How Much did you spend on your LED fixture?

[flowflezy]

Went with a new Reeftorch little over 450...

 

[greg 45]

I purchased 3 pacific sun 4 x 150 metis hyperion's , biggest waste of money I have ever spent. The uv leds have burnt out, don't want to ship lamps in for repare cost factor , now they have more blue in there new lamps ,always something new, I would not recommend this lamp to any one. Never ending battle to get lamps fixed to many e/mails to Poland and imagineaocean. Paid top dollar and received bottom basement. This is my opinion.

 

[pam0630]

i just purchased the maxspect razor 16,000 ..i got mine online for 477.00 ea light......love them

 

[Connie]

About $2200 for four AI Vegas, controller and mounting brackets.

 

[rotorfan]

$519 for my 160 watt Maxspect razor and $350 for my 60 watt JBJ

 

[dwilliams87]

3 separate tanks. 40g - 60led/4t5 diy . 20g - 36 led. 7.5g 14 led. $750 total for all three.

 

[Daimyo68]

Roughly $1000 and unknown hours on my DIY fixture.

43"x 15"x3" (40x10 heatsink), 216w, Active Cooling, Fully Dimmable across 4 channels. All drivers are internal, Fan power supply internal, single power cord to fixture, 2 CAT5e cords for dimming via the Apex.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Got a used LED setup for $25 and they are wicked. Everything blooming , growing and colorful !

 

[bigfoot86]

840.00 for two 120w Maxspect Razors. Was nervous about goin to LED but these lights have just been awesome for my tank so far! Very sleek fixture.

 

[Bustyraker]

Around $300, rapid led DIY. Great Color and SPS growth.

 

[Slayer311]

Around $1000, Sunbrite 4foot LED fixture, built into canopy with 2 48" t5 actinics. Amazing growth and color from sps/zoa tank! Fully controllable LEDs, love it!

 

[seamus2050]

$500 on a reefbreeders Photon48.

 

[Eienna]

I don't remember and I don't want to remember >.<

 

[ReefLEDLights]

Roughly $1000 and unknown hours on my DIY fixture.

43"x 15"x3" (40x10 heatsink), 216w, Active Cooling, Fully Dimmable across 4 channels. All drivers are internal, Fan power supply internal, single power cord to fixture, 2 CAT5e cords for dimming via the Apex.

Well done!

Heatsinks are a serious backbone for any quality fixture. Is that HeatsinkUSA heatsink?

Given the surface area and mass of the heatsink and the airflow, you are getting better efficiency / PAR per watt than most factory fixtures...

With the fixture that close what optics / reflectors are you using or did you choose to go with a LED without optics?



Bill

 

[Jeffanator]

$1600 on 4 kessil 360Ws

 

[Daimyo68]

Well done!

Heatsinks are a serious backbone for any quality fixture. Is that HeatsinkUSA heatsink?

Given the surface area and mass of the heatsink and the airflow, you are getting better efficiency / PAR per watt than most factory fixtures...

With the fixture that close what optics / reflectors are you using or did you choose to go with a LED without optics?



Bill

Heatsink is from Heatsink USA, no optics (ranging from 105-120degree light spread, which you can see in the first image where I do get a lot of spill. It's almost a rainbow on the walls near the tank). I recently raised the fixture to roughly 8" above the tank and haven't had time to recheck the par values. I was about 5" previously, and I was getting ~200 par on the sandbed, and up to 400par, roughly 1" below the surface. (I was also getting a lot of splash from the water surface, and that was more reason to raise it up).

I've been playing around with the Cool White LED's recently, since I did not like the original hue of the tank. The cool whites I was running would overpower the blue/RB leds and tinge the tank yellow, even at a 2:1 ratio. YACK!

I'm a 14k Pheonix type of guy (T5's would be 4 Blue+, 1 Purple+ and 1 GE6500k in the previous 6 bulb fixture). I like that hue, maybe just a little bluer towards 15-16k and it would be perfect (the first image is when the whites were ramping down, so it's too blue for my liking there). Changing out the leds is an easy task, as it only takes 5 minutes to disassemble the fixture, and roughly 20-30 mins to solder in and glue the new leds to the heatsink. Being easy to disassemble is also nice so I can blow out any dust that accumulates in there and clean the shields when needed.

My only 2 compliants:

The fans. While they do a great job at keeping everything nice and cool (air coming out of the exhaust side fans is only 2 degrees warmer than going in), they are a little loud, if you consider 28dBA loud (there's 4 pushing and 4 pulling, 8 in total). I'm going to swap them out for some SilentX Ixtrema's (16dBA)the next time I have it apart. The rest of my system is dead silent with the exception of the skimmer with is barely noticable, and these fans are driving me mad.

The weight of the fixture. Being that everything is internal, this fixture weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 30lbs (I've never actually weighed it). Obviously, the heatsink is the bulk of that, but I could probably shave off 5 pounds easily by not having all 6 drivers and fan power supplies internal. The next one I build (for a friend) will have a remote driver/power supply box, again with minimal cords running to the fixture. I'm looking at cables now for something with 8 pins, that can handle up to 54v @ 2A, per cable.

 

[H@rry]

I'm looking at cables now for something with 8 pins, that can handle up to 54v @ 2A, per cable.

I was using Serial cables until I had a 12 foot run and noticed that the LEDs were not as bright as the others. I suspected the cable and got some 8 conductor thermostat cable from Lowe's and some DB9 connectors and made a couple of cables. Works fine.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

Heatsink is from Heatsink USA, no optics (ranging from 105-120degree light spread, which you can see in the first image where I do get a lot of spill. It's almost a rainbow on the walls near the tank). I recently raised the fixture to roughly 8" above the tank and haven't had time to recheck the par values. I was about 5" previously, and I was getting ~200 par on the sandbed, and up to 400par, roughly 1" below the surface. (I was also getting a lot of splash from the water surface, and that was more reason to raise it up).

I've been playing around with the Cool White LED's recently, since I did not like the original hue of the tank. The cool whites I was running would overpower the blue/RB leds and tinge the tank yellow, even at a 2:1 ratio. YACK!

I'm a 14k Pheonix type of guy (T5's would be 4 Blue+, 1 Purple+ and 1 GE6500k in the previous 6 bulb fixture). I like that hue, maybe just a little bluer towards 15-16k and it would be perfect (the first image is when the whites were ramping down, so it's too blue for my liking there). Changing out the leds is an easy task, as it only takes 5 minutes to disassemble the fixture, and roughly 20-30 mins to solder in and glue the new leds to the heatsink. Being easy to disassemble is also nice so I can blow out any dust that accumulates in there and clean the shields when needed.

My only 2 compliants:

The fans. While they do a great job at keeping everything nice and cool (air coming out of the exhaust side fans is only 2 degrees warmer than going in), they are a little loud, if you consider 28dBA loud (there's 4 pushing and 4 pulling, 8 in total). I'm going to swap them out for some SilentX Ixtrema's (16dBA)the next time I have it apart. The rest of my system is dead silent with the exception of the skimmer with is barely noticable, and these fans are driving me mad.

The weight of the fixture. Being that everything is internal, this fixture weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 30lbs (I've never actually weighed it). Obviously, the heatsink is the bulk of that, but I could probably shave off 5 pounds easily by not having all 6 drivers and fan power supplies internal. The next one I build (for a friend) will have a remote driver/power supply box, again with minimal cords running to the fixture. I'm looking at cables now for something with 8 pins, that can handle up to 54v @ 2A, per cable.

Still well done.

LEDLink offers some self adhesive 80 degree optics that are reasonable priced.

If you have 1/2" of room Carclo offers a very nice holder and given you have no hood their Ripple Wide Optics would over double your PAR on the sand bed with the fixture 18" above the water. I prefer these on my fixtures given the ability to hang the fixture 12-18" off the water. If you have to be close to the water their Wide Angle Reflectors (70-80 degrees) work quite well.

I've found over kill on the heatsink in some circles proper thermal management. The cooler the LEDs are the brighter they are and the longer they last.

Fans are always the finer point. Thousands to choose from. I've found the quieter ones are generally rated for a longer life. 30-50,000 Hours should be what your looking for.

One can go all day long on the advantage of in fixture or remote mounted...I went with in fixture as the HeatsinkUSA heatsink has the capacity to lower the temp of the LEDs and the Drivers which will increase their life span.

Heat always lowers the life of electronic components.

Cheers

Bill

 

[vetteguy53081]

About to get another at $350 but it is intense. Guy had it for 4 months and it was $668 new and he is going to Radion.

 

[aquamn1999]

Roughly $1000 and unknown hours on my DIY fixture.

43"x 15"x3" (40x10 heatsink), 216w, Active Cooling, Fully Dimmable across 4 channels. All drivers are internal, Fan power supply internal, single power cord to fixture, 2 CAT5e cords for dimming via the Apex.

Very Nice! That's an impressive DIY