They are popular because BRS has been pushing them for literally years. Popularity has nothing to do with design quality. There are many examples out there of terrible things being popular. Because many just follow what others do instead of learning for themselves for various reasons. Also, I didn’t mention anything about life span in my criticism and you didn’t actually address any of my points.Any led you run flat out at 100% is going to have a shorter lifespan than one you don’t. I won’t run anything I own at wide open for long periods of time because it will kill them.
my ai prime is around 30-35% max per channel - the cooling fan never even turns on. Ever. So it’s totally silent always. You don’t necessarily need to run these at 100% especially on small tanks like 5-20gal
is it the greatest light? No, but it honestly the most popular light sold at brs for a reason, and it’s far from junk. Made to fit into a price point - absolutely, but not junk.
You’re welcome to your opinion about them
being junk or not. Mine remains as I said which is that they are junk.
You mentioned running them at 35%? What PAR are you getting? 5? They are not strong lights and BRS recommends running them at several channels at 100% or higher for the HD model, so you proposing it’s normal and fine to run them at such low percentages is disingenuous. Coral growth would be glacial.