Awsome T5 Pendants By Fauna Marin

[Aqua-Digital]

You will not find dimmable ballasts that fire more than 2

And we are supplied with Advance and Sylvania at present and trust me the price of $75 is far less than we actually are quoted.

NON dimmable are cheaper of course, but still does not equate to building a "quality lamp fixture" for less than $500

Anyways, trying to keep this thread on track about the new fixture, if you have any questions directly about this great new fixture please post here If anyone wants to debate fixtures in general please start a thread on the open forum. I will happily chip in

Back to the topic, I will have prices this week guys and many thanks for the growing list of pre orders being emailed to me.

[Powertec]

It is possible to have a dimmable ballast fire more than two lamps.

[trilinearmipmap]

My point is if I am spending over $1000.00 I will go with what has been proven and generally recognized as an excellent fixture. Plenty of amazing tanks are running these Powermodules and many are TOTM quality or better. For a new fixture without a track record I am not going to pay top dollar.

If the Powermodules are indeed no longer available then that is a shame.

[Aqua-Digital]

Well if it is not available at least we are providing you with an extremely worthy replacement that actually has more functionality, such as variable active cooling, and industry trusted and recognised ballasts.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

My point is if I am spending over $1000.00 I will go with what has been proven and generally recognized as an excellent fixture. Plenty of amazing tanks are running these Powermodules and many are TOTM quality or better.

I wouldn't even pay over 600.00 especially for a florescent setup.

I can't get over the prices of equipment in this hobby, take a 5.00 chunk of metal, bend it, powder cote it, add a 6 buck reflector, and 20.00 worth of hardware. then sell it for over 1000.00 ops, I forgot the 40.00 worth of light bulbs for a 8 light set up.

I know the money is in the set up and tooling of the factory, and no one wants to wait to recover there investment, but why can't company's price more realistically. If this was a shop light with out the bulbs it would sell for 30 to 60 bucks tops and the same work and material would have went into it.

Steve

[Aqua-Digital]

Well considering "GOOD" ballasts that are able to cope with the spectrum required for Reef tanks, come in at trade cost around $75 before any wiring, quick fire end caps.

Ballasts normally will fire 2 tubes so before you even get off the starting block you are upto $300 trade cost in ballasts before anything else for your 8 lamp set up.

Extrusion is very expensive also and so too is UV protected clear acrylic for bulb protection. I wish it was as easy as you say, bend a lump of metal! Hmmm you seen the tooling involved to get cnc precise fixtures?

Add to that, polished single reflectors, electronics etc etc it does not take much to work out where most the cost lies

If you can find tubes for $5 a piece ($40 stated 8 x 5 ) that produce the correct spectrum also, I will buy 1,000 from you today!!

To get a lamp less than $500 I would be very concerned to what i was buying.

Remember you cant put a shop light in the same catagory as a lamp for a dedicated reef system, they are two completely different beasts. One is there just to produce a visual illumination, the other is to replicate the natural sun. Not an easy task.

[Aqua-Digital]

OK new information -

lamps will come with control module so there will be only one power line coming out of the module, unlike other Fixtures that have 2 or more and maybe a DC line also

ALL lamps will come with LED moon lights installed, when the lamps go off the moon lights come on.

Dimming - To begin with 24w 39w and 54w will be made available in dimming, the dimming will be controlled by GHL ProfiLux, the ProfiLux simply plugs into the control module of the lamp fixture. 80w dimming will follow on possibly in February

The fixtures will be slightly wider than originally planned to incorporate the latest additions

Later next year there will be further advances in the dimming options

Availability - orders can be taken from late December for first wave shipping in late january, from then on there will be steady supply.

Thats it for now but i am sure you will agree this fixture is turning out to be hard to beat

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

Well considering "GOOD" ballasts that are able to cope with the spectrum required for Reef tanks, come in at trade cost around $75 before any wiring, quick fire end caps.

Ballasts normally will fire 2 tubes so before you even get off the starting block you are upto $300 trade cost in ballasts before anything else for your 8 lamp set up..

Ballasts don't handle spectrum, they put out current at a voltage. the only deference between cheep ones and expensive ones, is how many years they will last. Also there ,may be better range of input voltage operating range. But yes I didn't include ballasts in my previous post. you can get real good t5 bare ballast for about 40.00 last time I looked.

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

Extrusion is very expensive also and so too is UV protected clear acrylic for bulb protection. I wish it was as easy as you say, bend a lump of metal! Hmmm you seen the tooling involved to get cnc precise fixtures?

Add to that, polished single reflectors, electronics etc etc it does not take much to work out where most the cost lies.

extrusion is expensive to make the die for, it is very cheep to produce after that, which is exactly what I posted previously. I was referring to the prototype in the bending as you are not going to make extrusion tooling to see if thats what you want to use.

As for reflectors, if you use the good stuff, and make 12 (12" x 24" ) finished size it would cost me about 15.00 per reflector

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

If you can find tubes for $5 a piece ($40 stated 8 x 5 ) that produce the correct spectrum also, I will buy 1,000 from you today!!

To get a lamp less than $500 I would be very concerned to what i was buying.

Remember you cant put a shop light in the same category as a lamp for a dedicated reef system, they are two completely different beasts. One is there just to produce a visual illumination, the other is to replicate the natural sun. Not an easy task.

the price on tubes is probably very close to what the manufactures charge the wholesalers for them. If you are a company who is going to be buying a tone of bulbs, or have there own branded bulbs you are going to be buying enough to have them cheep.

as for the difference between a shop light and fish light, only a couple ascetics, and bulbs.

yes there is differences in some of the materials, one might be powder coated steel, the other aluminum.. ballasts, ect... there is not much more in cost aside from ballast and bulbs.

Steve