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Originally Posted by mike31154
It's not necessarily all about power, i.e. 3 watt Crees. Here's a link to a blog by a guy who seems quite focused on the Orphek brand of LED & their fixtures. Many interesting reads here and although it's a personal blog he provides plenty of data in the form of spectographs in order to support his argument that the colour spectrum output of an LED can be just as, or more important than simply the power output.
Many options out there these days & more on the way. Personally I'm liking the MR16 and PAR38 bulb form factor. Pretty much plug & play as the PAR38 bulbs simply screw into any standard household fixture and the MR16 bulbs are designed as accent lighting running on straight 12 volts DC. This would make them perfect for a smaller nano or pico tank which you could run off a 12 VDC power source such as a deep cycle battery charged by solar panel. No soldering or special LED drivers required. In addition, if one of the bulbs goes, you're not looking at trying to repair an entire fixture or module. Simply pop out the old bulb & put in a new one, just like current lighting systems we use. I'd also venture to guess, if you used a bunch of them, this concept can easily be applied to larger tanks.
http://blog.captive-aquatics.com/cap.../led-lighting/ |
The PAR 38 and MR16 are nice, but ive seen them over a tank and they just look bulky to me. If you have a large canopy to hide them, then it isnt a problem.
what makes LEDs so amazing is how small they are. As long as you plan well, you can make a fixture no more than maybe 2 inches thick. The bulbs can be about 7 inches tall before you even get to the socket/wiring behind it.
Currently the design im working on over my 180 is going to be a bit more than 1in thick in most areas and 2inches thick in just a couple areas so its going to be a slim piece of art hanging over my display.
As far as the replacing a dead emitter, yes that is the pitfall if you have a prefab fixture. If its on a board with all the rest, you cant easily change it. If its a single star, its just easily done by bypassing the star with a piece of new wire or replacing the star. The AI fixtures lets you replace modules, which is nice but you end up replacing 3 LEDs instead of just one.