LED Color Aesthetics: The Emperor’s got no clothes. Or does he?

[zachts]

Originally Posted by tomservo

zachts: I agree that most of the actinic LEDs are crap.. I have had good luck with the Fedy ones, they put two 3w class emitters on a standard sort of chip.. Keeps them much cooler and they will last much longer at 700ma, and I haven't had a single problem with any of their domes burning.

thanks for the tip on the Fedy source, I'll have to look into it. burning lenses isn't realy a heat issue for me, it's related to the UVA in the emmiters causing damage to the plastic. if these Fedy emitters hold up well then they must use the correct UV stable plastic, same as RapidLED used on theirs.

Originally Posted by tomservo

If your light is too purple, you may need to swap some 440-450nm with some 455-460-475.

Thanks, however my purple issue is due to Blue light plus red light = purple light, and the 2700k has mostly red and orange in the spectrum with very little green to offset it. so a more purple look than when mixed with the NW. (to each their own though, everyones eyes pick things up a bit different)

I've got a broad blue range from 445-480 covered, if anything it's too Blue and needs more of the 445nm, and less of the 480nm, but that's getting rather picky. (I've already gone through countless dozens of combinations of chips on this 14 LED "test rig" just to get close. ultimately when expanded for my display tanks it will have each color controllable to really dial things in just right. I just tried to get some where close with all on.)

[zachts]

Originally Posted by stancfii

Thanks Zachts, I was surprised also at how fast I got the lights. I just got the email that morning saying they had been shipped and to give the USPS a day or two to get tracking info online. How about the Luxeon RB vs the Cree XT-E RB? I don't know if my eyes will be able to tell a difference, but I checked binning on the XT-E I'm using. They show 450-465nm. The Luxeon bins Steve's has right now are 440-450nm. Considering most metal halides have a peak from 440-460, I wonder if I should swap out half of my RB for Luxeons.

that would be up to personal aesthetic preference, to my eyes the XTE apear brighter blue, and the Luxeons are a little dimmer more violet shade of blue, but only very slight difference if you fire up two side by side and hold a piece of white paper over them to difuse so you can compare with out getting blinded

the luxeons are more efficient and from what I understand provide light that is a little bit beter suited for photosythesis in corals, but the difference there is probably negligable......