I'm looking for a 18" light for a 18"x 18x18 cube. I have it narrowed down to these two lights. Build my led has no par data so I'm not sure which one is the better light. Whats everybody's opinion?
High. Im going to try to get a carpet of HC along with a few other plants.. I plan on dry starting it and will only have a handful of tetras once filled. I will be EI dosing and pressurized Co2.
They have pAR data but in a different form.. Micromoles:12" Fixture = 22 / 48" Fixture = 88
- Input Watts:12" Fixture = 18W / 48" Fixture = 72W
- Input Voltage:90-305 VAC - Color Temperature (CCT):8500K - Color Rending Index (CRI): 77 - Operating Temperature :-20C to 45C - Predicted Life: 50,000 Hours
- LED Selections per 12" Board:
(10) 5700K, (3) 660nm, (2) 450nm -
I went with build my led with the recommendation of people on here, and I'm glad I did. The plants are doing very well, and the tank doesn't look completely washed out. Their planted spectrum utilizes lights in the red and blue part of the spectrum, so it works well for plants even if it doesn't look too bright to us. Just give them a call. Plus, built in the USA never hurts.
I went with Build My Own. Just received and tried it actually. I have never seen the Finnex so I can not compare. I can say:
The actual par value as measured is within 5% of what the par chart predicts.
They have a 3 year warranty.
The quality is top notch in terms of build, fit, and finish.
I was able to get my questions answered on their forum and via a direct phone call.
Dimmer words great.
Silent.
Tank looks great.
I can not tell you if the plant growth color selection works yet.
The best leds colors to select would be blues and reds, but that would look aesthetically unpleasing. Play around with the diy app, it's fun to do. It is practical to get a light that has high apparent brightness, good par and a color temperature of 5500-5900k [noon tropical sunlight] and high color rendering index 98 [CRI]
I bought the plant growth unit. I did look at the light spectrum chart for the plant growth unit and compared that with the generic light spectrum chart for plant growth and it was pretty close.
I debated getting the all white unit which is 6000K I think as that is close to the T5 6700K I use now. But was swayed with the numbers in the chart as well as the tests run with the growth lamp.
It's a tough call. I'm debating this for my next tank build. I have a Ray2 on one and a fugeray on another 40B and it would be nice to have a buildmyled to compare it to. The dimming option is a really nice feature, but if that's the only reason someone would want the buildmyled feature I'm not sure it's worth the cost as you can dim the finnex by either adding layers of window screening in front of the leds or raising the fixture. I personally think that I might like the light from buildmyled a little better because the color temp on their plant fixture is 8500k whereas the finnex is 7000 and I like my light a little on the bluer/crisper side. But I think that's a viewers preference and shouldn't matter much to the plants.
i went with the show on a 48 inch for a standard 55 gal tank, and with a hoppy meter i get 78 par at the substraight 20 inches down and 58 on the sides. this is 90 optics and with tank mounts, the light is top notch color is good and the plants are just eating it up.
Somewhat fair and some what not.............................
Not knowing all the conversation it is hard to judge everything but I don't see why you couldn't just pop off the lenses or hang the light higher...
LED's are pretty much point light sources and it is fairly obvious using a 90 triangle that you wouldn't have full coverage that close to the top of the tank.. I doubt that you would have needed to raise it more than a few inches to get that coverage..
As to PAR and their ability to grow things.. seems you really didn't test it to the fullest..
There is a big misconception going around about prolonging life of LED's and this and that. An LED is nothing but a semiconductor, and the biggest enemy of a semiconductor is heat. One thing I have noticed is that planted LED manufacturers tend to skimp on cooling while reefer lights are usually overbuilt.
I agree OVT that a surge is not good either, but no semiconductor tends to do well with power spikes.
Gus, you obviously agree that keeping LED's cooler extends their life, otherwise I wouldn't imagine you having such obvious pride in your mega-cooling solution. I'm just not sure why you don't believe keeping them cooler by dimming them will achieve the same life extension. Cooler is cooler.
I didn't buy two fixtures just so I could turn them down. I bought two fixtures for better lighting distribution in an 18" front-to-back tank, and the dimming down is just a happy bonus.
EDIT: Well shoot, Jeff. You said it much better than I did. Kudos and thanks.
I didn't design my cooling on the total life expentancy of the LED. I did it because I wanted to drive the LEDs at 100% without them going poof! in a year. Just how I do my CPU overclocks, I did it based on how long I would keep the fixture which is probably no more than 3 years. I mean who here can honestly say that they are buying all these LED fixtures to keep them 10 years?
I'm not just being argumentative, but I think I would keep my lighting fixtures as long as the spectral output was good. 50,000 hours at L70 (70% rated lumen output, don't really have such a thing for PAR, but I guess it will work), at 10 hours per day is almost 14 years.
I really don't want to buy a lighting fixture based on 50,000 hour life and only use it for 20,000. It's not like chlorophyll is going to change, so why would the light?
I'm not part of this discussion, but I'd love it if my Finnex Ray 2 lasted 10 years especially if I'm not able to upgrade to a bigger tank within that time frame.
Yeah but during those 10 years you not only have to worry about the emitters but also the other components like the power supply and driver. I am pretty sure my LEDs will long outlast my drivers and power supply.
I reciently had a power supply failure which toasted my cooling fans on my DIY lights.
Setup was 3 20,000K 50W chips, and 10 Cree Royal Blue 3W stars. The Royal Blues died. The miltichips are still OK.
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