really throws me off

and firing a flash at a tank washes away any hint of blue so that the colors don't bling

much easier to get macro success

 

[Amphibious]

Got to agree with you on the flash. I've got beautiful corals that just wash out when I use flash trying to get away from so much blue. It's a puzzle.

 

[Hella]

Well we got everyting on my light going, was on the phone with who im guessing was Pat and he walked me through a few other things and there was also a black 110 wire that was not in right.

As of right now he is sending me a new cable for the one that is bad and other then the one cable everything else is looking good on it.

I can say that im thinking of upgrading some things that are inside the unit like the wiring that is a little messy and putting a small bar to act like a heatsink on the six banks of 4 transistors. Ill post pics and info when I get them done.

Hella

 

[scaryperson27]

delete.

 

[hahnmeister]

Your flash washes out the colors for two reasons. Direction, and Color. When you view the tank, you are seeing light that is reflected by the pigments from above the tank to you. If the light comes from the side, the pigments dont reflect much, if at all, because they are not used to having light from the side.

I used to have this problem with freshwater african cichlid photography. I used to breed tanganyikans, where many of the fish didnt have striking pigments so much as rainbows of iridescence. So a flash camera made it very hard to capture those colors. Until I started firing a remote flash from above the fish... then I got the cool colors.

The other problem is the flash color. Our eyes see in mostly green, then red, and then blue... only about 7% of our color receptors are dedicated to blue from what I remember... less than 10% I know for sure. So Lux meters, and white balance meters are based with a very low sensitivity to blue as well. So cameras have a hard time in the first place working with blue... very hard. Some are better than others, but you are pretty much into the $1000 range when you find ones that use the radiometric scale (full range, like a PAR meter) rather than the photometric scale (a scale that measures light with more attention to green and red like a Lux Meter). So many cheaper cameras, even those with 'white balance adjustment/metering' have a hard time adjusting for blue. Either the blue will be off, or the blue will be right, but then the exposure/speed will be too great or too little because then the camera has a hard time determining how much light is there.

And then, since most photography is done for our eyes, and above water, the flash color is mostly reds and greens, like a 6500K bulb or less. Not alot of blue there... so there go your colors, even if the camera gets it right.

The only way to get it right is to get a $1500+ digital SLR... they have accurate scales and manual overrides for all that crap if their better color sensors dont do it for you in the first place... but most do.

 

[pjf]

MH & LED Combo Fixture?

MH & LED Combo Fixture?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8445754#post8445754 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Amphibious
Oh man, I wish I could answer that for you. I'll see if I can find out and get back to you.

Amphibious,

Do you know if PFO has any plans to make a combination MH & LED fixture where actinic LED's replace the fluorescent tubes & tube ballast?

(Lightweight Sunpod with real LED's. I might be able to afford that.)

Thanks.

 

[hahnmeister]

Id rather see a LED fixture paired with T5s... that would make more sense... the point source of LEDs with the intensity of T5s.

 

[SWSaltwater]

Personally I think the MH or T-5 heat would present a problem for the heat sensitive LED's. They can not be run in a hot fixture so someone would have to find a way to keep the heat away from the LED's

Rob

 

[pjf]

Which One is the Main Light?

Which One is the Main Light?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8466222#post8466222 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
Id rather see a LED fixture paired with T5s... that would make more sense... the point source of LEDs with the intensity of T5s.

The heaviest and bulkiest fixtures are the ones that combine tubes and metal halides (MH) plus their attendant ballasts. Pairing LED’s with T5 lamps or pairing LED’s with MH lamps will create lighter and smaller fixtures.

In the case of a MH-LED combo, it is clear that the MH is the main light source.

In the case of an LED-T5 combo, however, which is the main light source and which is the actinic twilight or moonlight source?

 

[jnb]

i wish i understood our timing - mine is set on auto solar - i set the shortest day at 720 minutes now the lunar light did not come on - pfo is not answering my questions about this - i still can not figure out how the lunar sch works - up till the time i set for short day = 720 my lunar lights were coming on a minute after daylights quit their sunset and going off a minute or so before the 30 minute sunrise- which takes me to another point why the minute of total darkeness - it puts the fish in panic mode

for 2,300 I would hope I get a more fully understood set of directions and some kind of response from 6 or so ignored emails

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8461125#post8461125 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Amphibious
Well, that must make it a consensus, huh.

 

[Untamed12]

Maybe the moonlight cycle starts at "new moon"...which might be no moon lights at all. Over 15 days it would ramp up to full moon, then back down.

 

[Amphibious]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8468245#post8468245 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnb
i wish i understood our timing - mine is set on auto solar - i set the shortest day at 720 minutes now the lunar light did not come on - pfo is not answering my questions about this - i still can not figure out how the lunar sch works - up till the time i set for short day = 720 my lunar lights were coming on a minute after daylights quit their sunset and going off a minute or so before the 30 minute sunrise- which takes me to another point why the minute of total darkeness - it puts the fish in panic mode

for 2,300 I would hope I get a more fully understood set of directions and some kind of response from 6 or so ignored emails

First off, Pat is in China and probably not dealing with e-mails.

I really can't address your concerns. I haven't monkeyed around with shortest day or longest day settings. In "auto on" mode it's preset. Simply set the date and time. The day length is set automaticly. I have adjusted my "day whites", "day blues", "lunar whites" and "lunar blues" and the unit functions properly.

As far as the minute or two of total darkness before the 30 minute sunrise putting your fish in panic mode, I don't see how that is possible because the unit doesn't come on at full brightness. It ramps up over thirty minutes. My fish don't panic as you say yours do. Don't know what to tell you about that.

Maybe you ought to go back to the basic "auto on" mode and see how you like that.

 

[jnb]

don't know - all I know is I expect the moon to be fully visable at night now - and when I got the solaris around 10/16 - the lunar lights came on at sunset and off at sunrise when the moon was rising like at 1:30 AM - I just went and reviewed my lunar light levels and although I did not change them they seem to reset such that the light s came on - sort of hocus pocus - but this still does not answer my question - why are the lunar lights not haveing a moonrise = real life - I just want to know the limitations so I can deal with it and know what to expect and really know that I am programming it correctly.... I trust that it ramps correctly light-level-wise although I will not be experiecing it because I set the lunar lights at their lowest setting because at 10% was so bright all my fish were swimming around like it was daylight - it was pretty.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8468514#post8468514 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Untamed12
Maybe the moonlight cycle starts at "new moon"...which might be no moon lights at all. Over 15 days it would ramp up to full moon, then back down.

 

[jnb]

you say your unit it working properly? I assume in auto solar mode? - so you are experencing moonrise and moonsets - other than at sunsets and sunrises? For example a couple of weeks ago the moon was rising around 1AM. ?


the panic comes at sunset when the tank is thrown in to total darkness for a minute - don't see why this could not have been easily adjusted or maybe can still be programmed in - at least for future versions perhaps. even at 1%, the 100 leds are not that dim (after a couple days of that, however, I think the fish will start looking for their bed a little sooner as the lights ramp down.

no, I'll like the solar mode better once I know the limitations/flexabilities but I need more than 522 minutes for shortest day which was also the case with my 250 20k XM MH fixture which I had to run at least 10.5 hrs

Pat left me hanging on other questions so I was starting to give up- and thought someone here may have already asked/expereinced this - premium aquatics pretty much passed trying to answer the question

i experiement with coral spawnings and light schedules have a bit to do with that. that is why I seem anal - plus I believe a lot of the cost is attributable to the programability/dimming, etc

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8468938#post8468938 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Amphibious
First off, Pat is in China and probably not dealing with e-mails.

I really can't address your concerns. I haven't monkeyed around with shortest day or longest day settings. In "auto on" mode it's preset. Simply set the date and time. The day length is set automaticly. I have adjusted my "day whites", "day blues", "lunar whites" and "lunar blues" and the unit functions properly.

As far as the minute or two of total darkness before the 30 minute sunrise putting your fish in panic mode, I don't see how that is possible because the unit doesn't come on at full brightness. It ramps up over thirty minutes. My fish don't panic as you say yours do. Don't know what to tell you about that.

Maybe you ought to go back to the basic "auto on" mode and see how you like that.

 

[SWSaltwater]

The auto mode has a few options you can change. i suggest you check the Lunar "on time" and "off time". Make sure it is the same as the off time on the day lights. As far as I can tell if there is no moon outside then the light has no moon. So its got to be programmed to an almanac or something. One night I could not figure out why moons failed to come on but when I walked out and looked up it was clear.........If you played around with these setting you can reset to default and just turn auto on. That should fix the gap between days and nights.......

When I get to the shop I will send detailed menu settings if you need them. Go to settings > auto settings> then there is a timing menu> check in there for all on and off times if there is a 1 min gap then thats the issue.

Rob

 

[jnb]

I/I'd appreciate any help
I thought setting on times for just for timer mode not auto solar mode - I thought solar mode had its own preset on/off times and could not be changed except to lengthen or shorten the days

I have reset to factory and turned auto on (from manual) and it did not change when lunar comes on but right now need to wait for the moon to rise while daylight is passed to try again

Ill get it if its gettable eventually

thanks again - you have a reef shop?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8471709#post8471709 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SWSaltwater
The auto mode has a few options you can change. i suggest you check the Lunar "on time" and "off time". Make sure it is the same as the off time on the day lights. As far as I can tell if there is no moon outside then the light has no moon. So its got to be programmed to an almanac or something. One night I could not figure out why moons failed to come on but when I walked out and looked up it was clear.........If you played around with these setting you can reset to default and just turn auto on. That should fix the gap between days and nights.......

When I get to the shop I will send detailed menu settings if you need them. Go to settings > auto settings> then there is a timing menu> check in there for all on and off times if there is a 1 min gap then thats the issue.

Rob