This is not my video but a great example of what the diffuser does and the dispersion it gives and the minimal par loss considering there's a complete cover over the light puck.
Quick Review - Radion Diffusers
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A silly question maybe... but why should someone use collimators on already very wide emitting LEDs ( to narrow the beam probably ;Bookworm) and afterwards a diffuse plate to change again the collimated beam???
Thinking on Fresnel laws is not quite smart;
Thinking on Fresnel laws is not quite smart;
OP
OP
Well the usefulness of the diffusers is obvious. Over the past few years Ive really wanted to like LEDs but in my experience hotspots produced some pretty odd results from time to time. The diffusers have largely taken care of that on what I think of as "my experimental tank at the office". I have a handful of frags that I placed in it just after adding the diffusers and they are all doing just fine and even starting to grow a little.
With respect to managing collimated wide emitting LEDs I don't think they really are that wide to begin with. The whole reason for the HEI optics was to blend and distribute the light better than the TRI for the Gen3 models. So if I understand the meaning of "collimate" the lens would actually be de-collimating the light with the diffusers furthering the action. No?
HEI and TIR are 2 ways to do the same thing whatever marketing claims; LEDs by default have a small "HEI" lens on them creating a 120° beam; With any TIR or HEI lens on top of the leds will narrow this 120° beam to (depend by design of optics) 80° or less, up to 3° if needed; But passing through optics, 10% of LED emission is lost due to Fresnel laws. Then you add a diffuse plate to spread your collimated beam to a wider beam again - those cheap diffusers have a terrible efficiency due to a phenomena called scattering (only decent way to diffuse the light in an efficient and controlled way is by using LSD - Light Shaping Diffusers) - but those are rather expensive and dont think will see them soon in reefing;
I use since years non collimated / not diffused bare leds on my tanks and coverage / color mix is perfect
The whole idea is to scatter (spread) that light so there's more even dispersion across the tank and less hotspot directly under the light puck itself. I think you're confusing yourself.
OP
OP
I certainly feel confused!
Choice.. Removing the diffuser allows higher mounting heights
Cheaper..more efficient..
going from 120 to 90 (some prefer it) and back to an effective 120 does seem kind of odd but function for the above..
BML seemed to use more "light shaping" covers than plain diffuser/lens type plastic..
Single diodes under there.
Fresnel type I suppose..
Point is the "diffuser" topology is unknown, to me at least.
OP
OP
Thinking about this a bit, if the reason for the diffuser is to blend the light better and remove the hotspots then @db75Reef is absolutely correct. If the LEDs start out at 120 deg then tightened up to 80 by the HEI lens then diffused to spread the light back out... So wouldn't removing the HEI AND using the diffuser be a better option?
So confusing lol. HEI lense in the new G4 helps better mix the colors and widen not narrow the pattern. Then add on the diffuser for added width or dispersion...It should be making sense now.
EXAMPLE
Look at the image on the far right and think of adding the diffuser for even more spread and eliminating the disco ball effect at the same time. win/win
EXAMPLE
Look at the image on the far right and think of adding the diffuser for even more spread and eliminating the disco ball effect at the same time. win/win
OP
OP
I'm going with "Right on man!"
Regardless they look fantastic.
OP
OP
I could pop an $8 aluminum plate on a mill and whip one out in 15 min... Price was a little steep in that light (pun intended).
Ricky_Reef
Diamond Goby Lover/Hater
ESH, quick question,,, I also have a 90g with 2 gen4 pros with diffusers. When you say "60% overall intensity", are you referring to the brightness slider or the intensity that shows on one of the graph set points? Thanks!Great write up and thanks for taking the pictures. I too added these to my xr30G4's. I have 2 of them over my 90gallon mounted on the RMS system (9" above the water line). Initially I was skeptical and wasn't really seeing the difference in any pictures or video's online, but went with them primarily because I do not have a canopy on the tank and started noticing my 3 year old getting blinded by the lights every time he looked up at the tank.
First impressions of them, I like them. I compare it to looking at a lamp with the shade on vs one without. Less blinding. More importantly, I think it is functional too as the light appears to be more blended, and this is very apparent under an actinic setting (UV, Violet, Royal Blue, Blue all 100%, others 0%). I didn't notice it at first, primarily because I wasn't too sure what to look for or compare to. What did stand out to me right away was the light lines in the back.
The Light on the right has the diffuser, the one on the left does not. The light without the diffuser is putting off sharper light lines. Sorry for the crummy cell phone picture, however the blue color Im getting is pretty accurate.
I'm using the settings that WWC has out in one of their threads (Which appears to be a modified coral lab AB+ profile with half the day on actinic). Prior to installation, I had an overall intensity of around 45% which was getting about 300 par dead center & 10" down (so measured directly under the center fan). Post installation, I saw on average of a 25% drop. So to get the PAR readings back up, I increased the overall intensity to 60%, and I'm now getting similar readings to what it was before. To measure PAR I'm using a SQ-520 Apogee LED PAR Sensor, and the submersion settings were turned on.
Overall I think they are worth it. I can't say they are going to be for everyone, however depending on how your tank is setup they could be a wise choice. Can't comment on coral growth as my tank and the lights are too new (4 months).
Off the top of my head, believe at the time I originally posted this I was referencing the first slider to the left of the schedule that controls everything. Not the the individual color channels or the one within it. Then at each point you have on your schedule it shows the actual intensity. This is why lighting with custom LEDs is so confusing.
Bpb
2500 Club Member
just about every reading I took using the seneye were about 60% lower than what the apogee510 reads. For what it’s worth
That's pretty low compared to "expected" errors..but it will depend on light source and where you are measuring..
Below would also include glass reflections.
I've found one can be too close to a source w/ the Seneye and get weird readings as well..
Ricky_Reef
Diamond Goby Lover/Hater
OK, Thx a bunch for the reply... I know your thread has been up awhile but I just happened to stumble across it! Lol... Been driving me nut trying to get these lights set right!
OP
OP
I long ago ditched the Seneye for an apogee SQ520 and I don't feel a bit bad about the price difference.
Thank you— THANK YOU— for sharing info about the cutouts. I had no idea and have been frustrated beyond belief with the lack of fitting on 2 of 3 lights. Must have gotten lucky placing the other light’s casing. Awesome!I scored a few of the new diffusers for a set of Gen4 Pros I have and thought I would share some observations.
So this is what you get for $65 bucks. Basically a plastic shell with a 1mm diffuser that replaces the existing face plate for your Radion. Although light weight and a little cheep feeling contrasted against the build quality of the light itself ,once you have it mounted you should find that it fits well and does a pretty good job.
Mounting the cover is fast and simple. Remove the 8 screws that hold the face plate and fan in place, remove the face plate and then screw the white base plate to the light using the screws you just removed.
If you find the cover doesn't fit on well take the base plate back off and turn it around and screw it back in place.
The electrical board has a few pinouts that are slightly higher than the board so the base plate has a few bump-outs for these to fit into.
The end result should nice clean fit and finish.
The diffuser itself is held in place with small magnets and although it sounds like its not the best way to hold the diffuser in place it works fine.
Below is a picture of the diffused lights over a tank in my office (not much going on in the tank -hurricane Irma killed most of it and I have yet to have the heart to repopulate it).
With respect to how it looks, I'm running V/UV/B/RB at 100% and W/CW/G/R at 10% - over all intensity of powder at 35%. So lets call it 20k-ish. The first thing I noticed was how NICE everything looked. Colors are well blended, no disco and very little shading - visually. The tank looks a lot like running Radiums with supplemental URI VHO T12s bulbs. Most people in the hobby don't remember the URI VHOs T12s but its a very nice look. If you have ever seen a tank with a even distribution of Blue+ T5s and True Actinic T5s it almost the exact look. Regardless, as they can be tuned to whatever you like the diffusers seem to do a nice job.
Par fall off was about 20-25 % over all but of course this should not effect most people as few run Radions at 100% power. I also worked pretty hard trying to find hot spots - didn't find any. One thing I did notice is that at the edge of the light I could find small areas with much more fall off. Could be due to the height of the diffuser blocking some of the light coming from lens - could also be the over sensitive Seneye I used, readings bounce all over the place with that thing and the slightest movement.
So that it! Nice product that IMHO goes a long way to reduce hotspots and a great job blending the light.
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