chinese led lights

[Vince]

It seems that this thread has generated a demand for these Chinese leds. Most sellers on Ebay have increased their prices these past few days.

[tntneon]

-Then we have to stop posting to keep prices down

I experienced the same with a local dealer of chinese led fixtures , in two month's time the price went up from 259 € to a blistering 400 € for a dimmable 60w xp-g fixture .
Luckly i had mine at 259 € ( +/-300 $)

greetingzz tntneon

[TropTrea]

It is called supply and demand. When I had my pet store another general merchandice store lowered there Aquarium supplies so they were under my wholesale cost. When I cosed my doors it took them roughly a month and every one of there prices were considerably more than what I would had charged. They were the only ones in the ball park so they could charge what they wanted to cherge and there customers were simply in buy it or don;t buy it situation unless they wanted to travel 30 miles to the next closest aquarium store.

[david pinder]

Ive run the 1 wt leds on ebay for a yr in the 120 wt and 200 wt fixtures and I did like them. Have replaced most of them with the 3 wt crees which are doing even better. Started by buying 9 of the 60 wt, have now bought another 6 of the 144 wt. My corals for the most part are loving them. My dislike is the controllers an now only buying ones without controllers, there also much cheaper, 1 Ive had trouble with controllers which they did replace on 4 60s. 2nd When the electicity gos out I have to reset the controllers, just tooo much trouble, Still looking to buy more as I can afford them. Running 2400 gals of reef tanks is why I need so many. There now coming out with a 188 wt cree

[GroYurOwn]

Thanks for the tip on the fans cbm369.

I wanted to post a pic of my blue monti - first pic was taken on 3-4, you can see the growth edge is white, and the tips of growth were white also.

Second pic was this weekend. The polyps are much lighter in color, and pretty much all of the monti is a nice baby blue. So as far as colors go, I am confident these cheap LEDs can do the job. This monti is on the sand bed. Unfortunately because of the blue LED lighting, and the learning curve on taking pics in that lighting the thing actually looks much bluer than it was...

[jrp1588]

Anyone ever notice the fans on these turning themselves off? I'm thinking they may be hooked up to a thermostat or something and turn off when the LEDs get too cool. Or perhaps my fans are malfunctioning. Who knows

[rrasco]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

Anyone ever notice the fans on these turning themselves off? I'm thinking they may be hooked up to a thermostat or something and turn off when the LEDs get too cool. Or perhaps my fans are malfunctioning. Who knows

Could be either, but it's not uncommon for fans to be temp-controlled. No point in running them over a cool chip.

[TropTrea]

LED's are most effecient at a said temperature. If the LED's are under that temp it is more economical to turn the fans off. But I realy doubt that more than 1/2 of the manufacturers use a thermostat to either control the fans or to safe guard the LED's from over heating.

[tntneon]

-The 48 X 3 W G4 eshine fixture i have with sunrise controller even let you see how warm they are , the fans running very very quit , i never had hoped for such noise - free fans , only the driver fan you can hear .
-The older fixture over my nano (60 w) has a very big heatsinck and when the fan goes on (only 3 times a day for 5 minutes) , it produces alot more noise.
You realy see these chinese fixtures progressing in quality

greetingzz tntneon

[Boxfish]

Well after much thought and research on this thread and many others here Ive decided to go with a DIY LED. Much thanks to Dennis "TropTrea" for TONS of help and time you should see my PM box. Anyway started a DIY thread if anyones interested.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5#post20014015

Thanks everyone

[jrp1588]

Well my fans were indeed malfunctioning on one of my 2 units. My fans haven't worked all day. There is a small black box within the fixture that controls the 3 PC chassis fans. Figuring that was the cause of the issue, I connected the fan controller from the working fixture to the malfunctioning fixture and the fans spun right up.

I contacted the ebay seller to see if I could get some parts under the 3 year warranty. I really don't want to have to ship the whole fixture.

[najla]

I do not show the success of the tank, just shows the comparison shimmer, all using LED china

[najla]

20 watt 20k led chip


comparison with pl

LED


PL Philips 40 watt

[jrp1588]

The ebay company I ordered from is sending me an entirely new light just because of the faulty fan controller. haha. The didn't mention anything about sending the broken light back to them either. Maybe I'll have one I can use for spare parts now!

[BigCountry74]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

The ebay company I ordered from is sending me an entirely new light just because of the faulty fan controller. haha. The didn't mention anything about sending the broken light back to them either. Maybe I'll have one I can use for spare parts now!

lol

No doubt. They are simply using cheap PC fans anyway. Replacing the controller + fan should be easy. To be honest you might not even need it. These boxes run super cool if mounted out in the open.

[jrp1588]

Eh, I felt it and I didn't like how warm it was getting. I wish I could find where they are getting their fan controllers so I could buy one and have a third fully working unit in case I want a bigger tank down the road. I searched for a good hour and found nothing though. What do the DIY LED guys do?

[BigCountry74]

most the DIY mount them to alum rails (heatsinks), they dont utilize fans like these black boxes do. they use fans mosty for exhaust out of the canopy etc.

you could daisy chain the fans in the box to a plug in AC/DC adapter. heck you might have an AC/DC adapter laying around the house that could power the fans. I have not taken apart one of the boxes yet so I am not sure how many fans are in there. 2, 3?

your gonna have one extra power cord for the fans, but that's prob the easiest way to do it since we do not know how these boxes were made/wired. **** neither does the middleman either, or he would have just sent you the part you needed...LOL

[Malcolm_C]

I decided to go with the eshine. Cree led's I need some opinions on hood layout. i didn't add the 30 degree reflector, but i would like to hear some opinions. the tank is about 500 gallons all sps. my drawing is crude. if you have other suggestions let me know. the tank has two large openings with a center brace in the middle. about 28'' deep most sps will be at the halfway point of the tank. but i will probably add clams later.

[jrp1588]

Originally Posted by BigCountry74

most the DIY mount them to alum rails (heatsinks), they dont utilize fans like these black boxes do. they use fans mosty for exhaust out of the canopy etc.

you could daisy chain the fans in the box to a plug in AC/DC adapter. heck you might have an AC/DC adapter laying around the house that could power the fans. I have not taken apart one of the boxes yet so I am not sure how many fans are in there. 2, 3?

your gonna have one extra power cord for the fans, but that's prob the easiest way to do it since we do not know how these boxes were made/wired. **** neither does the middleman either, or he would have just sent you the part you needed...LOL

The wiring inside was very simple. The ground wires went to a screw on the chassis of the light. The live and neutral wires went to a power supply for the LEDs. They also spliced into the live and neutral lines and run those to what I was calling a fan controller, but I think it's actually an integrated AC/DC adapter. From there it powers all 3 fans. I'm betting I could just cut off the wall socket plug you have pictures and splice it into the wiring harness that they use.

[BigCountry74]

Yup you could do that exactly

[jrp1588]

Awesome. You know about how big that AC/DC adapter is that you have pictured? Not a tone of space inside the light.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by Malcolm_C

I decided to go with the eshine. Cree led's I need some opinions on hood layout. i didn't add the 30 degree reflector, but i would like to hear some opinions. the tank is about 500 gallons all sps. my drawing is crude. if you have other suggestions let me know. the tank has two large openings with a center brace in the middle. about 28'' deep most sps will be at the halfway point of the tank. but i will probably add clams later.

I like your bottom lay out better. but put the fixtures close together so they are at least 6" from the front of the tank. Your height will determine if you will need lenses and what degree to get.

[TropTrea]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

The wiring inside was very simple. The ground wires went to a screw on the chassis of the light. The live and neutral wires went to a power supply for the LEDs. They also spliced into the live and neutral lines and run those to what I was calling a fan controller, but I think it's actually an integrated AC/DC adapter. From there it powers all 3 fans. I'm betting I could just cut off the wall socket plug you have pictures and splice it into the wiring harness that they use.

Inspect the fans. Most companies use off the shelf fans which have a rating label on them. The rating label will tell you if you AC or DC power and what voltage you need.

[jrp1588]

Pretty positive they are computer fans, which I'm fairly sure are 12v DC.

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by Malcolm_C

I decided to go with the eshine. Cree led's I need some opinions on hood layout. i didn't add the 30 degree reflector, but i would like to hear some opinions. the tank is about 500 gallons all sps. my drawing is crude. if you have other suggestions let me know. the tank has two large openings with a center brace in the middle. about 28'' deep most sps will be at the halfway point of the tank. but i will probably add clams later.

Why not go for 6 units of 60X3 w G4 eshine (total 1080w leds) , there weight is almost the same of a classic 60w pannel.
And they have far more silent fans.
I have the clasic 60w over my nano tank , and it is a good fixture , but the G4's are more silent and and don't have that heavy heatsincks no more (thick 2.5 ").
Just an opinion

greetingzz tntneon