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The Grim Reefer
02/25/2008, 05:53 PM
I am looking for help in a little project I am doing. If you have had a T5 lamp fail or go dim in less than a year I want to know about it but I need a little info as well.

Brand and color of lamp (duh)?

Hours a day it was ran?

Approximate amount of time before you noticed the problem?

What fixture or retrofit was it being ran in?

What brand of ballast was being used (If known)?

Was the fixture/lamp being cooled and if so how?

Were any other lamps having issues in the system?

I don't want to turn this into a debate thread. I just want to see if there are reliability issues with any particular lamps.

Thanks

ctreefer
02/25/2008, 06:32 PM
Grim, I've had lots of problems with Aquaz's. my setup is an icecap 430 running 3 24" bulbs overdriven with individual reflectors. I have waterproof endcaps and 2 fans blowing in down the length of the tubes on either end. Each fan is rated at 28cfm. We bought the bulbs as part of a group buy and I bought 6. Within 2 weeks of installing 2 of them, they both burned out (10 hours per day) Blue pro and Ocean pro. This happened twice so I went through 4 bulbs and haven't installed the last two. I inquired to the IceCap forum about whether my setup might be the case, but they never responded.

Other problems were a few years ago. My first setup consisted of one GE 6500 and 2 actinic + geisman's. The GE lasted about 4 months on the same setup and cycle. Its the only time i've run a GE.

The only other bulb was when the UVL's first came out I bought one 24" super actinic. It didn't actually burn out, but after 3 months of the same cycle all the glow was gone completely. It was like not having a bulb on at all.

Since then I only use Geisman bulbs as I've never had a problem with them prematurely burning out.

I'm also in the process of converting to a 4 lamp system driven by Triad ballasts thinking overdriving might be giving me some of these problems.

HTH.

DarG
02/25/2008, 06:35 PM
Grim, can you clarify something ?

When you say "dim" how dim do you mean? I dont expect my overdriven T5's to go more than a year, if that. They are slightly "dimmer" than new at the 6 month mark but still look to have plenty of life. So how "dim" is "dim"?

osprey77
02/25/2008, 06:35 PM
Grim, let me know when you have more for the t5 site.

neelix
02/25/2008, 06:38 PM
2 Giesemann Actinics
0 Hours both out of box failures.

The Grim Reefer
02/25/2008, 11:31 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11940703#post11940703 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DarG
Grim, can you clarify something ?

When you say "dim" how dim do you mean? I dont expect my overdriven T5's to go more than a year, if that. They are slightly "dimmer" than new at the 6 month mark but still look to have plenty of life. So how "dim" is "dim"?

I mean dim as in unusable dim. Good point.

The Grim Reefer
02/25/2008, 11:33 PM
Thanks for the info guys

Osprey, had a little issue switching computers but I should have the stuff redone in a day or two.

The Grim Reefer
02/29/2008, 10:22 PM
bump

painkiller1009
02/29/2008, 10:44 PM
ATI - Super Actinic 54w
10-12
2.5 months before problem was noticed.
Tek 4x54w
Advanced ballast
No cooling in Tek light
No other problems with other bulbs in fixture at all
Before
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z129/painkiller1009/TekLitebulbColorz.jpg
After
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z129/painkiller1009/0229082339.jpg
Its on but not doin much
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z129/painkiller1009/0229082338.jpg

OneDayMatt
02/29/2008, 11:22 PM
Painkiller,

I can see that you have one dead bulb, but I can't tell anything else from the pictures because there's nothing there that shows the pictures were take with the same ISO, white balance, shutter speed and aperture on the same digital camera. That makes it hard to judge the other bulbs to see if there's a dimming issue. It's probably good to provide links to the original versions of photos so that we can read the EXIF data to see if we can get a better color/brightness comparison with our own imaging tools.

It's really really easy to NOT get images that are even comparable using automatic settings on digital cameras (or film for that matter).

painkiller1009
03/01/2008, 08:51 AM
I was just posting pics as a reference to what I consider "unusable dim".
I wasnt trying to post pics that are using the same settings. Heck these pics were taken with my camera phone anyways.

The Grim Reefer
03/01/2008, 05:09 PM
bump one last time

Icefire
03/01/2008, 09:12 PM
I bought 4 ARC 39w tube off ebay, from aquakit in Canada.

All failed in less than 6 month on a Workhorse7.

The problem was the tube, there was a hole right above an electrode in each when they failed.

Running UVL/Hagen/Giesermann for 9-12 months with no prob.

http://www.icegecko.ca/aqua/arc.jpg