Testing the Philips Coral Care LED's claims - Are they realistic?

[Bpb]

Philips have alienated a lot of people to this light not just on price but on the all important (to many) aesthetics, there is no getting away from it it's just plain ugly. Sorry Philips if you want to be a big game player you need to go back to the drawing board and redesign the fixture and reconsider your pricing. Orphek's for instance look far nicer and are more affordable.

Let's keep things in perspective.

First. The only reason Philips is even flirting with our hobby is because someone in their development ranks is a reefer and convinced them to simply adjust the diode layout on an already produced unit and toss a little software at it. ZERO tooling costs at all. They basically lose nothing in producing this. Not taking any risk at all. EVERYTHING is made in house straight down to the diodes.

Second. Philips doesn't need to be a big game player. We can all (including yourself) LOL at that notion. They're a multi billion dollar worldwide manufacturer in just about every conceivable industry of goods and services. We probably have more money in Philips medical equipment at the hospital I work at in my small country town than the entire state of Texas does in ecotech products. Philips probably has more money annually in damaged and reject goods and materials that never make it to the shelves than every other reef specific lighting company has in gross profits...combined. It's not a competition. Even if the coral care never comes close to ecotech radion sales, it's still costing them virtually nothing to produce, is a spectacular product, and selling pretty well overseas.

Lastly. It's industrial grade. That housing isn't just an urban design shabby chic risk at something different. That housing is designed to last many years under harsh conditions and is sealed. As mentioned you can drop it in the tank and be fine. People hang punching bags from ceiling joists and 100 pound tvs from wall studs. A 20 pound LED panel is hardly going to bring the roof down.

People have just grown so used to salt and pepper shaker sized light fixtures this is a shock. Still smaller than the Hamilton Cebu sun lol. I actually like the way it looks. I have a canopy but would have no problem having it out in the open. While the industrial look is more a result of function, the form works for me anyway

 

[Bpb]

Sorry if that came off as abrasive. This light just gets ALOT of hate for no real reason. It has directly addressed several complaints of just about every reef LED option out there but gets hate because it's new and not the cheapest option. Sure you could make that same layout on a heat sink and fix frosted glass over it for cheaper. You could make a radion the exact same way for cheaper too. It's a well made product. And priced competitively based on its quality. As others have mentioned, 15 channels of control isn't necessary and most people will do more harm than good with that option. I personally don't want it. I like how kessil does it. I like that the coral care is basically doing it that way as well. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. You want perfect? Go pick up an ati sunpower. And it's cheaper

 

[rockskimmerflow]

You want perfect? Go pick up an ati sunpower. And it's cheaper

Haha. That line is perfect. For my purposes and from the numbers I look at, that's pretty much what I tell the majority of my customers deciding between LED and T5HO. Tried and true success every time.

I do think the Philips light is going to be great choice for current LED users looking for an upgrade or T5 users who like the idea of going LED. But at the end of the day you summed it up just right.

 

[jantje]

As said before, one of the engineers at the research department of Philips is a reefer...you want to see his tank and his story ??
READ here:
http://images.philips.com/is/conten...4_001-UPD-en_GB-Aquarium-Luc-Vogels-final.pdf

You want scientific proof ? tested at a major marine University
READ here:
http://images.philips.com/is/conten...e-LED-unit-Final-Field-est-Report-BE-2016.pdf
Watch here:


Myself:
Before i did use the red sea max standard T5 set up with 8 tubes, consuming much more power and producing a lot of heat.
I switched to pacific sun hyperion hybrid, beside the noise of the fans it was a rusticle disaster for a lot of money.
Now I am using two coralcare units above my reeftank (red sea max 650) for almost three month now, and in can tell you the light output is excellent even better then my T5. ( 2 x 190 watt now and before it was 8x80 wattT5 )
The construction and material is outstanding....no fan noise and no heat reflecting tot the tank.
The light output....in start-up i needed to reduce the output a lot. now after threee month i pushed the led to limit and the growth of the Coral is much higher then before.
Software....thanks god it is KISS, so easy, no bling bling no stupid setup and just with a cable and usb port.
Just take your time on the labtop to set up you program / how you want your output during the day, after done connect the cable to the computer and the job is done.
Ohh and everyone can share is setting easy with other users


A showtank

 

[Lasse]

Where are people getting the $1000 pricing. That wasn't mentioned anywhere in the video. I have a CoralCare coming next week from the Netherlands and it was $800 shipped to my door in California including the controller. The light is $749 EU and that's with 19% VAT. It is cheaper than a Radion XR30 Pro.

I agree - the price for me as a Swedish customer is around the same as for a XR30 pro. And another thing - 15 channels? What I understand from Philips own homepage - there is only 2 channels but you are able to adjust the light temperature seemless. Another question - how many people has seen this fixture IRL? I have - and its a real good light.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[rockskimmerflow]

You want scientific proof ? tested at a major marine University
READ here:
http://images.philips.com/is/conten...e-LED-unit-Final-Field-est-Report-BE-2016.pdf

The unit looks great over tanks from the photos and videos I've seen. Seems to have a very consistent, crisp light field to me.

My problem with that study posted on the performance of 2 Philips lights vs 12 ATI tubes is that there are a number of confounding factors that would negate any definitive coral growth performance data from either light. The PAR was set at 560 umol, the coral frag positions were rotated under the light regularly in the propagation tank, and ATI Aquablue Special was the only tube used because it best 'matched' the quoted color temp of the LED. In my opinion all those factors render the study a very poor analog to the types of Par, coral movement frequency, and bulb combination we'd see in an actual hobbyist reef tank. Also noted is the fact that the corals underwent base tissue necrosis due to cyanobacteria encroachment partway through the study.

I am glad that attempts are being made to gather real comparative data between T5 and LED systems under controlled conditions. Unfortunately I don't think I can put any stock in the claim this study makes that the Coral Care grows stony coral at similar rates to T5. It may turn out to be true once these lights are used in real world circumstances, this study just doesn't have any info applicable to a real world comparison. Don't even get me started on the photoinhibition at 560 umol PAR.

 

[revhtree]

Great discussion!

 

[Ryanbrs]

For me I would rather have beautiful thriving corals and a not so beautiful fixture than the other way around...

I think that's priority #1 for sure. No compromises on this element.

I think for a lot of people the best solution is where form matches function. Ideally the exterior of the tank and equipment will reinforce the beauty of what's inside.

 

[Ryanbrs]

Very personal choice but id go with a dead silent fail proof fanless cooling design over a more slick and nice looking but noisy one. The weight is the result of a 10 KG heat sink to allow for not having fans.

I have to agree, fans are moving parts and failure points in the design. I think the Illumina was a decent example of an attractive full body heatsink design where the fans were almost unnecessary. It can certainly be done and can look awesome if that is the goal.

 

[kattz]

The unit looks great over tanks from the photos and videos I've seen. Seems to have a very consistent, crisp light field to me.

My problem with that study posted on the performance of 2 Philips lights vs 12 ATI tubes is that there are a number of confounding factors that would negate any definitive coral growth performance data from either light. The PAR was set at 560 umol, the coral frag positions were rotated under the light regularly in the propagation tank, and ATI Aquablue Special was the only tube used because it best 'matched' the quoted color temp of the LED. In my opinion all those factors render the study a very poor analog to the types of Par, coral movement frequency, and bulb combination we'd see in an actual hobbyist reef tank. Also noted is the fact that the corals underwent base tissue necrosis due to cyanobacteria encroachment partway through the study.

I am glad that attempts are being made to gather real comparative data between T5 and LED systems under controlled conditions. Unfortunately I don't think I can put any stock in the claim this study makes that the Coral Care grows stony coral at similar rates to T5. It may turn out to be true once these lights are used in real world circumstances, this study just doesn't have any info applicable to a real world comparison. Don't even get me started on the photoinhibition at 560 umol PAR.

Basically what he said. I gotta see it running in real life for a year or 18 months over an SPS tank and then judge. Sorry, but it's too easy to go someplace like MACNA or the European equivalent with a "staged" tank and look great.

I'm 18 months from having water in the new setup anyway, so I'm sure the opportunity will present itself.

I went from HQI/PC lighting to LED to HOT5 and the HOT5 rocked. I use the ATI Sunpower fixtures as well. Like the Cadillac of T5 units.

If I could get a 12-16 bulb 60" Sunpower and not a Powermodule I wouldn't even be considering MH or this. Right now it's the biggest 400w X 3 CebuSun units with booster blue LED tubes attached onto the CebuSun housing planned for the 300g.

Kev

 

[jantje]

Basically what he said. I gotta see it running in real life for a year or 18 months over an SPS tank and then judge. Sorry, but it's too easy to go someplace like MACNA or the European equivalent with a "staged" tank and look great.
Kev

several tanks in the report are already running more then 12 month with the light. They have been tested already BEFORE they entered the EU Macna. One of the researchers of the coralcare has them already more then 2 years running.

 

[jantje]

The unit looks great over tanks from the photos and videos I've seen. Seems to have a very consistent, crisp light field to me.

My problem with that study posted on the performance of 2 Philips lights vs 12 ATI tubes is that there are a number of confounding factors that would negate any definitive coral growth performance data from either light. The PAR was set at 560 umol, the coral frag positions were rotated under the light regularly in the propagation tank, and ATI Aquablue Special was the only tube used because it best 'matched' the quoted color temp of the LED. In my opinion all those factors render the study a very poor analog to the types of Par, coral movement frequency, and bulb combination we'd see in an actual hobbyist reef tank. Also noted is the fact that the corals underwent base tissue necrosis due to cyanobacteria encroachment partway through the study.

I am glad that attempts are being made to gather real comparative data between T5 and LED systems under controlled conditions. Unfortunately I don't think I can put any stock in the claim this study makes that the Coral Care grows stony coral at similar rates to T5. It may turn out to be true once these lights are used in real world circumstances, this study just doesn't have any info applicable to a real world comparison. Don't even get me started on the photoinhibition at 560 umol PAR.

Wanna talk to the PH.D and one of the leading Engineers of Philips ? both are reefers and of course in our country we are discussing the coralcares already for more then 6 month now.

 

[reefwiser]

I think it is a start there is a long way to go for LED to create the prefect light for the Reef tank. We need some new thinking in the LED sector I wish Philips well and hope this light is the beginning of a new trend in LED figures.

 

[atoll]

[QUOTE="Bpb, post: 3299400, member: 37904" You want perfect? Go pick up an ati sunpower. And it's cheaper[/QUOTE]

I was kinda starting to agree with many of your points until the above. "Perfect" Now that is a big statement and if it was indeed perfect we would all be using them. But I digress, the fact is like it or not, aesthetics do play an important part for many in choice of light. 30 years ago there was next to no choice when it came to HQI fixtures which were considered (many still do) the ideal light for what was available at the time. Forward 30 years and things have very much changed. Weight will still be an issue for some but I understand where you are coming from as I am a retired joiner. I understand some will like the look but also understand more won't do. Often she who must be obeyed will say no we are not having that in our living room. Philips might not care how many they sell but I would guess they will do even though it might be a drop in the ocean for them. Somebody must have thought it a good commercial decision or why make and promote it, that is business. Sure you might do a concept but few concepts ever get produced even if the cost is minimal to them.

 

[Ryanbrs]

IMHO I think the statement of " You want perfect? Go pick up an ati sunpower. And it's cheaper" holds a lot of merit. From the vantage point of ability to maintain a stunning reef tank full of healthy colorful corals with the only critical step to achieving those results is plug it in, T5's are an absolute home run. The highly diffused even light is very difficult to achieve with LED's, at least economically. With a decent T5 fixture lighting will almost certainly not be the limiting factor for success with your reef tank.

That said, the T5 "look" is super flat, lacks contrast, sense of depth and some of the color pop you get from less diffused light sources and some specific LED's. Without the shimmer and the sense of movement that creates the tank also looks closer to a picture of a reef than a segment of a real reef in your home. Since T5's absolutely function, I think for a lot of reefers one of the only reasons to go beyond T5's is when they are willing to spend money to chase form matching function. Many people claim bulb replacement costs and energy efficiency claims as solid reasons to change technologies. It's been my experience the product life cycle between LED upgrades means LEDs are substantially more expensive over the long run.

I think this is why a lot of reefers have been gravitating to some form of the LED/T5 hybrid which is kind of best of both worlds. Orgianly I think the approach was to go mainly LED's for the primary sorce of PAR and then use the T5's as fill lights to even the intensity, reduce hot spots and tame shimmer. I think the current trend is the reverse. Use the T5's as the primary source of PAR and then add in a very limited amount of LED's for contrast/depth, color and shimmer.

While I can't say I have personally seen a reef tank using the Philips light I can absolutely say it is clearly addressing some of the significant issues the reefing community is discussing. Is it better than T5's ? My best guess is funtionaly it made a pretty significant leap forward and may be closer. The spectrum blending, hot spot reduction and even dispersion of PAR is certainly better than most LED options out there and in some ways even better than T5's.

I am personally pretty excited to see how the industry and community react to the changes that are almost certainly to come. If I had to guess T5's will be around for a long time because they are the easiest and most affordable way to achieve plug and play results. LED's will catch up to T5's in function or maybe even surpass them in some ways but LED's will significantly outperform T5's on visual elements like color, contrast or since of depth and shimmer or sense of movement. However these gains will will likely come at 2x or more the cost of the T5 option.

 

[Luc Vogels]

Dear members,

Good to see this lively and passionate discussion about CoralCare and lighting in general, we like this a lot!
Thanks for your feedback. Your comments will be taken into consideration for our current US feasibility phase.


We di bit want to engage in this discussion so everyone has the opportunity to share their independent opinion about the product and the excellent video from BRS!
But we noticed some re-occuring remarks that we tried to answer:

Why does Philips claim a energy benefit of at least 30% versus a T5 lamp based solution?

Answered in : https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...fit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/page-2

My apologies upfront. I have to go into technical details and have to use some lighting jargon to explain this clearly!
The short statement: The color point or even more correct, the spectrum of a light source, is of great importance for defining and comparing the efficiency of a light source (or technology).

Before I start the explanation I want to introduce two terms:

Optical Power
The term optical power (or radiant power) describes the energetic content of the light and is measured in Watts. This term has no additional weighing factor like Lumen/lux (corrected for the human eye sensitivity curve) or PAR (corrected for a range between 400-700nm).

Wall-Plug-Efficiency
WPE (Wall-Plug-efficiency) is the ratio between the amount of electrical input power and the amount of optical output power which the source produces.

A T5 tube (low pressure discharge tube) produces UV light with a wavelength of 254nm.
With the help of phosphorous coatings, these wavelengths are translated to longer wavelengths (that are more visible to the human eye, but also more useful for corals).
This transformation in wavelength introduces losses that depend on the gap between the base pump wavelength (254nm) and the desired wavelength (let’s consider in this example 450nm).

The typical efficiency of the T5 tube (converting electrical input power to optical output power of 254nm) is in the order of 70%. But these wavelengths should be transformed to the desired wavelength (450nm). This process introduces losses what is called “stokes shift losses”. If we consider a narrow desired wavelength of 450 nm (theoretical example) we can determine the stokes shift losses which are in the order of 44%!

For this example, the total theoretical maximum WPE of a T5 bulb is 70%*56% = 39.2%

If we look to the LED technology we actually perceive a similar trend.
One of the biggest differences between the Led ant T5 technology is the wavelength of the base pump.
For LED technology, the most efficient base pump is achieved around 450nm (instead of 254nm for a T5 tube).

If we consider the Luxeon T Royal Blue LED (that is also used in the CoralCare application) we can see that the WPE of this LED is in the order of 53% (under ideal conditions it produces 1040mW optical power at an input power of 1.96Watt). Because the base pump is already equal to our target wavelength we have no stokes shift losses and the final WPE of the LED is 53% for a wavelength of 450nm.

LED solutions suffer from the similar stokes shift losses, but because the base pump of a led source is much closer to visible and more useful wavelengths, the overall LED technology is more efficient (this is one of the reasons, but most of influence for this story!).

Now we apply this theory to a more practical situation:

The CoralCare fixture consists out of 5 LED types.

Luxeon UV 420nm
Luxeon T 450nm
Luxeon Rebel Cyan (~480nm)
Luxeon Tx 6500k white (a phosphor converted solution with an average color point is 6500k)
Luxeon Rebel Phosphor converter amber

Based on the presented theory we can conclude that if we would only enable the 450nm LED’s, the CoralCare fixture would be much more efficient (= higher WPE) than if we would enable other channels (which have stokes shift losses or lower WPE values).
This already explains why the color point, and even more accurate, the comparable spectral content is of great influence when comparing two lighting technologies.

Based on practical data:
If we would only enable the Blue channel (combination between 420 and 450nm) we would (including ALL optical, electrical, and other parasitic losses) achieve a WPE of 35.9% for the CoralCare solution.
If we would only enable the white channel (combination between Cyan, 6500K and Phosphor converter Amber) we would achieve a WPE of 28.3%.

Curious how we measure this?

The WPE measurements are performed in a special optical measurement sphere.
The light source is placed in this optical sphere and a light sensitive sensor collects all light radiation that is being produced by the light source (integrating sphere).
By also measuring the electrical input power, you can exactly measure how much electrical input power is transformed to optical power.

Here is a picture of the T5 reference fixture measurement
This sphere is one of the biggest optical measurement spheres in the world and has a diameter of 4meters! An extremely impressive measurement device.

So slowly building towards a conclusion.

We just showed that the theoretical efficiency increase between a LED and T5 source (with a specific wavelength of 450nm) would be in the order of 60% more efficient. This statement is highly theoretical and does not claim anything about practical applications.

But the principles of this theory are correct and need to be applied on an apple-to-apple source comparison. Therefor we chose to compare the two lighting solutions based on their WPE that were measured with help of the integrating optical sphere.

We took a reference T5 fixture with 6 AquaBlue special 12.000K bulbs as a reference and set the CoralCare fixture in a way it would match the color point of this bulb as good as possible.

The resulting spectral content is not 100% comparable (because the T5 consists of narrow peaks and the led solution has a more continuous spectrum), but it is as close as possible (assuming all practical limitations).

This results in a WPE difference of ~30%

This is done with brand new T5 bulbs (performed a burn in test as described in the measurement standardization norm) under ideal operation conditions.

This statement could be countered by stating: this is not a practical situation, most users use an even bluer spectrum by combining the Special Blue bulb with (i.e.) a blue or Coral plus bulb! This results in even higher efficiency differences for LED based solutions. The color point (and spectral content) is shifted more toward the shorter wavelengths of light (considering only wavelengths above the 400nm UV threshold) and therefor increasing the WPE even more for the LED solution.

Another note: bluer T5 bulbs degrade much faster in light output compared to warmer color tones.
This has to do with the degradation of the Blue phosphors that are affected by the highly energetic light from the mercury discharge source.

So in summary, we state that the CoralCare light brings an efficiency benefit of at least 30%.

In a practical situation this is even increased to over 50% within a few months due to the degradation of T5 bulbs.

PS. Some small correction from BRS’s measurements.
BRS accidentally included the losses from the 230V-110V converter in the power measurement.
The actual CoralCare fixture power is 187-190Watt (depending on ambient and core temperature of the fixture).

Please share your opinion and feel free to ask any questions!

Why did we chose this fixture form-factor and appearance?

Answered in this section: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/philips-coralcare-benefit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/

The CoralCare fixture is based on the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product.
We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specification for an aquarium application (the five points we mention as benefits of the system).
This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications).
Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

So this is a well considered choice and we are aware of the fact that the design will not appeal to all reefers on this planet .

(image from riffnews.de)


Why did we chose a existing fixture and not design a completely new one?
(this overlaps a bit with the previous answer)
answered in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/luc-vogelss-300-gallon-coralcare-reef.271225/page-2

In our labs we worked for multiple years on the design and validation of the CoralCare spectrum and optics. Once we knew what was key (spectral distribution, homogeneity and color consistency) to efficiently grow corals and stimulate colorization, we scanned the existing Philips portfolio to find a product that could meet the required specifications. Philips is a multibillion company, but that does not automatically mean it grants you unlimited resources to develop a product!!

It took me an extreme effort to influence and convince the board to invest in this proposition for a niche market. You can imagine that a company perceives each product as an investment, which eventually should compensate for the development and release costs (and even better, make a profit).Therefor we decided to scan the Philips portfolio on existing products and determine what product already fulfilled a part of the Marine aquaristic specification.

We chose for the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product. We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specs (the five points we mention as benefits of the system). This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications). Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or ask any question.
You can always contact us directly or post your questions in our sponsor section
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/philips-coralcare.912/



ps. Hi Ryan, great you are also on R2R and contribute to this topic!
We want to thank you again for the amazing video!

 

[Bpb]

Thanks for the awesome explanation on some things Luc. I've been a big fan of the ideas behind this fixture since I first read about it. Sadly most of the nay sayers will gloss over the solid info, get confused, or just flat out not understand, and still have negative things to say. Unavoidable with new products unfortunately. The more people that use it with success though the better. If it were available state side it would be a no brainer for me

 

[gus6464]

BTW I would also like to point out that the coralcare is warrantied for 2 years so double the industry average. And another tidbit is that the unit is rated for 25000 hours at 100% output vs 25000 hours at 80% like everyone else.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Dear members,

Good to see this lively and passionate discussion about CoralCare and lighting in general, we like this a lot!
Thanks for your feedback. Your comments will be taken into consideration for our current US feasibility phase.


We di bit want to engage in this discussion so everyone has the opportunity to share their independent opinion about the product and the excellent video from BRS!
But we noticed some re-occuring remarks that we tried to answer:

Why does Philips claim a energy benefit of at least 30% versus a T5 lamp based solution?

Answered in : https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...fit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/page-2

My apologies upfront. I have to go into technical details and have to use some lighting jargon to explain this clearly!
The short statement: The color point or even more correct, the spectrum of a light source, is of great importance for defining and comparing the efficiency of a light source (or technology).

Before I start the explanation I want to introduce two terms:

Optical Power
The term optical power (or radiant power) describes the energetic content of the light and is measured in Watts. This term has no additional weighing factor like Lumen/lux (corrected for the human eye sensitivity curve) or PAR (corrected for a range between 400-700nm).

Wall-Plug-Efficiency
WPE (Wall-Plug-efficiency) is the ratio between the amount of electrical input power and the amount of optical output power which the source produces.

A T5 tube (low pressure discharge tube) produces UV light with a wavelength of 254nm.
With the help of phosphorous coatings, these wavelengths are translated to longer wavelengths (that are more visible to the human eye, but also more useful for corals).
This transformation in wavelength introduces losses that depend on the gap between the base pump wavelength (254nm) and the desired wavelength (let’s consider in this example 450nm).

The typical efficiency of the T5 tube (converting electrical input power to optical output power of 254nm) is in the order of 70%. But these wavelengths should be transformed to the desired wavelength (450nm). This process introduces losses what is called “stokes shift losses”. If we consider a narrow desired wavelength of 450 nm (theoretical example) we can determine the stokes shift losses which are in the order of 44%!

For this example, the total theoretical maximum WPE of a T5 bulb is 70%*56% = 39.2%

If we look to the LED technology we actually perceive a similar trend.
One of the biggest differences between the Led ant T5 technology is the wavelength of the base pump.
For LED technology, the most efficient base pump is achieved around 450nm (instead of 254nm for a T5 tube).

If we consider the Luxeon T Royal Blue LED (that is also used in the CoralCare application) we can see that the WPE of this LED is in the order of 53% (under ideal conditions it produces 1040mW optical power at an input power of 1.96Watt). Because the base pump is already equal to our target wavelength we have no stokes shift losses and the final WPE of the LED is 53% for a wavelength of 450nm.

LED solutions suffer from the similar stokes shift losses, but because the base pump of a led source is much closer to visible and more useful wavelengths, the overall LED technology is more efficient (this is one of the reasons, but most of influence for this story!).

Now we apply this theory to a more practical situation:

The CoralCare fixture consists out of 5 LED types.

Luxeon UV 420nm
Luxeon T 450nm
Luxeon Rebel Cyan (~480nm)
Luxeon Tx 6500k white (a phosphor converted solution with an average color point is 6500k)
Luxeon Rebel Phosphor converter amber

Based on the presented theory we can conclude that if we would only enable the 450nm LED’s, the CoralCare fixture would be much more efficient (= higher WPE) than if we would enable other channels (which have stokes shift losses or lower WPE values).
This already explains why the color point, and even more accurate, the comparable spectral content is of great influence when comparing two lighting technologies.

Based on practical data:
If we would only enable the Blue channel (combination between 420 and 450nm) we would (including ALL optical, electrical, and other parasitic losses) achieve a WPE of 35.9% for the CoralCare solution.
If we would only enable the white channel (combination between Cyan, 6500K and Phosphor converter Amber) we would achieve a WPE of 28.3%.

Curious how we measure this?

The WPE measurements are performed in a special optical measurement sphere.
The light source is placed in this optical sphere and a light sensitive sensor collects all light radiation that is being produced by the light source (integrating sphere).
By also measuring the electrical input power, you can exactly measure how much electrical input power is transformed to optical power.

Here is a picture of the T5 reference fixture measurement
This sphere is one of the biggest optical measurement spheres in the world and has a diameter of 4meters! An extremely impressive measurement device.

So slowly building towards a conclusion.

We just showed that the theoretical efficiency increase between a LED and T5 source (with a specific wavelength of 450nm) would be in the order of 60% more efficient. This statement is highly theoretical and does not claim anything about practical applications.

But the principles of this theory are correct and need to be applied on an apple-to-apple source comparison. Therefor we chose to compare the two lighting solutions based on their WPE that were measured with help of the integrating optical sphere.

We took a reference T5 fixture with 6 AquaBlue special 12.000K bulbs as a reference and set the CoralCare fixture in a way it would match the color point of this bulb as good as possible.

The resulting spectral content is not 100% comparable (because the T5 consists of narrow peaks and the led solution has a more continuous spectrum), but it is as close as possible (assuming all practical limitations).

This results in a WPE difference of ~30%

This is done with brand new T5 bulbs (performed a burn in test as described in the measurement standardization norm) under ideal operation conditions.

This statement could be countered by stating: this is not a practical situation, most users use an even bluer spectrum by combining the Special Blue bulb with (i.e.) a blue or Coral plus bulb! This results in even higher efficiency differences for LED based solutions. The color point (and spectral content) is shifted more toward the shorter wavelengths of light (considering only wavelengths above the 400nm UV threshold) and therefor increasing the WPE even more for the LED solution.

Another note: bluer T5 bulbs degrade much faster in light output compared to warmer color tones.
This has to do with the degradation of the Blue phosphors that are affected by the highly energetic light from the mercury discharge source.

So in summary, we state that the CoralCare light brings an efficiency benefit of at least 30%.

In a practical situation this is even increased to over 50% within a few months due to the degradation of T5 bulbs.

PS. Some small correction from BRS’s measurements.
BRS accidentally included the losses from the 230V-110V converter in the power measurement.
The actual CoralCare fixture power is 187-190Watt (depending on ambient and core temperature of the fixture).

Please share your opinion and feel free to ask any questions!

Why did we chose this fixture form-factor and appearance?

Answered in this section: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/philips-coralcare-benefit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/

The CoralCare fixture is based on the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product.
We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specification for an aquarium application (the five points we mention as benefits of the system).
This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications).
Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

So this is a well considered choice and we are aware of the fact that the design will not appeal to all reefers on this planet .

(image from riffnews.de)


Why did we chose a existing fixture and not design a completely new one?
(this overlaps a bit with the previous answer)
answered in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/luc-vogelss-300-gallon-coralcare-reef.271225/page-2

In our labs we worked for multiple years on the design and validation of the CoralCare spectrum and optics. Once we knew what was key (spectral distribution, homogeneity and color consistency) to efficiently grow corals and stimulate colorization, we scanned the existing Philips portfolio to find a product that could meet the required specifications. Philips is a multibillion company, but that does not automatically mean it grants you unlimited resources to develop a product!!

It took me an extreme effort to influence and convince the board to invest in this proposition for a niche market. You can imagine that a company perceives each product as an investment, which eventually should compensate for the development and release costs (and even better, make a profit).Therefor we decided to scan the Philips portfolio on existing products and determine what product already fulfilled a part of the Marine aquaristic specification.

We chose for the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product. We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specs (the five points we mention as benefits of the system). This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications). Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or ask any question.
You can always contact us directly or post your questions in our sponsor section
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/philips-coralcare.912/



ps. Hi Ryan, great you are also on R2R and contribute to this topic!
We want to thank you again for the amazing video!

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of the fixture and measurement methodologies employed in your analysis. I have no doubts the data is sound and I am not at all surprised by the efficiency advantage enjoyed by the LED light, especially when biased towards the bluer end of the visible light spectrum. My criticisms posted above have been strictly reserved for the inadequate T5HO vs CoralCare growth comparsion study. I found the claim that the LEDs grew coral comparably to the T5, while true, to be completely useless because the study was such a poor analog for any conceivable real world scenario in which either light would be used.

I wish you the best of luck with this venture into the LED arena and I hope to see others in the field follow your lead with an emphasis on spectrum, diffusion, and color blending as top priorities when designing a light.

 

[kattz]

Dear members,

Good to see this lively and passionate discussion about CoralCare and lighting in general, we like this a lot!
Thanks for your feedback. Your comments will be taken into consideration for our current US feasibility phase.


We di bit want to engage in this discussion so everyone has the opportunity to share their independent opinion about the product and the excellent video from BRS!
But we noticed some re-occuring remarks that we tried to answer:

Why does Philips claim a energy benefit of at least 30% versus a T5 lamp based solution?

Answered in : https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...fit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/page-2

My apologies upfront. I have to go into technical details and have to use some lighting jargon to explain this clearly!
The short statement: The color point or even more correct, the spectrum of a light source, is of great importance for defining and comparing the efficiency of a light source (or technology).

Before I start the explanation I want to introduce two terms:

Optical Power
The term optical power (or radiant power) describes the energetic content of the light and is measured in Watts. This term has no additional weighing factor like Lumen/lux (corrected for the human eye sensitivity curve) or PAR (corrected for a range between 400-700nm).

Wall-Plug-Efficiency
WPE (Wall-Plug-efficiency) is the ratio between the amount of electrical input power and the amount of optical output power which the source produces.

A T5 tube (low pressure discharge tube) produces UV light with a wavelength of 254nm.
With the help of phosphorous coatings, these wavelengths are translated to longer wavelengths (that are more visible to the human eye, but also more useful for corals).
This transformation in wavelength introduces losses that depend on the gap between the base pump wavelength (254nm) and the desired wavelength (let’s consider in this example 450nm).

The typical efficiency of the T5 tube (converting electrical input power to optical output power of 254nm) is in the order of 70%. But these wavelengths should be transformed to the desired wavelength (450nm). This process introduces losses what is called “stokes shift losses”. If we consider a narrow desired wavelength of 450 nm (theoretical example) we can determine the stokes shift losses which are in the order of 44%!

For this example, the total theoretical maximum WPE of a T5 bulb is 70%*56% = 39.2%

If we look to the LED technology we actually perceive a similar trend.
One of the biggest differences between the Led ant T5 technology is the wavelength of the base pump.
For LED technology, the most efficient base pump is achieved around 450nm (instead of 254nm for a T5 tube).

If we consider the Luxeon T Royal Blue LED (that is also used in the CoralCare application) we can see that the WPE of this LED is in the order of 53% (under ideal conditions it produces 1040mW optical power at an input power of 1.96Watt). Because the base pump is already equal to our target wavelength we have no stokes shift losses and the final WPE of the LED is 53% for a wavelength of 450nm.

LED solutions suffer from the similar stokes shift losses, but because the base pump of a led source is much closer to visible and more useful wavelengths, the overall LED technology is more efficient (this is one of the reasons, but most of influence for this story!).

Now we apply this theory to a more practical situation:

The CoralCare fixture consists out of 5 LED types.

Luxeon UV 420nm
Luxeon T 450nm
Luxeon Rebel Cyan (~480nm)
Luxeon Tx 6500k white (a phosphor converted solution with an average color point is 6500k)
Luxeon Rebel Phosphor converter amber

Based on the presented theory we can conclude that if we would only enable the 450nm LED’s, the CoralCare fixture would be much more efficient (= higher WPE) than if we would enable other channels (which have stokes shift losses or lower WPE values).
This already explains why the color point, and even more accurate, the comparable spectral content is of great influence when comparing two lighting technologies.

Based on practical data:
If we would only enable the Blue channel (combination between 420 and 450nm) we would (including ALL optical, electrical, and other parasitic losses) achieve a WPE of 35.9% for the CoralCare solution.
If we would only enable the white channel (combination between Cyan, 6500K and Phosphor converter Amber) we would achieve a WPE of 28.3%.

Curious how we measure this?

The WPE measurements are performed in a special optical measurement sphere.
The light source is placed in this optical sphere and a light sensitive sensor collects all light radiation that is being produced by the light source (integrating sphere).
By also measuring the electrical input power, you can exactly measure how much electrical input power is transformed to optical power.

Here is a picture of the T5 reference fixture measurement
This sphere is one of the biggest optical measurement spheres in the world and has a diameter of 4meters! An extremely impressive measurement device.

So slowly building towards a conclusion.

We just showed that the theoretical efficiency increase between a LED and T5 source (with a specific wavelength of 450nm) would be in the order of 60% more efficient. This statement is highly theoretical and does not claim anything about practical applications.

But the principles of this theory are correct and need to be applied on an apple-to-apple source comparison. Therefor we chose to compare the two lighting solutions based on their WPE that were measured with help of the integrating optical sphere.

We took a reference T5 fixture with 6 AquaBlue special 12.000K bulbs as a reference and set the CoralCare fixture in a way it would match the color point of this bulb as good as possible.

The resulting spectral content is not 100% comparable (because the T5 consists of narrow peaks and the led solution has a more continuous spectrum), but it is as close as possible (assuming all practical limitations).

This results in a WPE difference of ~30%

This is done with brand new T5 bulbs (performed a burn in test as described in the measurement standardization norm) under ideal operation conditions.

This statement could be countered by stating: this is not a practical situation, most users use an even bluer spectrum by combining the Special Blue bulb with (i.e.) a blue or Coral plus bulb! This results in even higher efficiency differences for LED based solutions. The color point (and spectral content) is shifted more toward the shorter wavelengths of light (considering only wavelengths above the 400nm UV threshold) and therefor increasing the WPE even more for the LED solution.

Another note: bluer T5 bulbs degrade much faster in light output compared to warmer color tones.
This has to do with the degradation of the Blue phosphors that are affected by the highly energetic light from the mercury discharge source.

So in summary, we state that the CoralCare light brings an efficiency benefit of at least 30%.

In a practical situation this is even increased to over 50% within a few months due to the degradation of T5 bulbs.

PS. Some small correction from BRS’s measurements.
BRS accidentally included the losses from the 230V-110V converter in the power measurement.
The actual CoralCare fixture power is 187-190Watt (depending on ambient and core temperature of the fixture).

Please share your opinion and feel free to ask any questions!

Why did we chose this fixture form-factor and appearance?

Answered in this section: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/philips-coralcare-benefit-1-the-perfect-light-balance.274031/

The CoralCare fixture is based on the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product.
We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specification for an aquarium application (the five points we mention as benefits of the system).
This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications).
Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

So this is a well considered choice and we are aware of the fact that the design will not appeal to all reefers on this planet .

(image from riffnews.de)


Why did we chose a existing fixture and not design a completely new one?
(this overlaps a bit with the previous answer)
answered in this thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/luc-vogelss-300-gallon-coralcare-reef.271225/page-2

In our labs we worked for multiple years on the design and validation of the CoralCare spectrum and optics. Once we knew what was key (spectral distribution, homogeneity and color consistency) to efficiently grow corals and stimulate colorization, we scanned the existing Philips portfolio to find a product that could meet the required specifications. Philips is a multibillion company, but that does not automatically mean it grants you unlimited resources to develop a product!!

It took me an extreme effort to influence and convince the board to invest in this proposition for a niche market. You can imagine that a company perceives each product as an investment, which eventually should compensate for the development and release costs (and even better, make a profit).Therefor we decided to scan the Philips portfolio on existing products and determine what product already fulfilled a part of the Marine aquaristic specification.

We chose for the Gentlespace 2 architecture, an extremely durable and high quality fixture that ensures reliability and long lifetime of the product. We changed the optics, LED engine and driver components to further match the specs (the five points we mention as benefits of the system). This choice affects the aesthetic appearance of this fixture. It has an industrial look (because it was designed for this) that some reefers do not find appealing.
We made the choice to put the performance of the fixture as our most important priority.

Therefor we considered passive cooling as a mandatory feature, and for a 190Watt fixture that simply means that a large quantity of metal is needed to ensure a correct operation temperature of the fixture (while applied in aquaristic applications). Also the shape (finned design) and used materials (glass front plate, metal housing, thick coating and heavy duty hanging kit) ensure a long lifetime in the harsh aquarium environment.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or ask any question.
You can always contact us directly or post your questions in our sponsor section
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/philips-coralcare.912/



ps. Hi Ryan, great you are also on R2R and contribute to this topic!
We want to thank you again for the amazing video!

Wow, thanks for the excellent post! Much appreciated! Now we need a US model. I volunteer to be the first tester!

Kev