LED Intensity

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by jorjef

Just leave your existing lights in place, when the new ones arrive just get a bunch of people together to do a mock up and hold the lights over the tank for you as you sit back say "okay a little to the left, now up..no no the other up, you know down" All the time adjusting intensity to see how you like it. If you decide you need more units the original light is still there until the other unit arrives and swap out then.

Oh, absolutely. I currently have a canopy that can just lift off. It will go to the side until I'm sure the new lights can maintain color. If not, they go back on until I can buy more units.

But I'll try to run closer to 80%+ on the whites to try and keep intensity while raising high enough to keep coverage.

[DanG]

My lights are hung under my canopy pretty much sitting on the tank brace, so mine are pretty close to the surface, which makes them super bright. This in turn has caused me to have the whites about 40% and the blues close to 90.

If I had a way to have them up higher, I'd probably run them higher just to get the same level of brightness.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by troni

I'm curious as how long till the spectrum starts to change, if at all.

the spectrum doesn't change on LED's only there intensity. and at there rated live they are usaly still at 85% of there new intensity. of course different brands/models will have different numbers.

as for the life span, running them at 50% or 100% will make no difference on life span if the junction temp is the same, so in other words if you can keep them below there max junction temp even at 100% the life will be longer. this is why it is very important to think out your cooling (heatsink/fan) setup when building your own LEDs. If you buying them you would assume the company did there home work to be able to allow them to be run at 100% while keeping the junction temp under the max.

Steve

[Finisher604]

I have a 6 ft tank with mixed sps and some LPS. I am running only 2 ai Sol, I run the lights from 8am to 12am slowly ramping up.

At 5 pm my lights run at 55%white 75 both blues till 8pm any brighter and things get upset, i don't have a deep tank and have the lights about 10inch above water.

Everything is growing amazing in my opinion.

[windcoast reefs]

Originally Posted by troni

its lifespan is determined by running at 100%.
what i think you mean running them at a lower percent will increase life.



I'm curious as how long till the spectrum starts to change, if at all.

As far as ive heard, there isn't any spectrum change. I called up Cree and talked to a tech about it before I built my unit and he said as long as you don't over heat them, the spectrum will stay the same. Basically the shortened down explanation of what he said was that the compound that is used to give an led there specific spectrum is stable as long as it isn't over heated. So if you burn your leds to hot they can have a spectrum change because of the compound breaking down into something else Like the zinc based compound used in blue breaks down into something that makes it kinda purple when it gets really hot.

They aren't really line halides or t5 which actually burn a compound to create the spectrum.

Just what I've heard anyways!

[Aquattro]

Intensity guys, this thread is about intensity