Orphek V4 upgrades failing

[FishTruck]

Just complaining. I have six V4s… five In service and one spare (since I have to tear them down so often). I just realized 4/5 In service have blown channels now (all have been rebuilt since 2020 at least once).

I guess I’ll keep drinking the Kool Aid and start rebuilding with the upgraded Icon kits. I’m going to avoid 100% power settings from now on too. Hoping to get 5 to 10 years out of a high end reef LED.

 

[TheSheff]

Just complaining. I have six V4s… five In service and one spare (since I have to tear them down so often). I just realized 4/5 In service have blown channels now (all have been rebuilt since 2020 at least once).

I guess I’ll keep drinking the Kool Aid and start rebuilding with the upgraded Icon kits. I’m going to avoid 100% power settings from now on too. Hoping to get 5 to 10 years out of a high end reef LED.

Orphek is the same as most LED brands. They all come from a random chinese warehouse or somewhere in asia. I would ditch the orphek and get something like quanta pros or the reeffi led.

 

[FishTruck]

I just might throw in a reefi and go head to head. What lasts longer, a 550 dollar reefi or 500 dollar icon upgrade kit in orpkek?

The orphek OR3 light bars that I have are fine, so far.

 

[FishTruck]

OK, sc++w it. Reefi versus orphek icon challenge is on - durability. Four year experiment.

Year 1
I bought one reefi - and will put it in service and try it out. If it's good, I'll get one more which will cover one of six 4 x 2 areas on my 12 foot tank (same as an orphek V4 / icon panel). This leaves a mix of legacy orphek, icon orphek, and reefi.

Year 2
I still have three Orphek V4s in use (not icon), plus two icon upgrade kits to install. When the boards fail (I predict within 12 months - or during year two) I'll replace with reefi lights. Initially, it will cost about twice as much to replace atlantik board with two reefi uni pros compared to buying fix it kits from orphek.

And, I will have four different apps to deal with (one for legacy orphek, one for icon orphek, one for reei, and one for all the supplemental LED bars and T5s. Yay?

Year 3+
I predict that by 2025, I will have four bays covered by reefi lights, and two bays covered by orphek icons (based on how much of the tank is covered). We shall see which lights last and which ones don't. I'll still have six ophek light bodies to work with for whatever fix it kit replaces the icons.

All the light bars and some T5s will hopefully smooth over any major difference in visible spectrum between all the different boards.

 

[Jeremy_d]

I bought an entire Atlantik iCon rather than upgrading and havent had any issues. I dont plan to use any upgrade kits with it ever. If I start having issues I am going to get some of the AI Blades. If they are good enough for WWC they are good enough for me.

 

[hart24601]

I love both brands. I had to replace boards on orphek but the icon does have much better cooling now. @xiaoxiy had some of his reefi leds fail but they replaced them as the warranty is unmatched.

 

[xiaoxiy]

I love both brands. I had to replace boards on orphek but the icon does have much better cooling now. @xiaoxiy had some of his reefi leds fail but they replaced them as the warranty is unmatched.

Yeah. Daniel replaced them with no problem. He just sent me out a new set of pucks and they were super ready to replace.

 

[FishTruck]

I posted this one other place… I just tore down a failed V4 2 and noticed a screw for the processor was in too far - separating the led board and heat sink - right where an led fried. Interesting.