[flight50]

I am not on here as often as I use to be but everynow and then I come thru to check out post. My schedule is crazy busy but my project is still alive and being worked on behind the scenes. I am just hush hush about it....

Anyways, the real reason for this post is, what's up with BML. I was about to log some stuff in my excel file but I needed to go to BML's site and I find this. What's going on. My whole project was being centered around these fixtures. Their lights are part of the reason I invested in an Apex to run my whole setup. Are they overwhelmed or struggling now?

 

[jeffkrol]

I am not on here as often as I use to be but everynow and then I come thru to check out post. My schedule is crazy busy but my project is still alive and being worked on behind the scenes. I am just hush hush about it....

Anyways, the real reason for this post is, what's up with BML. I was about to log some stuff in my excel file but I needed to go to BML's site and I find this. What's going on. My whole project was being centered around these fixtures. Their lights are part of the reason I invested in an Apex to run my whole setup. Are they overwhelmed or struggling now?

They are shifting to
"commercial" hort. lighting.. in general.

 

[Bobbybills]

They are shifting to
"commercial" hort. lighting.. in general.

To quote my late grandfather, "the whole world is going to pot".

 

[flight50]

They are shifting to
"commercial" hort. lighting.. in general.

When they had their site up, they had both categories already. So I guess they are just dropping the aquarium side. Not sure what was in the agriculture side for I never selected it. Well that sucks to spend the time to development what they did and quit on us like that. Not many complained about their lights which is why I turned to them. Oh well. Time to find something else that is Apex ready.

 

[klibs]

i will sell you my BML fixtures for $10000

 

[Mathman]

i will sell you my BML fixtures for $10000

Lol


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[Mxx]

That's a nasty shock to discover for you. I found out just last week and dropped in an order in time. You could still look at their Solar Max series on the horticultural side of the website, as I suspect that should look very good on a tank. There was another thread on this forum where these matters were discussed and explained recently also -
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/185-build-my-led/1003793-bml-aquarium-closing-shop.html

 

[Desertsp]

We must be too high maintenance!

The SolarMax actually looks really nice...only gave it a quick look though since I'm not in the market for a light at this time.


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[Mxx]

I was thinking the same thing about aquarists being high maintenance customers!

I was a little surprised to see how well the SolarMax replicates the spectrum of natural sunlight and achieves a very high CRI rating. That is exactly what I was looking for when I had ordered my 6300K Dutch set, which is the second closest thing to that. As such, I was surprised they didn't offer a version of the SolarMax for aquarium use, although perhaps with a little more cool white. It could be supplemented with any standard cool white led strip to fine-tune the colour in any case.

The horticultural lights only come in two foot increments of length however, although with a hacksaw and soldering iron you could perhaps shorten that by a foot if necessary.

But if you needed the aquarium top brackets you would potentially want to try to pick those up from BML by giving them a call now to see if they still have any stock of those!

 

[691175002]

I was a little surprised to see how well the SolarMax replicates the spectrum of natural sunlight and achieves a very high CRI rating. That is exactly what I was looking for when I had ordered my 6300K Dutch set, which is the second closest thing to that. As such, I was surprised they didn't offer a version of the SolarMax for aquarium use, although perhaps with a little more cool white. It could be supplemented with any standard cool white led strip to fine-tune the colour in any case.

There was a bit of discussion about this in their going away thread.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...-bml-aquarium-closing-shop-2.html#post8927425

The color rendition of SolarMax will be less than stellar (pun intended), the PAR is far lower than other spectrums--as the above statement says, this is designed for research applications where a mimic of sunlight is needed. However, what is meant by that is this spectrum provides coverage across a wide span of wavelengths from UV up through far red, similar to sunlight. You are welcome to try it, but again, I do not recommend it and there are no returns on hort lighting products. Just trying to give you a fair warning.

My interpretation of this would be that far red and UV are either absorbed by water or fall outside of the PAR measurement range so a lot of energy is going into light that might not get used by plants.

I'm not sure about the color thing, its possible that when hobbiysts talk about lights having good color they are actually looking for spikes at certain points to make fish pop as opposed to high CRI.

 

[Mxx]

Yes, I'd been following that thread as well. Depends on ones goals I suppose. I like highly realistic colour rendition personally, and I'd be happy to compromise on PAR efficiency to a certain degree for the sake of that. And so if a bit of the spectral output is lost, that's not a big deal to me as they nevertheless are quite efficient of fixtures with still a decent PAR output.

With that said, their 6300K fixture I bought has output spikes in the blue red and green wavelengths, so green plants and fish such as cardinal tetras might 'pop' under it, (figuratively only, hopefully). But their SolarMAX is actually quite similar in that respect, nevertheless I needed 5 foot long fixtures so I had ordered them now already.

But in my professional field I've seen demonstrations of the CRI of different architectural lighting and I was surprised as to the significant difference between CRI 80 and 90, so I'm wondering how accurately 'real' something such as BML's full spectrum 6300K's will actually appear to a discerning eye. Most aquarium fixtures just mix some white/red/blue chips to better represent colour, but I don't think that is adequate.

 

[flight50]

i will sell you my BML fixtures for $10000

Uhhh, no thank you, lol. I can put 10K to better use, lol. I had about 2K worth of BML to buy though over time. (4) 36" and (2) 60". I do have (4) currently as I was trying out as many of their fixtures to experiment for what works best for my (8) garage tanks. The best one would have turned out to be the (2) 60" for my main display inside the house. I wish I had known they were closing the Aquarium side. I would have went ahead and placed my last (4) 36". I really really wanted to try the 6300 Dutch lights. They were going to be next.

Thanks Mxx for feeling sorry for me, lol. I was really bummed yesterday when I saw that. I literally walked away from my computer because of it. However they did say they were indefinitely suspending the aquarium side. Hopefully this means they will return in the future. Even if it is with fewer models, I am fine with that. They built a reputation on quality lights and I think too many people complained about how long it too to receive their lights so they got fed up. I never complained once nor have I ever contacted them about anything. I read that it can take a will to receive so I just waited till it shipped. We all suffer now because of the complaints. I can bet 10k that is the reason they shut down.

To make matter worst, I just missed out by a couple of days to missing placing my last order. I am going thru the closing out thread now and I see the date they closed down. That hurts. I would have been happy to drop money on (4) more 36". Cara if you see this thread, please PM if you have any premade fixtures in stock.

 

[klibs]

I would email / call them if you are really interested in buying some fixtures before they are totally gone. They might hook you up

 

[jickey]

Oh no! I spoke extensively with Cara about a month ago. Thankfully I have two 48" fixtures with mounts and a SoLunar controller sitting in my office in a box on top of my GLA box. It looks like I got my order in just in time

 

[flight50]

I would email / call them if you are really interested in buying some fixtures before they are totally gone. They might hook you up

I actually just got off the phone with Cara and was able to get 1 out of 4 lights that I needed. They had this one lonesome light in stock so I got lucky with that,lol. She is awesome and really cares about us. Unfortunately today is her last day that she will be able to do anything for our hobby as the fish hobby side computer system will be shut down tomorrow and she won't have access to anything. She was telling me that they pretty much rapidly expanded on the Hort side that 100% devotion is needed there. The aquarium sales just don't equal the Hort sales so I understand the transition. But hopefully as things settle down, they will be able to accommodate us with a small aquarium team in the future. So I am keeping hope alive. A little Dump and Dumper analogy "We have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance for BML aquarium fixtures again" So I am saying, we still have a chance.

Bump:

Oh no! I spoke extensively with Cara about a month ago. Thankfully I have two 48" fixtures with mounts and a SoLunar controller sitting in my office in a box on top of my GLA box. It looks like I got my order in just in time

A month ago was a long time ago. She was telling me that the shut down was sudden news to her as well. She also stated that Nick really didn't want to leave us but the Hort side is just way too overwhelming right now. I wish them success but I also hope they return to us.