L.E.D. vs HALIDE/T5/VHO

[sphelps]

Well first realistically you won't get 13.5 or 10 years out of your LEDs as we already agreed. The same unrealistic numbers are given to both halides and T5s and previously discussed. Second how does your bulb and energy savings compare if you have to replace your fixture every six years compared to simply changing bulbs every year?

The other advantage to T5s that people tend to forget is the ability to setup a kind of bulb replacement rotation. Basically only replacing 2 out of 8 bulbs every six months, every time replacing a different set. This keeps your light levels more consistent eliminating the need to lift and lower fixtures and shocking corals. It also means you're only placing half your bulbs every year which saves you significant money in bulb changes.

The most common argument to go with LEDs is to actually save money in the long run which I think you LED guys should stop using and push more on the lower heat and more defined spectrum (if that really is an advantage).

If you're LED fixture costs $2000 and lasts say 6 years and uses around 250W which means it'll cost around $110 per year for power. If you have to replace your fixture every six years then after 10 years (if you keep it that long) it'll have cost you around $5100.

Now if you compare that to say a 500W halide system which can be purchased for around $1000 (equal quality) and will cost around $220 per year to run for power and around $140 per year for bulbs. After 10 years (again if you keep it that long) that adds up to $4600.

Both realistically are comparable in basic cost however neither include premature failure which is possible for both options however the halide system would offer a cheaper fix. Also after 10 years you only have 2 years left on your second LED fixture and if at some point you decided to sell your fixture for whatever reason the halide system will no doubt return a larger percentage of your investment. And I know that you can argue that you build your own fixture so it was cheaper and you can replace LEDs easily and blah blah blah but what about the rest of us who don't want to or can't build such things, I call this the real world as at least 90% of people in the hobby don't want to build there own light fixture.

[Ron99]

Well you make a few assumptions in your financial analysis. I do believe 10 years is a reasonable lifespan even though you disagree. Since nobody has had a decent LED fixture for 10 years yet we can't really tell. So let's look at the 6 year point as an example. The costs you laid out for the LEDs was $2000 purchase price with $110 per year in running costs for a total after 6 years of $2660. The MH was $1000 to purchase + $220 per year in electricity and $140 per year in bulbs for a total of $3160. That is also assuming you don't need to buy and run a chiller which will add a fair bit to the MH costs.

You have also made the assumption that in 6 years if the LEDs need replacing then a fixture will again be $2000 but the costs are likely to come down dramatically by then and you will get a comparable setup for far less money. But you might also be able to simply replace the LEDs by that point and the costs for comparable emitters would likely be less than $200 for say 80 LEDs by that time. There is a big push to incorporate LED technology into mainstream lighting so in 6 years the economies of scale will bring the prices way down. I can already buy generic 3W LEDs with maybe 70% the performance of Crees for $1.50 each (I have some I plan to test soon). In 6 years they will exceed the performance of the current Cree LEDs at or below that cost. You are also assuming that users of MH or florescent lighting use the same fixtures indefinitely. I venture that most people in this hobby change their fixtures at least every 5 or 6 years. Of course some won't and you will find the outliers who have been using the same MH setup for 10 or 15 years but they would be the exception rather than the rule.

I also think it is a false to assume that repairing an LED fixture is more difficult or costly than repairing a faulty MH or T5 fixture. It may or may not be depending on what fails. Replacing an LED is not any more difficult then replacing an end cap or moonlight and replacing a driver should not be any harder then replacing a ballast. If you would feel comfortable repairing a MH or T5 fixture you should be able to do the same with an LED one. If you aren't comfortable then it has to go out for repairs no matter what lighting technology it uses. And MH and florescent ballasts aren't cheap to replace and they do fail over time. So we should leave the failure/repair estimates out of the analysis because there are so many variables there.