My Review of Orphek Atlantik V4 after 15 Months

[biecacka]

I live close to a few people running these lights and their tanks are stunning. They don’t get on boards anymore or post YouTube videos but one of the guys was TOTM years back with halides so he knows what he’s doing. He’s had these lights running close to 2 years I think and another guy is running the V1 Orpheks that he updated. So those are a few years old. They were part of the reason I became interested in this light.

corey

 

[sawdonkey]

I still love these lights when they work (I’m the original poster on this thread). Yes, I’ve had a lot of issues with mine and Orphek has made things right for me (but still a hassle). I’m hoping I’ll be problem free now with the new version of the boards in both of my fixtures. I put the new board in one of my fixtures many months ago and it’s been fine since. I’m upgrading the other this weekend.

These lights do produce beautiful color and the spread is great. They’ve grown all types of coral really well for me. Yes, the app is a little clunky, but totally fine since I hardly ever adjust things. If the new boards prove to have adequate longevity, I’d buy this fixture again.

 

[DxMarinefish]

Previous post: #369

Here is an update regarding my previous post:

Tony is my UK Orphek contact.

ON further inspection I found that the other V4 was also defective, so i asked for both to be replaced.

I waited a week but no response, so i chased up and got this reply on 7th Dec:

"We have heard back from the HQ technical team and they have suggested the following:

We recommend the client to upgrade to new PCB with leds (2020 version), so no soldering.

We will give him 2x new PCB with leds at 2x $200 with free shipping.

Total cost would be $400.00. Please note this does not include any VAT or import duties. This transaction would be between you and manufacturer"

I had stressed that I did not want to just replace individual LEDs and i was not prepared to do any significant soldering.
After confirming that this will indeed be the full PCB, I agreed to pay $400 via PayPal.

I received an invoice from the "HQ" on the 10th and promptly paid.

I no doubt will pay the VAT ands import duties when they arrive in the UK before taking delivery.
Tony estimated 2-3 weeks delivery from payment date.

Question:
I seem to remember that some people here have replaced the full PCB board. How easy/hard was it?

Thanks

Dx

 

[Luisreefmexico]

Previous post: #369

Here is an update regarding my previous post:

Tony is my UK Orphek contact.

ON further inspection I found that the other V4 was also defective, so i asked for both to be replaced.

I waited a week but no response, so i chased up and got this reply on 7th Dec:

"We have heard back from the HQ technical team and they have suggested the following:

We recommend the client to upgrade to new PCB with leds (2020 version), so no soldering.

We will give him 2x new PCB with leds at 2x $200 with free shipping.

Total cost would be $400.00. Please note this does not include any VAT or import duties. This transaction would be between you and manufacturer"

I had stressed that I did not want to just replace individual LEDs and i was not prepared to do any significant soldering.
After confirming that this will indeed be the full PCB, I agreed to pay $400 via PayPal.

I received an invoice from the "HQ" on the 10th and promptly paid.

I no doubt will pay the VAT ands import duties when they arrive in the UK before taking delivery.
Tony estimated 2-3 weeks delivery from payment date.

Question:
I seem to remember that some people here have replaced the full PCB board. How easy/hard was it?

Thanks

Dx

its easy but i suggest you buy thermal paste

 

[DxMarinefish]

its easy but i suggest you buy thermal paste

Thanks. Any particular type/spec?

 

[sawdonkey]

Anyone can do it. But seriously, it’s pretty easy. Just did one two nights ago.

 

[grevedin]

I thought I should I post my experience with the 4 Orphek V4 Gen 1 lights I purchased directly from Orphek in Hong Kong back in 2018. They have since been replaced with GHL Mitras. I would never ever purchase anything from that company again.

The lights are amazing, when they work, but I have had a pretty bad experience with the way they support the product. In addition, the latest communication with the owner has been quite testy, given that he is now threatening legal action because I want to share my experience. Lastly, this is not a reflection on Tony on here who has only become involved very recently and has always tried to help out and be supportive.

Nonetheless I will try and be as factual, and balanced as possible with my account, for which I have extensive email communication with the company to prove all of this.

Anyway, after having done a lot of research and being very excited about the Orphek V4s given the very positive reviews I had read, I decided to take the plunge and ordered the lights back in May of last year. The communication was good during the process and the lights were shipped out a few weeks after my order.

Problem 1:
Upon receiving my lights, and having Vince from Aquarium connections mounting them for me, we discovered an initial problem where one of the lights was not turning on. I emailed Orphek immediately and Ofir (presumably the owner) came back saying the lights are built like “Lego” and can easily be fixed and that I should just read a manual he had attached to the email to figure out the problem. Luckily, James, one of the other Orphek representatives then also came back immediately explaining that perhaps the power cable may have become loose inside the light and to check that. So I opened the light, and as per James’s suspicion, the main power cable had come loose, and just needed to be screwed into the main PC board again which is what I did. Problem solved!

Problem 2:
Anyway, after that problem was fixed we then realised that on two of the lights did not have all the Leds go to full power despite having set them all to 100%. Anyway, I emailed the company again and to be fair the response was very quick. However, Ofir suggested the lights were working fine and it was just me who could not see some of the wavelengths because they are not visible to the human eye, despite two of the lights working properly and two of them not, and all of them and all the channels turned on to full power. Again, James jumped in the email comunicaton and after several diagnostic emails back and forth he asked me to check the power supplies they shipped with the lights. Low and behold, two of the Meanwell power supplies were the wrong ones, presumably for a different Orphek light. James immediately offered to ship two correct ones to me and finally a week lather they arrived and the lights worked fine. Anyway, problem 2 solved a few weeks after having received a brand new product.

For a long time I was very happy with lights because as per the many online reviews, including the BRS video reviews, the light spread, colour rendition, shimmer, easy to use interface, and actual coral coloration and growth was amazing. From a performance perspective they are the best light I have ever had, and I have been in this hobby for 30 years now.

Problems 3, 4, and 5:

Fast forward to January of this year and I noticed that a number of leds on two of the four units were not powering up. Again, I emailed Orphek and again in all fairness the response was almost immediate. However, what then ensued (I will spare you the details) was a lengthy email communication where again at first I was being accused by Ofir of not being able to see certain wavelengths of the lights. Anyway, again James jumped in and informed me he was going to hospital the next day and someone else on their team would get back to me. So the next day Kris came back and he was extremely helpful, again vie email, in going through several diagnostic steps which involved opening the lights, testing various cables going to the PC board, switching PC boards between one of the functioning and non-functioning lights, running a jumper cable between each and every led light until we finally ascertained the following after several hours of my time and over several days:

- One of the PC boards was faulty and needed replacing

- One LED light on one of the lights was faulty which caused one of the channels not to work and needed replacing and the new one soldered onto the board again

- Two led lights were faulty on the other light causing two of the circuits not to work and agin requiring the Leds to be replaced and new ones soldered onto the board by me

So after we finally diagnosed the issues I was sent the spare parts which arrived about a week later by DHL.

I then spent an entire morning (my guess is around 4- 5 hours) completely dismantling the two faulty lights, replacing the faulty PC board and the 3 faulty Leds, which included soldering.

The lights were working great again until last night one of my friends from one of the well known UK tank manufacturers and distributors stopped by my house to see the tank and he noticed that on one of the lights a circuit of Leds was not working again.

Problem 6:
So here we go again, having been through the process before, I knew that one of the Leds has failed again, which now requires me to open the light and fix it myself again.

Conclusion:
I emailed Orphek last night to express my disappointment of having spent a small fortune (they do not come cheap) on a product that keeps failing, and worst of all requires customer intervention to make the repairs. Ofir again came back immediately, this time asking me to send the lights to Tony here in the U.K. for repair. At which point I explained that I was fed up, and that it would cost me more money and time to send the light to Tony instead of repairing it myself.

I then dared to make the suggestion that a serious company, especially after my experience (and that of at least one other person I know here in the UK) would be to send a replacement unit, no questions asked and have me send back the faulty one so as not to have an interruption of light over a tank which now houses some very large and delicate sps colonies.

The response I received was that mine are Gen1 V4 units that are no longer in production. At this point I then made it clear that in this case the company should be replacing faulty products, or face the consequences of me telling my story. This to both one of the potential distributors I know well and who has been asking me for feedback on the lights and to whom just last night I was singing the praises of the lights if they can come up with a proper servicing solution, as well as others on this forum.

I was then sent a short email reply from Ofir closing off all communication and suggesting he would have his lawyers deal with me.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I thought I should I post my experience with the 4 Orphek V4 Gen 1 lights I purchased directly from Orphek in Hong Kong back in 2018. They have since been replaced with GHL Mitras. I would never ever purchase anything from that company again.

The lights are amazing, when they work, but I have had a pretty bad experience with the way they support the product. In addition, the latest communication with the owner has been quite testy, given that he is now threatening legal action because I want to share my experience. Lastly, this is not a reflection on Tony on here who has only become involved very recently and has always tried to help out and be supportive.

Nonetheless I will try and be as factual, and balanced as possible with my account, for which I have extensive email communication with the company to prove all of this.

Anyway, after having done a lot of research and being very excited about the Orphek V4s given the very positive reviews I had read, I decided to take the plunge and ordered the lights back in May of last year. The communication was good during the process and the lights were shipped out a few weeks after my order.

Problem 1:
Upon receiving my lights, and having Vince from Aquarium connections mounting them for me, we discovered an initial problem where one of the lights was not turning on. I emailed Orphek immediately and Ofir (presumably the owner) came back saying the lights are built like “Lego” and can easily be fixed and that I should just read a manual he had attached to the email to figure out the problem. Luckily, James, one of the other Orphek representatives then also came back immediately explaining that perhaps the power cable may have become loose inside the light and to check that. So I opened the light, and as per James’s suspicion, the main power cable had come loose, and just needed to be screwed into the main PC board again which is what I did. Problem solved!

Problem 2:
Anyway, after that problem was fixed we then realised that on two of the lights did not have all the Leds go to full power despite having set them all to 100%. Anyway, I emailed the company again and to be fair the response was very quick. However, Ofir suggested the lights were working fine and it was just me who could not see some of the wavelengths because they are not visible to the human eye, despite two of the lights working properly and two of them not, and all of them and all the channels turned on to full power. Again, James jumped in the email comunicaton and after several diagnostic emails back and forth he asked me to check the power supplies they shipped with the lights. Low and behold, two of the Meanwell power supplies were the wrong ones, presumably for a different Orphek light. James immediately offered to ship two correct ones to me and finally a week lather they arrived and the lights worked fine. Anyway, problem 2 solved a few weeks after having received a brand new product.

For a long time I was very happy with lights because as per the many online reviews, including the BRS video reviews, the light spread, colour rendition, shimmer, easy to use interface, and actual coral coloration and growth was amazing. From a performance perspective they are the best light I have ever had, and I have been in this hobby for 30 years now.

Problems 3, 4, and 5:

Fast forward to January of this year and I noticed that a number of leds on two of the four units were not powering up. Again, I emailed Orphek and again in all fairness the response was almost immediate. However, what then ensued (I will spare you the details) was a lengthy email communication where again at first I was being accused by Ofir of not being able to see certain wavelengths of the lights. Anyway, again James jumped in and informed me he was going to hospital the next day and someone else on their team would get back to me. So the next day Kris came back and he was extremely helpful, again vie email, in going through several diagnostic steps which involved opening the lights, testing various cables going to the PC board, switching PC boards between one of the functioning and non-functioning lights, running a jumper cable between each and every led light until we finally ascertained the following after several hours of my time and over several days:

- One of the PC boards was faulty and needed replacing

- One LED light on one of the lights was faulty which caused one of the channels not to work and needed replacing and the new one soldered onto the board again

- Two led lights were faulty on the other light causing two of the circuits not to work and agin requiring the Leds to be replaced and new ones soldered onto the board by me

So after we finally diagnosed the issues I was sent the spare parts which arrived about a week later by DHL.

I then spent an entire morning (my guess is around 4- 5 hours) completely dismantling the two faulty lights, replacing the faulty PC board and the 3 faulty Leds, which included soldering.

The lights were working great again until last night one of my friends from one of the well known UK tank manufacturers and distributors stopped by my house to see the tank and he noticed that on one of the lights a circuit of Leds was not working again.

Problem 6:
So here we go again, having been through the process before, I knew that one of the Leds has failed again, which now requires me to open the light and fix it myself again.

Conclusion:
I emailed Orphek last night to express my disappointment of having spent a small fortune (they do not come cheap) on a product that keeps failing, and worst of all requires customer intervention to make the repairs. Ofir again came back immediately, this time asking me to send the lights to Tony here in the U.K. for repair. At which point I explained that I was fed up, and that it would cost me more money and time to send the light to Tony instead of repairing it myself.

I then dared to make the suggestion that a serious company, especially after my experience (and that of at least one other person I know here in the UK) would be to send a replacement unit, no questions asked and have me send back the faulty one so as not to have an interruption of light over a tank which now houses some very large and delicate sps colonies.

The response I received was that mine are Gen1 V4 units that are no longer in production. At this point I then made it clear that in this case the company should be replacing faulty products, or face the consequences of me telling my story. This to both one of the potential distributors I know well and who has been asking me for feedback on the lights and to whom just last night I was singing the praises of the lights if they can come up with a proper servicing solution, as well as others on this forum.

I was then sent a short email reply from Ofir closing off all communication and suggesting he would have his lawyers deal with me.

I have the gen 1 V@ plus the Gen 4 V2 and happy and trouble free and it is unfortunate. Per forum rules, I cannot further comment But hope this gets resolved amicably.
There are tools you can utilize such as trade commission, etc if needed.

 

[grevedin]

I have the gen 1 V@ plus the Gen 4 V2 and happy and trouble free and it is unfortunate. Per forum rules, I cannot further comment But hope this gets resolved amicably.
There are tools you can utilize such as trade commission, etc if needed.

Thank you. This was a few years ago and I gave up and just moved on to GHL lights after having to repair them myself 4 times as the leds kept burning.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you. This was a few years ago and I gave up and just moved on to GHL lights after having to repair them myself 4 times as the leds kept burning.

What did you do with the Orpheks ?

 

[tgrick]

I've been running V4 G2 compacts and they have been totally trouble free. In fact, I'm thinking about updating to the 'latest' spectrum just released. That being said, everything just works. If I have a complaint, it only about the app. I just wish it were more...then again, once things are running you never use it again.

 

[Mjl714]

Wow, these lights sound like way to much maintenance or their price. I’m hoping the ATI Straton comes through.

 

[X-37B]

Take a look at the Orphek light bars.
Many local reefers are going from G4's to a bank of these with outstanding results.
The new OR3's are very nice.

 

[grevedin]

What did you do with the Orpheks ?

They are collecting dust. I was thinking of repairing them yet again and selling them on, but morally find it hard to sell something that I know is defective and will likely fail again in someone else’s hands. I may in the end sell them at some bargain bottom price with full disclosure if anyone wants to take the gamble.

 

[vetteguy53081]

They are collecting dust. I was thinking of repairing them yet again and selling them on, but morally find it hard to sell something that I know is defective and will likely fail again in someone else’s hands. I may in the end sell them at some bargain bottom price with full disclosure if anyone wants to take the gamble.

Let me know if you do

 

[grevedin]

Let me know if you do

Sure but I live in the UK..

 

[vetteguy53081]

U.S. and I know shipping will be a bit and delayed but OK with it

 

[sawdonkey]

Take a look at the Orphek light bars.
Many local reefers are going from G4's to a bank of these with outstanding results.
The new OR3's are very nice.

I have two of the OR3 bars and they are very nice. I could totally see how you could use them as a primary light source. You could even simulate sunrise/sunset and spectrum shift by having a mix of the spectrums and stagger the on/off times. It would probably be a fairly affordable way to light a large tank.

I’m the OP on this thread and after all of my trouble, now that both of my V4s have the new boards, things have been fine. I love these lights when they are working but it took me a long while to get things straightened out. People buying the V4s today would get the new version of the board and will likely be trouble free.

 

[X-37B]

I have two of the OR3 bars and they are very nice. I could totally see how you could use them as a primary light source. You could even simulate sunrise/sunset and spectrum shift by having a mix of the spectrums and stagger the on/off times. It would probably be a fairly affordable way to light a large tank.

I’m the OP on this thread and after all of my trouble, now that both of my V4s have the new boards, things have been fine. I love these lights when they are working but it took me a long while to get things straightened out. People buying the V4s today would get the new version of the board and will likely be trouble free.

Thats good to know! Many have gone with the bars because of the issues.
A few here run the V4's with zero issues, too.

 

[dling]

Reading all these post is sad. I have gone through all the same issues. I saw that some of the leds where out. Don't know when they went out . But of course light were two mths out of warranty when I discovered the problem. Was given the choice between replacing led's or new 2020 pcb board at 200.00 dollars . I chose the new board. It has been only a few mths and now the entire ch.4 is out. Got a message on how to determine if it's bad led or driver board. These lights are great WHEN they work. I have over 1400.00 dollars tied into them and at less then 1.5 years old too many problems. I would not recommend or buy them again. I have a DIY light that was over a smaller tank. It lasted years.