Kessil A360 LEDs - lose intensity over time?

[bheron]

Exactly a year ago I purchased 3 new Kessil A360 WE units. One unit died two weeks ago and thanks to a great 2 year warranty I just received my replacment unit. I installed the new light in a daisy chain with other two existing A360s. To me it seems very noticeable the new unit is brighter than the other two. I cleaned the lens of the older two units with isopropyl alcohol as instructed but it still seems they are not as bright as the new unit.

Is this something that expected with LEDs over time? Do they lose intensity? Or is it just my eyes?

[iSeeMax101]

well, I just got mine from Amazon so.... sub'd

[Breadman03]

From memory...

Yes, they do dim overtime. The rated lifespan of the LED is how long it takes to dim a given percentage.

Not reef specific, but worth looking at.

https://www.rabweb.com/100k.php

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/lifetime_white_leds.pdf

[alton]

If you can see the difference, you have a major problem. Find, beg, borrow, steal a PAR meter

[Allentown]

Both mine are 2 years old and seem to be appreciably dimmer than they used to be. My Hydra (135w) at 50% look brighter than my kessils (90w) at 95%.

But if you mixed the 360wE model with the standard 360....the E will be noticeably brighter anyway because they tweaked the drivers as their manufacturing process got improved with better tolerances and less bad chips produced.

I wonder if the E units were are over driven. If so the extra heat will cause them to degrade faster, which was a part of the reason I selected hydra over radions also

For $399 I really need these to have a usable life span of at least 4 years, figure $100 a year isn't much worse than buying bulbs for T5, so if this becomes a trend for LEDS it could potentially turn a lot of customers off the value proposition and be a death nail.

Since most people have to buy 2 or 3 or more units, they are really expecting 5+ years of usable service at minimum.

[sixpackgarage]

if you mixed the 360wE model with the standard 360....the E will be noticeably brighter .

This.

[ca1ore]

OP clearly states that they were all WE models. Doesn't mean there haven't been running manufacturing changes of course. Very interested in hearing if there is a PAR difference. That would be distressing.

[slief]

Exactly a year ago I purchased 3 new Kessil A360 WE units. One unit died two weeks ago and thanks to a great 2 year warranty I just received my replacment unit. I installed the new light in a daisy chain with other two existing A360s. To me it seems very noticeable the new unit is brighter than the other two. I cleaned the lens of the older two units with isopropyl alcohol as instructed but it still seems they are not as bright as the new unit.

Is this something that expected with LEDs over time? Do they lose intensity? Or is it just my eyes?


Silly as it may sound, are you sure you have the daisy chain cable plugged into the correct port on the new light? If you plugged it into the output port of the new light, it won't carry the settings of the other lights but instead will use those from the potentiometers.

That said, I have 8 360WE's on my tank and haven't noticed any decline in intensity either visually or from my Par meter. As the LED's age, I wouldn't expect degredation in the intensity as diodes usually don't decline like that in such a shore amount of time. What would be more likely is a slight shift in color over time.

[Reefvet]

Or is it just my eyes?

Subjective perception is just that, subjective.

My oldest Kessil was built in Aug 2011 and it has not dropped in PAR according to my Apogee meter. I had the meter re-calibrated in May of this year.

I have 3 A150s, 5 A350s and 3 A360Es of varying age and they all are 'up to PAR.' (Sorry couldn't resist that one).

[nickdo]

Exactly a year ago I purchased 3 new Kessil A360 WE units. One unit died two weeks ago and thanks to a great 2 year warranty I just received my replacment unit. I installed the new light in a daisy chain with other two existing A360s. To me it seems very noticeable the new unit is brighter than the other two. I cleaned the lens of the older two units with isopropyl alcohol as instructed but it still seems they are not as bright as the new unit.

Is this something that expected with LEDs over time? Do they lose intensity? Or is it just my eyes?

Maybe some leds died. u can check with your camera, take a picture to lens with all channel opened. check if there are some darks spot(not uv led)

http://www.1023world.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/20130320-kessil-a350-chip.jpg