Popbloom Turing75 - Any one have input/suggestions?

[spideybry]

Hey all, I recently purchased a setup which came with this light linked below. This light is currently on a 30g tank that is 36x15x13.

万全云电商 - 国内最专业的跨境电商解决方案

www.popbloom.store

Now, I've tried looking up any reviews or anything that are about these lights specifically (not just Popbloom/dsuny) and have been coming up empty.

The lights seem to have good PAR according to their specs, but then again - not sure if that's true. Supposedly 300-350 PAR at 10".

Since it's been a while that I've been in this hobby (I got out when LED's were just becoming a thing and I ran 1st gen AI Sol Lights which were white and two different types of blues only), I am trying to hammer down an appropriate light schedule and lighting intensity. Below is the layout of the board and what LED's are on the channels.

So, here was my old light schedule and new:

Now, based off the light panel schematics, I am just curious if my corals will be getting enough. I felt like I was blasting them too much and decided to back off a bit.

I am desperately in need of borrowing or renting a PAR meter so I can figure out what each channel can produce, I feel like that channel 3 is a wild card and I don't know how much it blasts my corals.

Any input is welcome btw, feel free to chime in with anything.

Random frag test at the bottom center of the tank - I think it was getting hit too much with light and so I dropped back and moved it back to the frag rack.

Also here is a shot of peeling the film off the lights, previous owner forgot to remove it:

 

[dhanking]

I honestly can’t see why the company would lie to you but Zoas are not necessarily low light corals so if moving it up is blasting it with light then you probably have enough light.

 

[spideybry]

I honestly can’t see why the company would lie to you but Zoas are not necessarily low light corals so if moving it up is blasting it with light then you probably have enough light.

Considering other reviews I’ve read about the brand/lights have been not the best, I think verifying the claims that are specified on a product page are valid and only go toward tweaking these settings to get optimal performance and coral growth.

If I know for example how much PAR a certain channel puts out, I can then tweak the light schedule accordingly and even figure out rough placement of corals - aside from just manually plopping something down and seeing how it does.

I am more curious to see what percentage I should be running my lights - if those blue nm are putting pout very high PAR, if so I need to adjust.

 

[oreo54]

Now, I've tried looking up any reviews or anything that are about these lights specifically (not just Popbloom/dsuny) and have been coming up empty.

My DSUNY LED review (1 year) & 2015 failure

'Oliver' is also the same person I have dealings with.. telling me to disassemble and take video and pictures. Just a complete runaround. These lights are garbage. 3 of the 4 I bought have completely failed now. I purchased back in Nov 2017. Don't buy D Suny or Pop bloom, they will disappoint...

www.reef2reef.com

Modern units are fancier than there old ones.
One thing I'd suggest is always getting an extra power supply. OEM or your own matching one.

I am desperately in need of borrowing or renting a PAR meter so I can figure out what each channel can produce, I feel like that channel 3 is a wild card and I don't know how much it blasts my corals.

Hope you do and post them.

AFAICT these are basically fix on your own and if not capable (either replacing parts or soldering new diodes).
Good part is they are relatively modular.

Buying them can sometimes be tricky. They have (had) 2 different base units under driven fanless (nice touch) and a normally (all a matter of semantics) driven fanned version.

There spectrums are a bit err unusual and the only time I really dealt with them was to do custom freshwater layouts.

Reflectors beat lenses almost every time in this angle range..

 

[spideybry]

My DSUNY LED review (1 year) & 2015 failure

'Oliver' is also the same person I have dealings with.. telling me to disassemble and take video and pictures. Just a complete runaround. These lights are garbage. 3 of the 4 I bought have completely failed now. I purchased back in Nov 2017. Don't buy D Suny or Pop bloom, they will disappoint...

www.reef2reef.com

One thing I'd suggest is always getting an extra power supply. OEM or your own matching one.

Hope you do and post them.

AFAICT these are basically fix on your own and if not capable (either replacing parts or soldering new diodes).
Good part is they are relatively modular.

Buying them can sometimes be tricky. They have (had) 2 different base units under driven fanless (nice touch) and a normally (all a matter of semantics) driven fanned version.

There spectrums are a bit err unusual and the only time I really dealt with them was to do custom freshwater layouts.

Reflectors beat lenses almost every time in this angle range..

I don't know if I would spend any more money on these - just bought some extension cables for the controller. If the power supply does go, I might just upgrade considering these just came with the setup that I bought. I did read that tread and also came to the conclusion that I am on my own in a sense lol.

Renting a PAR meter is simple enough from BRS, might go that route and hope nothing goes wrong with these - at least I'll have a frame of reference in terms of how strong these are.

One glaring question I do have right now is in terms of light schedule and intensity - which at this point feels like I am just shooting blind. It comes with it's own settings for "coral growth" and "vivid color" but I don't really know if I should trust them.

The controller is very meh, I just wish it had controlability with an app (not that their app is any better).

 

[oreo54]

Wi fi is a add on plug in board in the Turing module.
Thought that was creative.
They only run the diodes at 1w btw.
At least they are more open than black boxes..
But keep that in mind



Keep in mind these look like the fanned versions so driven a bit harder than those without fans

 

[spideybry]

Wi fi is a add on plug in board in the Turing module.
Thought that was creative.
They only run the diodes at 1w btw.
At least they are more open than black boxes..
But keep that in mind



Keep in mind these look like the fanned versions so driven a bit harder than those without fans

That video is definitely a bit of a confidence booster. I had asked someone on Whatsapp from their company if they had an add-on for these lights that would enable wifi, he said no.

From what I see in the video, they put out a good amount. It looks like he is using the Popbloom Turing 30 - which has a different layout.

Popbloom 30 - Rated at - "PAR Value: 720 PAR@25CM for len can output more PAR"

• Channel 1(11pcs): 10 white 20000K, 1 white 14000K
• Channel 2(3pcs): 1 greemn 520nm , 2 blue 470nm
• Channel 3(11pcs): 10 blue 470nm, 1 royal blue 450nm
• Channel 4(15pcs): 4 White 14000K, 2 Green 520nm, 1 Red 660nm, 4 royal blue 450nm, 2 purple 410nm, 2 uv 395nm

Popbloom 75 - Rated at - "PAR Value: 300-350 PAR @ 25cm"

So that being said, I guess I can trust (with a grain of salt ;Playful) the PAR specs they give off. I am still probably going to rent a PAR meter and figure out exactly what each channel puts out though.

Considering they claim that channel 3 on the Turing 75 is for "coral growth"- that's the color I like the most and seems to be a deeper blue/purple almost - I might have to dial it back to not fry corals.

I am completely open to suggestions btw.

 

[oreo54]

guess it was discontinued..



Has always been an odd company.. Too bad they do some things really right..

 

[oreo54]

I had asked someone on Whatsapp from their company if they had an add-on for these lights that would enable wifi, he said no.

Never ask one person..
Anyways a bit bored today so I'll see if they are really discontinued or not..
Will let you know if I find out anything.. They used to be quite commonly sold. Think price was around $30.
Maybe a victim of tariffs though.
Oddly none on flea bay..

Pretty sure they sold the controllers separately too.
Wanted one to play ith to see if it would work in DIY but never spent the $'s.
There was, other than cost, another reason why. Think it was due to a cryptic email from them regarding dimming protocols .

Built 6 Years ago though.

After 3 years."old style" DSunY still kicking away..
First freshwater custom panel.

 

[oreo54]

Well seems official:

Hello friend, so sorry that we have no wifi module since last year. We are developing the new wifi controller now, may need more 6-12 months.
After we have it, will contact you.

 

[GSnake]

following ! , bought a new tank- tank upgrade - this week, and was going to get this same set

 

[spideybry]

Well seems official:

Hello friend, thank you for your many researches lol.

But yeah, thanks for looking into it a bit more as well - it would have been a great add-on.

I did happen to find a PDF of a manual which at least has some info about one of their modes:

I think I am going to just pull the trigger and rent the PAR meter from BRS (unless I can find it locally) and might even try using this "show vivid color" mode.

following ! , bought a new tank- tank upgrade - this week, and was going to get this same set

FWIW my frags are all still alive... I can't say if they're thriving yet though - but again they haven't been in there that long.

Here is how one cheap $5 frag colored up:

8/17/20

Yesterday (8/28/20)

 

[spideybry]

Update:
I am renting a PAR meter because I am annoyed and I need to know what these lights can do lol. I will be posting results for all to see.

Up until now, I've tried running the "Show vivid color" mode and it started to bleach a couple frags that were under the lights placed in the rocks. I've since moved it over to the frag rack and seems okay. I really didn't like how the lights looked since it was just a bright white-ish and never did it have the blue actinic look that I like with a reef tank.

I've since reverted back to a slight variance of the previous schedule I was running.

The PAR meter gets here Thursday. I believe there is a guide somewhere out there that shows all the areas I should measure but I plan on coming at it with a grid system.

 

[GSnake]

so i got the lights too, will arrive this week sometime, i got a 36x19x22 tank. gonna start getting things setup for it and the transfer from my 29g ( got 56g).

you can use the BRS light review grid videos as an example- helped me previously with blackbox lights. looking foward to your results! (vivid sounds like overkill for corals, id probably aim for just less than 50% of that )

im really just looking foward to the new spectrum, the purples make it look nice and blended, ~~ my old blackbox is mostly just blues

 

[spideybry]

so i got the lights too, will arrive this week sometime, i got a 36x19x22 tank. gonna start getting things setup for it and the transfer from my 29g ( got 56g).

you can use the BRS light review grid videos as an example- helped me previously with blackbox lights. looking foward to your results! (vivid sounds like overkill for corals, id probably aim for just less than 50% of that )

im really just looking foward to the new spectrum, the purples make it look nice and blended, ~~ my old blackbox is mostly just blues

So, these lights are definitely strong lol. At full blast 100% it is putting out around 400 par at this monti frag I will do a full test and write up. This was just a small preview lol.

 

[spideybry]

Preliminary numbers are in - this thing puts out a lot of PAR for what it is.

What surprised me was channel 3 (blues that say they are for coral growing). Just blues running was around 115 PAR at 3" near the monti frag in the photo.

 

[GSnake]

i bought the light with the bracket system to avoid light spill into the room. so my lights are 3'' from water by sitting on the rim. whats the difference in par for preliminary numbers as a reference i can use for 3'" high, compared to 9''. did you diy a mount to hang or is 9 inches with the mount you can purchase from them? ill probably have my tank setup by weeks end, cant wait

 

[ReefZKD]

I have the same Light!!, Thanks for doing this, so I will keep following!!

 

[spideybry]

i bought the light with the bracket system to avoid light spill into the room. so my lights are 3'' from water by sitting on the rim. whats the difference in par for preliminary numbers as a reference i can use for 3'" high, compared to 9''. did you diy a mount to hang or is 9 inches with the mount you can purchase from them? ill probably have my tank setup by weeks end, cant wait

Unfortunately my light is stuck at 9" because access to the arm mounts are on the back of the tank to adjust - I won't be able to get behind it so I won't be able to give you a reading at 3" unfortunately. The arm mount I have is the one in this picture below from their site, idk if they sell it individually though. I don't think there is a way to get this light mounted at 3" honestly with this specific mount (definitely with yours). I could probably go down another 2-3" based off the space I have left on the mount but yeah it's gonna be a pain lol.

I did snap a few photos of the tank and arm mount if you want to take a look though.

Wide shot:

Top of Lights:

Back of Lights/Tank:

I have the same Light!!, Thanks for doing this, so I will keep following!!

Awesome, do you have them up and running? Do you have them tuned in how you like? How long have you had them?

SIDE NOTE:

I am having trouble figuring how to measure PAR and log it consistently. I was initially going to take a ton of numbers and try to hammer down exactly how much PAR would be put out at specific percentages, but that's probably not going to work how I imagine since there are most likely variances in how much PAR is put out at a certain percentage and it probably isn't mutually exclusive.

Adding up the PAR of each channel individually in the smack dab center of the tank, at 1" depth - yields 485 PAR, vs all lights channels being 100% on at the same time yielding 480 PAR, so maybe it will work that I can have some sort of formula?

I may wind up just using a few key markers in my tank and figure out the PAR there and use that to judge everything else? Idk I am maybe over thinking it at the moment - any input is appreciated. Maybe I should simplify it.

Based off these rough readings though, I am really surprised that channel B has more PAR than Channel A. Even more surprised at Channel D producing a lot as well.

The spreadsheets below are laid out in a top down grid - each height labeled above. Hope this makes some sense?

Individual Channels at 100% -

All Channels at 100% -

 

[GSnake]

wow - looks good so far, looks like your using 7''x5'' zones in the spread. if they hold an equivalent ratio of par, at lets say 50%, i think its safe to assume par can be calculated at any %.

if your able to get 6" depth that would be great, i would be able to calculate the difference accurately