The Perfect Light!

[toddhgr]

Toying with a few ideas that have been rolling around in my head for a while now.....

Let's just say that hypothetically there is a small company that makes custom light fixtures. They will make whatever the customer wants or needs at a very reasonable price on a customer by customer basis. Pendants of various configurations and finishes, tank mount fixtures of any size of shape, basic hood mount fixtures...... Quality drivers, leds, optics, led t5 hybrids, the sky's the limit!

Does this peak anybody's interest? Any particular configuration come to mind? Thoughts, opinions?

 

[dz6t]

Then this company will go out of business fast.

 

[toddhgr]

Ok........ Thanks

 

[toddhgr]

I let the above comment sink in for about 12hrs now. I hesitated to reply with what I actually thought because I didn't want to fly off the handle and overreact. But nope, it still really chaps my ***! ***Dong? Wth kind of reply was that supposed to be? Any chance that you feel like giving a slightly more in-depth slightly less touch-holeish opinion?

 

[jah-hoeva]

Quality, custom, one-offs and affordable does not make a good business model for success...

 

[Coffee with Mango]

There was a company that did this for Led fixtures: BuildMyLed. It was amazing. You could drag and drop LED chips of choice into place and it would show you the color temperature and spectral graphs of what you designed. They were really affordable too. Three years ago I got my custom LED lights there -- I even designed one to mimic the spectrum of the Fiji Purple t5 bulb.

But alas, they have recently decided to discontinue their "custom" business and focus only on their mainstream pre-built designs. That is understandably more profitable for them.

I would have paid more than they were charging for the custom service but maybe others weren't/didn't.

What I would like to see is more DIY type kits for LED's that are a little more accessible to people without an electrician's license. And I'd like to see led fixtures with replaceable "cartridges" so that you don't have to buy a whole new fixture when the white leds fade away after three years.

 

[choff]

Quality, custom, one-offs and affordable does not make a good business model for success...

Custom is a premium service. There is no economy of scale in a custom model to reap the benefits to make it affordable.

If you are doing this as a hobby for fun, go for it. I just wouldn't expect to quit your day job anytime soon.

 

[dz6t]

Buildmyled is one good example. In order to build a custom good quality LED with programming function like AI and Radion, the cost will be higher than just buy an AI or Radion.
There is just no enough market for that.

 

[dz6t]

Now you have ReefBreeders Photon v2 to compete with, they use Cree, Osram, SemiLEDs chips, you just can't build the same custom fixture for similar amount of money.

 

[dz6t]

Also, the "perfect" led light is limited by what kind of LED chips available. There are just not many choice out there. The current batch of premium LED already max out the ability of what you can do with the available LED diode option. Heat sink, lens and software control already been played to max. I am not sure what else you can do until new LED diodes come out that designed for this hobby.
Also, Philips is in the market for reef lighting too.

 

[choff]

Also, the "perfect" led light is limited by what kind of LED chips available. There are just not many choice out there. The current batch of premium LED already max out the ability of what you can do with the available LED diode option. Heat sink, lens and software control already been played to max. I am not sure what else you can do until new LED diodes come out that designed for this hobby.
Also, Philips is in the market for reef lighting too.

You combine with high quality t5!

 

[dz6t]

You combine with high quality t5!

Yes, that is true. To make a ATI Powermodule is not cheap, (nor affordable, lol).

 

[reefstarter]

I am half considering a bunch of black box LEDs and some t5 since most chips come from the same place

 

[KSC]

The perfect light was created 20 years ago. It's called a 20k Radium. Match that up with a LumenXXX reflector and an M80 ballasts and you have the perfect reef light.

 

[showard]

Truth be told, its design. I had 4 of the black box leds over my tank and grew acropora and every other coral just fine. Ga few weeks ago I went to OSRAS, ended up buying the photon v2 48". The colors are much better and I think it would be fair to say its much different. I know thats also not what you stated but I figured I'd lend my account with both. If its for many tanks and budget is a concern get the black box lights, mars aqua and evergrow have decent customer support. If its for 1 display tank, get the photon v2.

Also I figure its worth adding that I have a rainbow bubble tip that is around the size of a silver dollar. It would only stay open for a few hours a day under the black box lights, on from around 10am to 8pm. The literal moment I turned on the v2 it came out much bigger and happer lookong as well. I have a green bta as well, same size, and I thought it died, I guess it was in a dark spot because the same day it came out too (all white and weird looking lol). My corals have shown better growth and seem to be a bit happier. That impressed me quite a bit.

 

[Coffee with Mango]

Truth be told, its design. I had 4 of the black box leds over my tank and grew acropora and every other coral just fine. Ga few weeks ago I went to OSRAS, ended up buying the photon v2 48". The colors are much better and I think it would be fair to say its much different. I know thats also not what you stated but I figured I'd lend my account with both. If its for many tanks and budget is a concern get the black box lights, mars aqua and evergrow have decent customer support. If its for 1 display tank, get the photon v2.

Also I figure its worth adding that I have a rainbow bubble tip that is around the size of a silver dollar. It would only stay open for a few hours a day under the black box lights, on from around 10am to 8pm. The literal moment I turned on the v2 it came out much bigger and happer lookong as well. I have a green bta as well, same size, and I thought it died, I guess it was in a dark spot because the same day it came out too (all white and weird looking lol). My corals have shown better growth and seem to be a bit happier. That impressed me quite a bit.

Hmmm... just looked at the photon v2 and it looks like what I am looking for. I was thinking about the new HYdras but they have more features than I really want to pay for. What size fixture do you have over what size tank?

 

[s_kelley]

The perfect light was created 20 years ago. It's called a 20k Radium. Match that up with a LumenXXX reflector and an M80 ballasts and you have the perfect reef light.

Ooh I love the radium 20k look

 

[toddhgr]

Thank you for all the responses! The custom part was just par of the idea. To be honest I haven't really considered it to much and you guys make some pretty good points about that. The fixtures that I was really thinking a lot about would be 2 main types. One would be a kessil style pendant using either Bridgelux multichip 20k leds or an array of Crees. The other type would outwardly look like a slim MH using the same 20k microchips and t5ho supplements. I would not be trying to market it as anything huge not would I try to produce anything on a large scale. I would just like to be able to provide a quality built light without the ridiculous premium price tag.

 

[Coffee with Mango]

Thank you for all the responses! The custom part was just par of the idea. To be honest I haven't really considered it to much and you guys make some pretty good points about that. The fixtures that I was really thinking a lot about would be 2 main types. One would be a kessil style pendant using either Bridgelux multichip 20k leds or an array of Crees. The other type would outwardly look like a slim MH using the same 20k microchips and t5ho supplements. I would not be trying to market it as anything huge not would I try to produce anything on a large scale. I would just like to be able to provide a quality built light without the ridiculous premium price tag.

I would be happy to buy something that focuses more on good quality light and less on all the wireless/cloud/super-duper program-ability nonsense. I really don't need to program clouds and storms crossing across my display tank, for example.

 

[dz6t]

check out the Zetlight
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/zt-6600a-led-light-apex-ready-zetlight.html