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08/01/2010, 06:44 PM | #26 |
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i think this is why AI and others are heading towards the tri puck idea...
white, blue and royal blue...to get some more pop... |
08/02/2010, 05:49 AM | #27 |
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Folks, we all know a call for pictures is inherently flawed as a foolproof method of comparison... for LOTS of reasons not worth expounding here. But the fact remains that in this hobby - in this forum - self taken pictures are often used as "proof" of something. It ain't perfect, but it's the best we've got.
And we should all also know that if I'd have asked this same question about T5's not holding up to Metal Halide, we'd be swimming in pictures by now. But when you ask about LED's, you get excuses. But no pics. So what does that mean? Not enough people with LED's to have conquered the unique white-balance challenge? Maybe. Or is it that the emperor has no clothes... and that when trying to duplicate a 12-14K look, it just doesn't hold up to a good MH combo? You be the judge. Based on knowing how much people like to show off here, and the large number of people reading this thread, I've got my suspicions... and it's not problems with white balance.
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08/02/2010, 05:52 AM | #28 |
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And to be clear, so we don't have to deal with questions about different people liking different things... this is about LEDs comparing favorably with a conventionally illuminated tank with a 12-14K look.
We all know what that looks like. Right? Short of the "I like my tanks blue" crowd, it's probably the most common type of lighting seen.
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08/02/2010, 08:42 AM | #29 |
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getting ready to make the jump
this is a timely thread for me. I've got a 100G/48" of tank to light. Currently running actinics T5's and 20K 250x2. I've decided I'm not willing to pay for the power or deal with the heat any longer.
I sure hope this thread keeps active!
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08/02/2010, 09:37 AM | #30 | |
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Quote:
I like the look of the LED tank personally, but mostly because it seems like they are the same light, but the LED tank doesn't light up the room like the MH one, and the MH tank needs a chiller, where the LED is good on its own. If my camera wasn't in for repair I would take a picture for everyone, and it would be as close to actual color as possible. At least I hope $7500 worth of camera and 12 years can get a non biased picture. |
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08/02/2010, 10:03 AM | #31 |
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Maybe we need to have a definitive picture of what 12k is supposed to look like before anyone goes bashing LED's. FWIW, the 12k Cannon is just white light- no tinge of blue. What should a real 12k look like?
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08/02/2010, 10:07 AM | #32 |
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What BIN were the cw / rb from?
From my experience, with the maxspect g2's I owned, with just the cool white 3w "which were as cool white if not more so than the cree we's" + royal blue 3w "similar to a d3 bin cree rb" my coloration was fantastic. In fact, better than the EVC, Aqualine AB, Ushio BLV bulbs I had run previously. I personally do not find the cool whites to be a problem, I do find people picking up the totally wrong spectrum royal blues however which throws the whole color of the tank off significantly. Just a thought. IMO part of the brightness problem "may" be from you using such narrow optics and hanging the fixture way up over the tank. Try going to the 60 degree optics or even 80 degree optics and get the fixture down closer to the tank and see how you like that. Last note, On my maxspects, I ran 18 rb to 14 cw per fixture which gave the outstanding color. On the apex, you could simply choose not to run the whites at full power, but keep them down 10 or 20% or so until you find the color you like.
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08/02/2010, 10:17 AM | #33 |
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This whole thread is a little confusing. Your complaining about color rendition of LED's being washed out or artificicial, and the then implying that T5 and halide lights are natural? Take your coral outside and see what they really look like! People have just chosen to grow corals that hold the colors "they think are natural" or "most desired" under the most prevalent forms of artificial lighting. Try diving without a light and see how "colorful" all these items are when you are 30ft+ under water. Bland and monotone are the first words that come to mind. Nothing is red, green, yellow, purple or orange. It is either bluish or black without supplemental lighting. If the corals grow the LED's are a good enough representation of the sun which is what all reefers are after. There is a local reef store in my town that runs %100 percent LED lighting in their store. I have been there many times and never noticed the corals looking washed out or appearing like they are under a black light. Is it possible your washed out is really partially bleached or not acclimated to the new lighting? This takes a coral months not weeks or days to adjust. I remember not 3-4 years ago when the same was said about T5.
Last edited by jgrog76; 08/02/2010 at 10:44 AM. |
08/02/2010, 10:41 AM | #34 | |
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Quote:
Sure there's a couple of fanboy LED guys that believe LED's can do no wrong - but honestly, is there a reefing technology that doesn't have its share of fanboys, whether it's lighting/filtration/additives/maintenance regiments, etc? I've got a 5 foot tank with the prototypical LED build over it and the whites absolutely and definitely overpower the tank when they are on. I for one will be replacing some of them with different colors and seeing what happens. In fact the only reason i haven't and i suspect others haven;t yet isn't because i refuse to acknowledge what i built wasn't the greatest, but because it's a royal PITA to take these things down, unsolder/resolder and get them back up/connected and tested.
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08/02/2010, 05:12 PM | #35 | ||||
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Quote:
Quote:
My LED fixture has never been on for more than 5 minutes at a time. And I haven’t done that more than 3 times. I've got an open top with hanging mounts to suspend my Orbit. On a few short occasions I've turned off the Orbit. Pulled it down, mounted the LED and fired it up. That followed by the reverse... giving me an A:B:A lighting comparison in the span of 15 minutes. Net net, my corals have never seen an LED for more than a few minutes at a time. The color change is surely not an acclimation issue. Great question. Don't know. And maybe that's part of the problem. Will look into that though. Thanks. Quote:
Quote:
PERSONAL GENERAL DISCLAIMER I'm excited about LEDs, and what they can mean to the hobby. Wait 'till you see the fixture I just built. I sunk serious effort into it to make it look nice. Because I WANT this to work. Which only amplifies my disappointment with the color difference I found. And from what some people have posted here, it appears I'm not the only one. Will I settle with it? Maybe. It's not horrible. And the fluorescence is cool. It reduces heat and saves electricity. Those are all good reasons for a modest esthetic compromise. And FWIW – one of my kids (young adult) that has a great eye for color and composition likes the LEDs better than the Radium/actinic combo. So this question is definitely in the eye of that beholder. But the experience taught me that either something is very wrong (like optics, bin, LED selection, color mix), or the standard Cree XR-E Cool White/Royal Blue mix does not create a tank with as much color saturation (except for those screaming fluorescents) as some MH combos. And THAT seemed worthy of discussion. Keep those pics coming.
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08/02/2010, 06:17 PM | #36 |
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I would try a few different leds and see if that changes the colors around "ones from a more blueish purple BIN line the RB D3's to start. I did a large group buy on these particular spectrum leds and will have extra if you want to give some a shot.
As I said, some people when they get into leds tend to think "and it would be normal to think this" that an led labeled say "royal blue" would be the same as the next led labeled the same thing. They are DRASTICALLY different color wise, same with the whites. And remember, when you change over optics to say 60 degree's, then drop the fixture accordingly rather than keeping it the same height.
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08/03/2010, 05:53 AM | #37 |
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Thanks for the generous offer Garage1217! I'm assuming my problem is with the whites. Not the blues. I understand that there can be huge variances in the blues. But IF the problem is with the whites, why would I swap the blues.
Thanks!
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08/03/2010, 06:43 AM | #38 |
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wrong forum wrong planet you live in.
Dive into the other forums and ignorance will be addressed.
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08/03/2010, 06:57 AM | #39 |
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blasterman789, I'm sure you have some knowledge to share, but the fashion you are going about it is just coming across as a noisy rant.
As far as true LED color, I wonder if color of growth vs type of LED's can be used as a measurement instead. |
08/03/2010, 07:07 AM | #40 |
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There has been some discussion around the white issue (besides blasterman). I pointed out in the DIY thread that I've been doing a good deal of research as I work toward my LED build. I'm not concerning myslef with 'natural' or 'reproducing sunlight'. I'm comparing against typical MH and T5 setups. LEDs have the PAR. That's been established. But comparing the spectral plots of LEDs with MH and T5 there are notable differences. Here's what I said in that thread:
If you compare the aforementioned Cree XP-G white spectral plots to T5 spectra (as opposed to MH) the issue becomes even more clear. Since T5's use phosphors (like white LEDs) we see the same kind of 'multi-banding'. Look at the UVL ActinicWhite and AquaSun, for example. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/3/review We see the signature peaks at ~435nm, ~480nm, ~540nm, ~605nm Now compare the outputs of the different XP-G whites: http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/xlampxp-g.pdf The RB's have a peak at ~460nm and the Blues at ~475nm Compared to T5's our use of RB puts us a bit above the actinic component that ranges from ~420nm to ~450nm (that ~435nm peak). This is probably why we keep seeing "Does anyone know where I can get 420nm LED" threads. IMO this has translated into people believing they need UVA when what they truly need is more output in the violet (~420nm) spectrum. On the XP-G spectral plot you can see that a combination of NW and WW LEDs would give you the peaks at ~540nm and ~605nm respectively. But we're left sucking wind at that ~480nm (cyan) peak. Does that matter? I don't know. But we should work to find out. We know we have the PAR with LEDs. But there are people complaining about loss of color in corals. Seems like (all things being equal) that would have to rest in spectral issues. Keep in mind, when we measure PAR we are measuring a range of photosynthetic active wavelengths. So, if we measured a PAR of 300 for a combination of emitters that had outputs of 25% at 435nm, 25% at 480nm, 25% at 540nm and 25% at 605nm would that be the same as a PAR of 300 produced by a group of emitters where 100% of the output was at 540nm? It's only my hunch but I don't believe zooxanthellae are quite that indescriminant. It seems more like that they have very specialized (evolved) spectral requirements. Anywhere along the PAR spectrum is unlikely to suffice, IMO. If you look at MH spectra http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...4/review17.htm (10K shown here) you can see the peaks at ~420nm, ~450nm, ~530nm, ~575nm and ~600nm (we'll ignore the IR peaks --- we hate those). Clearly, a combination of WW and NW will cover the 575 and 600 peaks better than CW. RB/B along with the whites will cover that ~450nm peak. We're again short on the ~530nm and ~420nm peaks. We do know that T5 and MH work really well supporting reefs. IMO, I believe we need to work toward making our LED builds replicate the conditions created by lighting that we KNOW works and looks good to our (subjective) eyes. Keep my PAR example in mind. |
08/03/2010, 07:36 AM | #41 |
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Agree currently adding a set of t5 for supps to my 4 ai modules
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08/03/2010, 12:29 PM | #42 |
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sounds like if we want the color that everybody is used to that we will have to find a source of high power LEDs that come in those wave lengths and mix them in with the regular CW and RB LEDs that are commonly used right now.
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08/03/2010, 05:51 PM | #43 | |
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Maybe I was mistaken in my thinking, but I didn't see this as a strict DIY issue per se. The question of whether Cree XR-E LEDs hold up to some other forms of lighting does not appear - to me - to be a subject restricted to DIY. It's a lighting issue that affects the whole hobby... DIY'ers and off-the-shelf'ers.
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08/03/2010, 06:45 PM | #44 |
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So that I could demonstrate what I was talking about, here are some pics. All taken within the last 48 hours. All of these shots are COMPLETELY unaltered, EXCEPT for the white balance corrections my camera imposes. Visually, I'd say these shots are reasonable faithful to the colors in real life. Not perfect. But close enough for the dialogue this might stimulate.
Only because I requested Full Tank Shots (FTS's), here's a shot of my tank under the Radium and actinics, followed by the LED with XR-E CW's and RB's. Radium and actinics XR-E CW's and RB's But to get a little more detail, for a closer comparison, I decided to take some close-ups of a few different subjects under four different conditions. I've grouped them together by subject matter, for ease of comparison. The four sets of lighting conditions were all created today, all within a few minutes of each other. The first condition was my 150W 20K Radium with PC actinics (photographed last in actual fact though... and some zoas started closing up from the dark period as I had been swapping lights). Second is 12 Cree XR-E's Cool Whites and 12 Royal Blues. The CW's were dimmed until the sand no longer looked purple, but the dark white tone that is actually is. The next is just the same Cool Whites, with no blue. And finally is the Royal Blues, no white. The subjects are three clusters of zoa's, numbered 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Followed by some GSP and a Maxima. Then a blue and green acan, and finally a red and blue acan. Hope this at least sheds some light on what I'm seeing. Enjoy.
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08/03/2010, 06:46 PM | #45 |
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Zoa Colony Number 1
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues
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08/03/2010, 06:47 PM | #46 |
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Zoa Colony Number 2
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues
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08/03/2010, 06:47 PM | #47 |
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Zoa Colony Number 3
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues
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08/03/2010, 06:48 PM | #48 |
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GSP and Maxima
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues
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08/03/2010, 06:49 PM | #49 |
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blue and green acan
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues
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08/03/2010, 06:50 PM | #50 |
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red and blue acan
Radium with PC actinics XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues XR-E Cool Whites XR-E Royal Blues Hopefully by comparing the same subjects in a variety of lighting conditions, it will help clarify some of the color differences. To my eye, the Cool Whites do nothing but harm to the palate, except to temper the deep purple/blue of the royal blues. The pop - as we all know - from the Royal Blues it great. But if you're looking for a less blue look, there's GOT to be better color from "white" LED's out there than what these Cool Whites cast.
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