Viparspectra 165watt, Anyone using these?

[diver22]

Extremely interesting thread, seems that different things work for different people, and the I intensity of the lamp is not the issue some run B at 100% / 80% / 60% while others run them at 30% and Whites at from 1% to 40% so is all over the place. Some have it modified for the color which makes sense.

one thing that they touch on very little of not
Mistaken once was a defused on the lamp itself, and how would that impact the spread to avoid removing the lenses.

I have defusers on mine but I do raise things slowly because I have bleached spa already running it at B 60% and W 5%.

so if anyone has numbers with the defuser kn the lamp itself please share you PAR values.
Thank you all for all the info has been great reassigned .

 

[Wolf94]

Bonjour

J'ai 3x165w sur un tank de 150cm et 50 de hauteur d'eau.
les rampes sont placées à 20cm de l'eau.

pour le soft, quelle valeur dois-je mettre les blancs et les bleus ?

en France, j'ai lu que les blancs sont à 40 ou 50%, pourquoi c'est si différent ici ?

merci pour les paramètres, je suis perdu.

 

[Wolf94]

Bonjour

J'ai 3x165w sur un tank de 150cm et 50 de hauteur d'eau.
les rampes sont placées à 20cm de l'eau.

pour le soft, quelle valeur dois-je mettre les blancs et les bleus ?

en France, j'ai lu que les blancs sont à 40 ou 50%, pourquoi c'est si différent ici ?

merci pour les paramètres, je suis perdu.

 

[Rp8]

Good day,
I have a v165 that the whites have went out on. I have not received any customer service help. Any ideas where I could get a replacement circuit board for the white side?

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Good day,
I have a v165 that the whites have went out on. I have not received any customer service help. Any ideas where I could get a replacement circuit board for the white side?

Hi, first how long have you had the fixture?what settings have you been running it at?
If look at the light from underneath and look at the white leds, or where they are and check if 1 looks a bit black, I.e. burnt out. if your happy opening it up, you could replace that led as if 1 burnsout it takes that channel out. If you can't see a dodgy looking one it could be the driver for that channel. You can prove that by opening it up and swap the drver from the blue channel to the white one, if the white channel works then the driver is the issue. If not I'd look into an individual led on the white channel. They are simple lights not much to go wrong in them.

 

[Rp8]

Hi, first how long have you had the fixture?what settings have you been running it at?
If look at the light from underneath and look at the white leds, or where they are and check if 1 looks a bit black, I.e. burnt out. if your happy opening it up, you could replace that led as if 1 burnsout it takes that channel out. If you can't see a dodgy looking one it could be the driver for that channel. You can prove that by opening it up and swap the drver from the blue channel to the white one, if the white channel works then the driver is the issue. If not I'd look into an individual led on the white channel. They are simple lights not much to go wrong in them.

Ok thanks I will check this out. If the led need to be replaced where would I find one of those?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I know several people using them and I was shocked to see some of the coral growth and color under these lights

 

[Rp8]

Ok thanks I will check this out. If the led need to be replaced where would I find one of those?

And I have had them for 2 years

 

[ikaros70]

Here is a side by side comparison between my mars aqua (very similar if not identical to Viparspectra) and Smat farm led.
The marsaqua are the led lights on each end of the tank. The Smat farm led fixture is in the middle. My point to this is you can see the color variation is pretty drastic IMO.
The Smat farm led fixture white channels are very yellow in person, so much so that it is throwing off the blues, purple/violet, green channels. The white channels are supposed to be 14k cool white and 3k warm white.
I tried the 14k and 3k channels by themselves, both very yellow in general.
I purchased the Smat farm because others have mentioned how much better they are than the other black box leds, but I’m not seeing it. Pic kind of speaks for itself.
Smat farm may be going back soon.
Main point to this, I would most likely stick to Viparspectra over all the other black box leds currently out.

 

[oreo54]

Ok thanks I will check this out. If the led need to be replaced where would I find one of those?

Ebay. "If" the diodes are normal.

You can use a digital vom set to ohms or diode.

 

[Apotack]

Good day,
I have a v165 that the whites have went out on. I have not received any customer service help. Any ideas where I could get a replacement circuit board for the white side?

Contact the manufacturer. I had a driver go bad long after the warranty period. I contacted them to buy a replacement driver they sent me a new one no charge.

 

[Koh23]

I will newer understand how is possible to use this lights with 40% blues, 1% white for example.....

In small tanks yes, but.....

I have over my 130x62x62 one black box and 2 rs90, all of lights are at 100%, 10 hours daily.... Soft and lps tank.....

When i was adjusting ligths, run lower % coral growth was ok, after i cranked them all the way up corals exploded.....

Plain leather coral are 10cm below water, directly under one rs90,blasto is on just a bit below, anthelia, euphilias, so we talk above 300par....

Plain common red mushrom, smaller ones are around 5-6m in diameter,bug ones are...well, bigger than that....

Give your corals light...... Slowly, carefully, of course, high end lights makes senss to reduce them a bit, but reducing this black box is contraproductive, always have in mind, that is not 55x3w light, it is more 55x2w.... So reducing it even more to some small percentage in my option is not great idea.

Of course if you are gonna crank it up, remove lenses and hang slightly higher than usual, 10+ inch, depends on tank size. Mine are app 28cm from water level....

 

[ikaros70]

I actually tried removing the lenses on mine and I did not care for the look.
So much so, I put the 90* lenses back.
I am ordering 120* lenses and going to give those a try.
Removing the lenses did give better spread over the 90*. I just didn’t like the color and also had much less of the shimmer affect.
That was my experience with removing the lenses and am just going to 120* lens.
The lenses were easy to reinstall, I just used hot glue gun.

 

[Koh23]

Well, led usualy already have 120 lens on themselfs, so not really sure what adding another 120 lens will do.

Maybe this model have something different, huge difference in spread on my model when removing lenses.

Also in blending colors, i will only replace red, green and 3000k leds with uv.....

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Ok thanks I will check this out. If the led need to be replaced where would I find one of those?

I found mine on ebay,

Contact the manufacturer. I had a driver go bad long after the warranty period. I contacted them to buy a replacement driver they sent me a new one no charge.

I did the same. I had a driver that was making in a whining noise and they sent me a replacement, the original one is still working 5 years on.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

I actually tried removing the lenses on mine and I did not care for the look.
So much so, I put the 90* lenses back.
I am ordering 120* lenses and going to give those a try.
Removing the lenses did give better spread over the 90*. I just didn’t like the color and also had much less of the shimmer affect.
That was my experience with removing the lenses and am just going to 120* lens.
The lenses were easy to reinstall, I just used hot glue gun.

The lenses should fit snug on the led and shouldn't need glue.

 

[ikaros70]

The lenses should fit snug on the led and shouldn't need glue.

Some were snug but others were a little
Loose, I used glue gun just to make sure I didn’t have any issues later.
Mine are older model and maybe newer models fit better? Not sure.

 

[Rp8]

Hi, first how long have you had the fixture?what settings have you been running it at?
If look at the light from underneath and look at the white leds, or where they are and check if 1 looks a bit black, I.e. burnt out. if your happy opening it up, you could replace that led as if 1 burnsout it takes that channel out. If you can't see a dodgy looking one it could be the driver for that channel. You can prove that by opening it up and swap the drver from the blue channel to the white one, if the white channel works then the driver is the issue. If not I'd look into an individual led on the white channel. They are simple lights not much to go wrong in them.

One of the LEDs looks like it burned up. I will get a replacement. Thanks for all your help

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

[/QUOTE]

One of the LEDs looks like it burned up. I will get a replacement. Thanks for all your help

You're welcome, I hope it solves your issue, I'd recommend buying some extra leds for spares. But once you've done 1 change you may get the bug and end up changing the colours, myself and others have done it, as for the price and how easy it is you might end up experimenting.
Just make sure you solder the new led the correct way around, sometimes the legs are marked, just check with the place you purchase the leds from what the orientation for +/-.
Have fun.

 

[ikaros70]

I just recently returned my smatfarm led fixture and my Viparspectra came in a few days ago.
I must say, these Viparspectra fixtures are an excellent bang for your buck.
Much better spread and spectrum than the other black box led fixtures, I have tried.
These are comparable to some of the other higher end led fixtures one the market.
Note: I said some of the higher end end fixtures, not all.
There are some very nice high end fixtures on the market, they also come with a high price tag $$$
I suppose it all depends how much your able or can stomach spending on led fixtures.
I also want to mention as your reading though this several page thread, you will need to take some of the information being given with a grain of salt.
Some of it, simply isn’t true.
Ex. Can’t tune each color independently.
Some key takeaways from this thread.
Most all black box led fixtures of this style come with 90* lenses. Viparspectra included.
120* lenses will give you a better spread.
I have 120* lenses on order and when they come in, I will do a side by side with no lenses, 90* lenses and 120* lenses.
I tried removing the 90* lenses on both my Viparspectra and mars aqua black boxes.
I didn’t care for the look, promptly put the 90* lenses back on, just until the 120* lenses come in. I did not care for the look of running these with no lenses. Even my wife told me to put the lenses back on, lol! IMO… Very noticeable difference.
I will have to do some additional testing/comparison but it does not seem that running these without lenses gives the same
Spread as 120* lenses, but when the 120’s come in, we will definitely find out.
I am a systems engineer by trade and will see exactly where this fixture is at with and without the lens options and report back.
I am currently running this fixture on a 210 gallon tank, 6x24x29 tall. ~12” above water line. 3 fixtures across the top.
The Viparspectra fixtures do NOT come with independent color channels like some of the higher end led fixtures do.
You can not independently tune whites, blues, greens, reds, etc.
Viparspectra has 2 channels, whites and blues. That’s it. You can set the intensity of each channel (2 channels total) independently.
When my 120* lenses come in, will follow up.