AquaIllumination Blade Announced

[rtparty]

I got around to testing par today; and was seeing around 60 par at 15 inches (the substrate is 2 inches and the sensor 1 inch and the tank 18 inches) at 65% so near 100 par at 100%;

I've been following the comments about imbalance on the blue reef unit; but i'm thinking the freshwater version which is what i have does not have these problems or it is not as bad as the light seems to maintain good colour balance visually across the length at 65% setting. I.e, one side does not look more red or blue than the other side.

My FW Blade is rocking my chaeto so far. Under the light at the top of my chaeto (maybe 6-8" away) I get over 400 PAR at 100%.

 

[ryanjohn1]

I'm on my 4th one now, and it too exhibits the same light imbalance. I've been thinking about it, and I believe there's a basic design issue. I'll try to lay it out with some photos, and some really poor artwork on my part. I'm attaching three photos to explain my thinking.

First, there are two overhead shots of the tank. In one of them, I have it oriented so the wire end of the Blade is towards the left. In the other, I have it oriented so that the wire end of the Blade is towards the right. This shows that the light imbalance is following the orientation of the strip itself.

Next, I have a photo of the LED clusters. You can see that the white LEDs are all to one side, and the blue LEDs are all towards the other side. There is also a little ridge next to the LEDs because the LEDs themselves are inset a little. I took the photo at an angle to show (on the right cluster) that part of the blue light is reflecting off the plastic ridge and not spreading to the right. The same holds true for the white.

In thinking about this, I have to conclude that what is happening is that all the clusters are sending white light down and to the right (while blocked from spreading left), and the blue is going down and to the left (while being blocked from spreading right). The reverse would be true if we oriented the Blade in the opposite direction. And so, thinking about the whole length of the strip, probably what's happening is that less white spreads to one direction, and less blue spreads to the other direction. It's the compounding effect from multiple clusters that causes a more blue appearance to one side and more white appearance to the other. To be more accurate, it's actually less white to the blue side, and less blue to the white side.

The other thing I thought about was why more people aren't reporting this problem. I think it's because this effect is more noticeable if your tank happens to be wider than the Blade itself. You can see this is true in my case from the tank photos. Once you get past the last LED cluster on either end, the only light that can get cast past that point is either blue, or white, depending on the orientation of the Blade. And so, it's only the central part, between the two outermost LED clusters, that is actually getting the light correctly, according to what we set it to with the app.

@monkiboy Is your tank wider than your Blade too?

In speaking to the AI folks, at this point they have no more answers, and have said the Blades, including the ones previously returned, are all within spec on their spectrometers and their bench testing. They have offered a refund at this point, but did not respond to my question showing the above analysis to them and asking if it was a design issue.

I'd love to hear what others think after reading this. Please point out any flaws in my analysis. I'd love to be proven wrong or find a solution.

Honestly I thought I was crazy and my eyes didn’t work right. The corded side looked brighter but I really thought I was just seeing things. I have 2 grows and they do it as well.

 

[monkiboy]

Honestly I thought I was crazy and my eyes didn’t work right. The corded side looked brighter but I really thought I was just seeing things. I have 2 grows and they do it as well.

Are you running the lights so that your tank is longer than the total length of your two fixtures?

 

[monkiboy]

Honestly I thought I was crazy and my eyes didn’t work right. The corded side looked brighter but I really thought I was just seeing things. I have 2 grows and they do it as well.

The corded side on mine is the whiter side. That is what you mean by brighter?

 

[ryanjohn1]

Are you running the lights so that your tank is longer than the total length of your two fixtures?

Yeah. 30 in blades 33 or 34 tank. None electrical cord side is less bright.

 

[monkiboy]

I used the Orphek camera lenses to capture those images. They do seem to add a little extra contrast punch in the photos, but it's still pretty darn bad to my eyes in reality too. My phone isn't able to capture anything unless I use them.

I've seen a number of videos online of people showing off their Blades. They were all larger than my 12" one, typically 36" or more. While I did see that imbalance in them often, it wasn't quite as bad as my experience. I don't know if that's because the cameras aren't capturing in sufficient fidelity, or perhaps since they were being used on larger tanks this in turn meant the height of the aquarium itself was greater which allowed for more light from adjacent LED clusters to reach and help balance things a little more than on my smaller one?

I just raised my 39 inch units to about 20 inches above the water level and it’s still quite noticeable. One side is much more blue than the other and the blue side is the non-corded side on both units.

 

[ryanjohn1]

I think I will have one going one way and the other reverse. So essentially a cord on either side. But that’s a tomorrow job. Wires are all tied under cabinet

 

[RZGreef]

Honestly I thought I was crazy and my eyes didn’t work right. The corded side looked brighter but I really thought I was just seeing things. I have 2 grows and they do it as well.

I just raised my 39 inch units to about 20 inches above the water level and it’s still quite noticeable. One side is much more blue than the other and the blue side is the non-corded side on both units.

Thanks for checking and reporting. Shame that the Grows have this issue because I love the form factor, and minimal light bleed, and the reported efficiency.

 

[jake37]

My FW Blade is rocking my chaeto so far. Under the light at the top of my chaeto (maybe 6-8" away) I get over 400 PAR at 100%.

That sounds right - i measured around 560 just under the lights at 65%.

 

[Makomek]

I have 2 Blade so what I did was flip the second blade so both cord is on the opposite side and the color is balance. I use 2 current usa orbit light mount at around 4-5 inch above the tank and I don’t notice it anymore.

 

[enb141]

I have 2 Blade so what I did was flip the second blade so both cord is on the opposite side and the color is balance. I use 2 current usa orbit light mount at around 4-5 inch above the tank and I don’t notice it anymore.

I also have a Current USA light mount, can you take some pictures to see how this lights looks like in this mount?

 

[Makomek]

 

[monkiboy]

i spoke to AI about the one end being more blue than the other on both my SL39 grow fixtures and they said they are aware of the issue but as it's still very early for this fixture they do not have a solution but are sending out two replacement units. not sure to expect anything but the exact same if they have not made any changes but I will go through their process, for now, I guess?

 

[spsick]

Yeah shy of them reworking clusters I don’t know how sending replacements does anything other than placate the customer. The way the reflectors are designed I don’t see a fix.

 

[RZGreef]

i spoke to AI about the one end being more blue than the other on both my SL39 grow fixtures and they said they are aware of the issue but as it's still very early for this fixture they do not have a solution but are sending out two replacement units. not sure to expect anything but the exact same if they have not made any changes but I will go through their process, for now, I guess?

Yup, I went through it 3 times. All it did was waste gas going to the FedEx store to send the prior ones back. With these 4th ones I have now, they said they would just refund and to go ahead and fill out the form for an RMA for that. I've done that, but so far they've not sent the RMA #, nor responded to my follow up emails asking for it. It's been a week now, whereas in the past they would always respond within a business day. Not sure what to think.

 

[enb141]

Thanks for sharing

 

[reeflodi]

Yup, I went through it 3 times. All it did was waste gas going to the FedEx store to send the prior ones back. With these 4th ones I have now, they said they would just refund and to go ahead and fill out the form for an RMA for that. I've done that, but so far they've not sent the RMA #, nor responded to my follow up emails asking for it. It's been a week now, whereas in the past they would always respond within a business day. Not sure what to think.

Pretty bummed, I'm having the same issue with my 12" grow. I just set it up a couple days ago and it looks bad. The side with the cord is noticeably more white.

 

[reeefish]

Pretty bummed, I'm having the same issue with my 12" grow. I just set it up a couple days ago and it looks bad. The side with the cord is noticeably more white.

Same on mine. I’m going to move it over more to the right side of the tank to compensate. Alternatively, I thought about setting it up front to back since I’m running mine on a cube.

 

[enb141]

Guys I'm wondering why the ones from the videos doesn't seem to have this issue?

 

[RZGreef]

Guys I'm wondering why the ones from the videos doesn't seem to have this issue?

I can't speak to the cameras used in those videos, by my phone has a really hard time capturing the light imbalance. If I just take a full tank shot, with room lights on, the camera just doesn't capture what I'm seeing. The only way I can do it is by turning the room lights off, and using Orphek's 15K and 20K lenses simultaneously.

Also, I believe it's more pronounced in cases where the tank is wider than the Blade Grow itself. If you scroll back a bit to page 20 / March 7th, I posted a drawing of why I think this is the case. When the tank is more closely the size of the Blade Grow, it may be less noticeable.

I believe it's a combination of the two cases that makes it hard to see in online videos. That said, I have seen it slightly in some when the camera was focused only inside the tank. For example, look at the following video at the 27 second mark: