LFP's Xenon Projection and Cree LED DIY lighting system.

[liveforphysics]

You've not seen lighting like this before.


http://glassbox-design.com/2009/part...ghting-system/

Enjoy!


-Luke

[Godoftheseas]

That is incredible i cant wait to see the growth.

[areze]

what do you get? a waste of money.

10 HID bulbs? or... 2 250w MH bulbs. Ill replace 2 bulbs thanks. and Ill put them on a sweet reflector for vertical penetration of the light for maximum efficiency.

and Ill use MH bulbs that have a spectrum that is specialized to precise wavelengths needed for photosynthesis and flourescence in corals.

the LEDs are nice, the automotive HID bulbs are a total waste unfortunatly. sorry.

*we actually had a very recent thread with another poster trying this automotive HID idea.

[NanoReefWanabe]

Originally posted by areze
what do you get? a waste of money.

10 HID bulbs? or... 2 250w MH bulbs. Ill replace 2 bulbs thanks. and Ill put them on a sweet reflector for vertical penetration of the light for maximum efficiency.

and Ill use MH bulbs that have a spectrum that is specialized to precise wavelengths needed for photosynthesis and flourescence in corals.

the LEDs are nice, the automotive HID bulbs are a total waste unfortunatly. sorry.

*we actually had a very recent thread with another poster trying this automotive HID idea.

i am not sure you could light a 300g tank with 2 250 watt bulbs...and not light the glass at the same time...

he said he used a spectral analysis of the bulbs to chose the ones in the correct photosynthectic range.

you did read the article right?

anyway...LFP, neat idea...it would be nice to clean up the overall look of the fixture though...after all cleanliness is next to godliness, and we are certainly trying to achieve godliness in this hobby..

[areze]

and Im not sure that he did light a 300g tank with 9 HID bulbs.

just because you put a light on there means nothing... I lit my 240g tank with 2 250w MHs. did it make it optimal? lol no depite it supporting SPS and clams, now I have 1800w on it.

about all the setup accomplished was having more point sources to distribute less light around which admittedly just 2 MHs despite IMO more par, would not have had the coverage to do from a purely physical limitation of spread. which is for our own benefit, as a greater spread doesnt meet our needs for par or vertical entry to the water.

[Mishap]

There are a few manufacturer's out there using the HID lamps now. I've seen 150w versions so far and they are very impressive.

I like where you're going with this so please keep us updated on growth and performance!

[Phillybean]

I really want to see a par comparison of various spots of the tank (like Melev when he upgraded his lights/reflectors)

[seawandrr]

Why all the negativity in a DYI forum? If you want to discuss standard 250w installations, there's an equipment forum for that, go have fun.

DYI can take at least two forms... replicating commercially available products for less money by building them yourself, or experimenting with ideas and solutions that aren't commercially available.

LFP's projects falls into the latter category, pushing the boundaries of what can be done with VFD's, new ideas in skimmer designs, improved hand-build venturi designs, LED's, etc..

I'm really glad he has the time, knowledge, and drive to push the boundaries in reefing technology and then share the results with us. It has already benifited my DYI projects helping shift them from just creating cheaper solutions, to being able to do things that aren't commercially available, such as VFD's on closed loops.

Originally posted by areze
what do you get? a waste of money.

10 HID bulbs? or... 2 250w MH bulbs. Ill replace 2 bulbs thanks. and Ill put them on a sweet reflector for vertical penetration of the light for maximum efficiency.

and Ill use MH bulbs that have a spectrum that is specialized to precise wavelengths needed for photosynthesis and flourescence in corals.

the LEDs are nice, the automotive HID bulbs are a total waste unfortunatly. sorry.

*we actually had a very recent thread with another poster trying this automotive HID idea.

[areze]

as I posted in the other thread, xenon lights are less efficient than MH lights. and ongoing costs of multiple bulbs are more expensive.

thats end of the game. all for improving the status quo. but that doesnt mean you throw reason out the window for the sake of being different.

or have I overlooked some detail?

I mean, I look at a list of lighting designs and efficiencies and I see MH and I see 2 things more efficient than MH, LEDs and high pressure sodium lighting. sodium lighting however is the wrong spectrum(but if anyone can DIY to change that, Id be all for that) and LEDs, well we know what LEDs can do, and there is a huge world out there for DIY with LEDs, but its pricey, but worth pursueing anyway.

[seawandrr]

I've never seen Luke throw reason out the window... If you go back and read his write-up, he has very specific reasons to try this, as far as visual (light cut-off control), and watt-usage goals for his tank.

Just because someone is willing to spend money, or time, or some other resource to try and achieve either a visual goal such as not lighting the glass. Or even more importantly, the true inventors spirit, trying new things, new ideas, even before they're efficient or cost effective, just to experiment with how they work, if they work, to advance our base of knowledge. Heck, I bet he even has *fun* trying this stuff out...

The key is, do they have the engineering knowledge, tools, material resources, etc, to do it... Yes, reason is sometimes thrown out the window when non-engineering types try experimenting without understanding the core details.

Heck, I think even his tank design is crazy... plywood bottom, stainless frame, magical high-tech sealent mixed up by some guy who probably can't post his name publically. But the point is he has the resources and knowledge and contacts to pull this stuff off, and we're all better for his experiments.

I'm looking forward to the onging results of this, even if I never decide to head this direction with my tank lighting. I've already used his VFD info, and Venturi build info in my projects, two out of how many, 5-6 major experimentation intiatives isn't bad.

[A.T.T.R]

\
if he could actualy SHOW some numbers then he may be onto somthing

id like to see the par of these bulbs at a distance of 12 inches throu air from center then wed have some numbers to start talking about.


probloms start when things such as this are seen by new hobbiest who don fully grasp taht it is experimental/

tell me just cause 1 LED type system worked ho many people do you see wanting to make light systems from LED's bought at raioshack

[liveforphysics]

Seawandrr-

Thank you.

In a sea of closed minds, its great to have someone with their head above water.

[MeuserReef]

Originally posted by liveforphysics
In a sea of closed minds, its great to have someone with their head above water.

My thoughts exactly...

I (personally) applaud your efforts to reduce the electrical consumption of your reef and to "create", rather than "replicate".

How do you feel you did with respect to PAR penetration with these lamps vs. the T5/MH/LED setup you had previously?

[areze]

Originally posted by liveforphysics
Seawandrr-

Thank you.

In a sea of closed minds, its great to have someone with their head above water.

since when are logical shortcoming "close minds"

if you want to discuss it because your right and there is something I dont know, then we can have a great thread here. if you want to just dismiss my information, despite being true, then youve only proven my point. no use in an engineer if he turns a blind eye to problems.

Im going to fly to the moon with water and baking soda, and to hell with anyone that points out why I cant

[MeuserReef]

areze... why so bitter sounding? If it turns out that LFP's lighting scheme is inferior to other "off-the-shelf" reef lighting setups, so what? The effort given here to CREATE and SHARE is what this forum (quite frankly) needs more of!

[JACOXVIII]

areze is wrong and always will be

i have been at it for 3 hr to day back and forth
but areze will not give up

this is a DIY
thank you liveforphysics plz keep it coming
thank you seawandrr

this is what he think is fact / logic
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=3



'""Originally posted by areze
I think its time for hard numbers to put this to rest...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy
Lighting type lumens/watt efficiency
xenon arc lamp 30–50lm/w 4.4–7.3%
metal halide lamp 65–115lm/w 9.5–17%

end of game, you barking up a dead end trying to use xenon lamps.

want to know why we dont use MH in cars? too sensitive to vibration, they wouldnt be reliable. they also have a significant warm up period for automotive use.

just for fun
white LED 10–100 1.5–15%

I want to mention that the spectrums that we work with for both xenon and MH are closer to the bottom of the lm/w range. for LEDs, 10 is for 5mm LEDs, 100 is low voltage cree XRE, in reality a PFO solaris is probably in the 90lm/w range. """""


so he skimmed wikipedia

a thought the hid kits LFP is using are xenon arc lamp
but they are mh with xenon gas to make the fire faster / cold weather

look what i found from your link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headla...9_light_sources

HID stands for high-intensity discharge, a technical term for the electric arc that produces the light. The high intensity of the arc comes from metallic salts that are vapourised within the arc chamber. These lamps are formally known as gas-discharge burners, and produce more light for a given level of power consumption than ordinary tungsten and tungsten-halogen bulbs. Because of the increased amounts of light available from HID burners relative to halogen bulbs, HID headlamps producing a given beam pattern can be made smaller than halogen headlamps producing a comparable beam pattern. Alternatively, the larger size can be retained, in which case the xenon headlamp can produce a more robust beam pattern.

Automotive HID lamps are commonly called 'xenon headlamps', though they are actually metal halide lamps that contain xenon gas. The xenon gas allows the lamps to produce minimally adequate light immediately upon powerup, and accelerates the lamps' run-up time. If argon were used instead, as is commonly done in street lights and other stationary metal halide lamp applications, it would take several minutes for the lamps to reach their full output


so a metal halide lamp 65–115 [23] 9.5–17%

and a HID headlamp burners produce between 2,800 and 3,500 lumens from between 35 and 38 watts of electrical power

that 80--100

[liveforphysics]

Areze, I truly do hate making this sort of reply, but I think you had to know this was coming to you.

Originally posted by areze
what do you get? a waste of money.
I hadn’t even known you were the manager of my finances. Does this mean all things you perceive to be expensive are a waste of money? The reality that exists outside of the perceptions of Areze gives me reduced costs in all areas except initial investment, which is higher than many other types of lighting, but still much lower than some.
10 HID bulbs? or... 2 250w MH bulbs. Ill replace 2 bulbs thanks. and Ill put them on a sweet reflector for vertical penetration of the light for maximum efficiency.
I wouldn’t dream of stopping you from using a pair of 250w MH bulbs. I have 24 square feet of bottom area, and I’ve used a few different types of lighting for my tank. 4x400w MH bulbs, 4x250w MH bulbs, then 12x54w T5HO + 4x70w MH + LEDs. Now I’m using xenon/LED, and while the T5HO setup gave me very good lighting performance, I’m very happy with the unique attributes that the Xenon lighting provides me that MH or T5 can’t provide.
and Ill use MH bulbs that have a spectrum that is specialized to precise wavelengths needed for photosynthesis and fluorescence in corals.
I sorted through and tested a whole pile of different high Kelvin Xenon lamps. The bulbs I’m using have excellent spectrums for photosynthesis.
the LEDs are nice, the automotive HID bulbs are a total waste unfortunately. sorry.
Please don’t feel pressured to spend your money on them, or the feel need to pity and console my spending.
*we actually had a very recent thread with another poster trying this automotive HID idea.

I do recall someone making a fool of themselves in that thread as well.

Originally posted by areze
and Im not sure that he did light a 300g tank with 9 HID bulbs.
You’re right. It’s just a massively labor intensive practical joke, or perhaps it’s all just photoshop.
just because you put a light on there means nothing... I lit my 240g tank with 2 250w MHs. did it make it optimal? lol no depite it supporting SPS and clams, now I have 1800w on it.

about all the setup accomplished was having more point sources to distribute less light around which admittedly just 2 MHs despite IMO more par, would not have had the coverage to do from a purely physical limitation of spread. which is for our own benefit, as a greater spread doesnt meet our needs for par or vertical entry to the water.

If you can’t manage to get your tank lit with less than 1800w of light, it must not be possible as you’ve shown all laws of nature strictly prohibit its occurrence. If I only could have known this sooner, it could have saved me so much time. My light meter must also be involved in this elaborate plot to fool me into thinking that I’m lighting my tank more than adequately. I actually didn’t even end up mounting all the parts I bought, just because I was all ready reaching into the photo-inhibition levels of intensity with only 9 projectors.

Originally posted by areze
as I posted in the other thread, xenon lights are less efficient than MH lights. and ongoing costs of multiple bulbs are more expensive.
To re-lamp my previous setup required 12x T5 bulbs and 4x MH bulbs. I would normally spend about $500 yearly to re-lamp. To completely re-lamp my current setup I will spend around $200. Xenon lamps also don’t have phosphors to degrade, so it will be interesting to see what the re-lamping interval will be.
Xenon gas discharge lamps can and do achieve 100lm/w. They have no inefficiency of Phosphor conversions associated with fluorescent and MH. The efficiency numbers you are seeing are for pure Xenon short arc bulbs. This is an entirely different bulb type.

thats end of the game. all for improving the status quo. but that doesnt mean you throw reason out the window for the sake of being different. or have I overlooked some detail?
Perhaps even a few.


I mean, I look at a list of lighting designs and efficiencies and I see MH and I see 2 things more efficient than MH, LEDs and high pressure sodium lighting. sodium lighting however is the wrong spectrum(but if anyone can DIY to change that, Id be all for that) and LEDs, well we know what LEDs can do, and there is a huge world out there for DIY with LEDs, but its pricey, but worth pursueing anyway.

Contrary to popular belief, your corals could care less about bulb lumens. Your corals only care about the intensity and spectrum of the light that contacts their photosynthetic parts. The beauty of this system is in the delivery of light to the corals rather than indiscriminately to all the places that I’m not trying to grow things.

Originally posted by areze
since when are logical shortcoming "close minds"

if you want to discuss it because your right and there is something I dont know, then we can have a great thread here. if you want to just dismiss my information, despite being true, then youve only proven my point. no use in an engineer if he turns a blind eye to problems.
I hope I was able to clear up some things for you.


Im going to fly to the moon with water and baking soda, and to hell with anyone that points out why I cant

Don’t feel pressured to send a postcard upon arrival.

[Ehaze]

that is verry cool, but not cost effective. T5/MH still own this hobby.

[liveforphysics]

My tank has a lot of bottom area. It’s roughly 6ft x4ft. That’s about 24 square feet of bottom area, or about 2.2 meters squared. If you were to pick a number like 500PAR to have across the whole bottom area, you that you only need to get about 6,000lumens of light to actually arrive where you need it. I’m making somewhere around 40,000-45,000lumens total, and projecting it with great efficiency only into the areas I want to grow things. By contrast, my 4x250w setup made around 70,000 lumens total, but wasted the bulk of this of this light doing things like giving the surface of my glass 150-300PAR, and making the whole room glow like a spaceship is landing.
I’m currently getting readings on the bottom of my tank between ~200-650PAR. The higher numbers coming from the areas where multiple spots are over lapping. Keep in mind that I position my lights to not hit the entire bottom area of the tank, but I direct them to just land upon the areas which have corals I wish to grow. Most exciting were my readings sweeping the sensor along the surface of the glass and getting 4PAR as my peak reading. I think that with some spot positioning adjustments and turning the brighter reflective sides of the rocks inward that I will be able to reduce even this meager level of light hitting the glass.

I think I’ve got an analogy that seems appropriate. If you are on a battle field, and you have a number of targets in the distance you wish to shoot, there are many methods you could use. You could mount giant machine guns indiscriminately, and try to have a portion of them directed towards the battle, others blasting the sky and sides and ground and elsewhere. If you continued to add enough machine guns, you can cover the areas.
Another option is to use sniper rifles, and take the time to aim them onto your targets. They can both get the same job done in the end. The second option seems more appealing to my tastes.

[BeanAnimal]

JACO my friend, as I pointed out in the other thread, you have all sorts of things and contexts confused. Your making less sense than areze in your attempts to show him to be wrong.

As I pointed out in the other thread, and Luke has started to point out here...

Lets take a 10' x 10' tank and light it (2) ways.

First lets bath all 100 square feet with a 100% efficent light that consumes 100W even though only 50 square feet of that tank contain living creatures that need intense light. Lets assume that the light is even. So now we have about 1W intense light per sqaure foot of tank but 50W are being pretty much wasted.

Now lets bath that 100sq foot tank with 500W worth of light that is only 50% efficient. That is 250W worth of intense light entering the tank. Lets divide that light into 50 fixtures that produce 1 sqaure foot of intense light. That is 5W of intense light per each of the 50 zones. Lets call it 3W and some spillover into the "dark" areas.

So with setup #1 we use 1000W and lighjt the whole setup to the same intensity but only get about 1W of intensity in each of the 50 coral zones.

With setup #2 we use 500W of which only 250W is available but we get over 3W of intensity over each of the 50 coral zones and enough spillover to light the tank.

Setup #2 is much less efficient in terms of lumens (or PAR) per watt, but it uses a fraction of the electricity to provide the corals with MORE light where needed.

You just learned the difference between AREA (flood) lighting and ZONE (spot) lighting. Sometimes the most efficient technology is not the most efficient method.

Each method has pros and cons. In our case it is mostly aesthetics between the different types of lamps and combinations of lamps. If you do not like the "spotlight" look, then this is not for you at all. In Japan, the look has become the rage from what I have read.

[BeanAnimal]

Doh!

Luke you beat me to it and posted while I was typing.

[RussM]

Innovative, daring, well-researched, and well-executed projects like this are why I've become addicted to this DIY forum.

[JACOXVIII]

you missed the point I'm not saying light the whole dam tank
my point is that these lights have much more intensity and spectrum then you give them credit

""Xenon gas discharge lamps can and do achieve 100lm/w. They have no inefficiency of Phosphor conversions associated with fluorescent and MH. The efficiency numbers you are seeing are for pure Xenon short arc bulbs. This is an entirely different bulb type.""

this is what i have been trying to get across
thanks LFP

[BeanAnimal]

Originally posted by JACOXVIII
you missed the point

No I have not missed the point

my point is that these lights have much more intensity and spectrum then you give them credit

Sorry my friend, but you can't hold me to comments I have not made. Please try to keep what has been said in context to where it was and and why.

You have taken up a cause on (2) of these threads but done so with a very clear gap in understanding of the technology. You are riding the coat tails of other's remarks to frame your own comments and it is getting you in trouble

When responding, please try to keep my comments and your subsuquent remarks in context to the threads they were made in. You are mixing context between two threads and confusing several different aspects of the technology being discussed.

I am not here to quibble with you, but rather to participate in Luke's lighting discussion. Again, I aplaud your enthusiasm with regard to this subject, but don't step in too deep before you know where the bottom is.

I attempted (as did Luke) to explain why the automotive HID lamps may work out in his setup. I also pointed out that your counter "attacks" towards areze may be well intentioned, but are not really well supported. Lets move forward, shall we.

[THEUNION1]

Great idea i love this concept and also like the effects of "spot" lighting. I like the dark spots in the reef, makes it seem so surreal.

Very good!

P.s. Lets see more tank shots.