Quote:
Originally Posted by theatrus
One factor to consider between different lights is the overall build quality, safety, design for longevity and sourcing of components.
The Chinese Black Box fixtures have one theme: low cost. The drivers probably are not UL listed (or would fail any testing). They're going to be made from cheap parts throughout. The emitters are not top-shelf (or knockoff fake-branded top shelf). The cooling design is going to be marginal. The support is generally someone shipping you parts from China.
Are the EcoTech fixtures filled with $600 more of good quality components? No (in fact their power supplies are also meh, but at least UL/CSA listed). However, you can have more assurances that the engineering and sourcing is done with more care. It will probably last its rated lifetime. EcoTech has a reputation to uphold, and isn't the eBay seller of the month with a "NEW 2016" product (which is the same as the 2015, 2014, ... etc).
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Just how much experience do you have with Chinese made fixtures? Based on your comments, I'd say not much. You made a lot of bad assumptions about fixtures made in China.
Yes there WERE and still ARE some bad actors selling some crappy fixtures, TaoTronics, DSuny and others. But then you don't hear their names mentioned very often anymore, do you? Now it's Maxspect, EverGrow, ReefBreeders, OceanRevive and ReefRadiance. More recently MarsAqua has made a big splash in the shallow end of the pool (ultra low cost). And what buyer would expect the same kind of quality from an $86 MarsAqua led fixture that they would from a $750 EcoTech Radion fixture. Let's be serious.
Having 4 tanks and 2 refugiums with led fixtures from EverGrow, ReefBreeders, OceanRevive and EcoTech (all for over 3 years), I'll tell you that in my personal experience there isn't enough difference between the fixtures made in China by EverGrow (they make RB and OR as well) and EcoTech to justify $50 as far as build quality. In fact the EG made fixtures all run cooler than the EcoTech fixtures. As far as my corals are concerned, they are all equally healthy and all grow equally as well. Getting help from EG in China is a bit of a pain, but they do work with you. RB and OR, both based in the USA, do customer service pretty well, RB probably even better than ET.
If I were looking for a quality led fixture with bells and whistles like sunrise & sunset, or individual channel control of every color led in the fixture, I'd buy a ReefBreeders Photon 16 V-2 for less than half of what an EcoTech Radion cost and not give it a second thought.