We got a sneak peek of something HUGE for Radion lighting!!

[reeferfoxx]

Have you seen the sb reeflights "ultra"?

I also think they went too narrow on the panel. The lenses seem larger than your typical BB, as well. In regards to disco, I think it might have over stepped. Of course, I haven't seen any videos on one. Have you?

 

[GoVols]

I really hope nobody emulates that design

I showed my wife the "CoralCare" when it came out.

She Said: "When they get that thing down to about the width of our flat screen tv hanging over our reef.. We'll talk"

Reminded her too much of the MH's that used to hang in our old den's.

 

[reeferfoxx]

You can literally build something that is completely identical to this for less than $10 in 15 mins. Don't get me wrong, Ecotech makes an AMAZING light. I'm just certainly not wowed that they discovered diffusion mixes light more effectively than multiple wide angle lenses.

Not to mention, they lose the "streamline" design they went for when adding another 1 - 1.5" box.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I also think they went too narrow on the panel. The lenses seem larger than your typical BB, as well. In regards to disco, I think it might have over stepped. Of course, I haven't seen any videos on one. Have you?

Yep, in here: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/sb-reefs-ultra-giveaway.353/

 

[reeferfoxx]

Yep, in here: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/sb-reefs-ultra-giveaway.353/

Thank you!

It looks like a great light. The 22" would fit my 30 gallon perfectly. But for me, it would need to be $300 before I give up my black box for that.

 

[N4sty T4te]

The future of reef lighting should be in reflected light. Where you bounce lights into mirrors to increase the distance the light travels, and thereby reducing falloff. This way you could have a diffused light source with a 100 PAR or less difference anywhere in the tank top to bottom. Now that would be revolutionary.

Light reduces in intensity by half every time it doubles it's distance from the source. So when your light is 8" off the water line it falls off quick. Have a light bounce 4 times in a 6" deep box and you've effectively added 24" to the height of your light without having your entire house illuminated. Sorry I'm way off topic I know.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Thank you!

It looks like a great light. The 22" would fit my 30 gallon perfectly. But for me, it would need to be $300 before I give up my black box for that.

Me too. Heck if one of mine goes south, (driver goes bad) it would be cheaper to buy a new 165w unit and use it for parts than buy the parts separately. Lol

 

[nc208082]

Where are y'all going with this. This thread is about ecotech why are you talking about SB lights?

 

[reeferfoxx]

Where are y'all going with this. This thread is about ecotech why are you talking about SB lights?

We were dreaming of a ecotech G5 with the design of a panel or black box design. Just dreaming. Sorry

 

[Flippers4pups]

Dreaming, yep, dreaming. Lol ;Shamefullyembarrased

 

[Reefcowboy]

To be honest I dont really see the diffuser as such a need for G4 users, quite honestly coverage is pretty much where I need them right now. I would not sacrifice the shimmer for a small change while making the fixture look like a chinese box. G3's absolutely a need.

I can see a G5 in the works though

 

[Flippers4pups]

What if they came out with a, say G8 model in the future, that had a par meter built into the fixture! Even have a program in it that would recommend coral placement based on the par readings. You would plug the meter into the fixture and you could adjust the intensity on the fixture in a particular area based on what readings it gave! Or it would automatically adjust light intensity for you based on the light sensor location and the type of coral you want there. That would blow my mind! I would definitely buy that fixture!

 

[gcarroll]

Now, if we could get a better "middle of road" between the Orphek V4 and Chinese black box, we might have a real game changer.

Someone on here disassembled and Orphek and said it was just like a Chinese black box inside.

 

[Reefcowboy]

Someone on here disassembled and Orphek and said it was just like a Chinese black box inside.

Everytime I see a chinese black box I remember your story of the unit catching on fire before your eyes...so scary man.

 

[gcarroll]

Everytime I see a chinese black box I remember your story of the unit catching on fire before your eyes...so scary man.

what the heck are you doing up?

 

[Alfrareef]

I went ahead and revisited the Philips CoralCare BRS investigates video; aside from the diffuser, I really hope nobody emulates that design. Now, if we could get a better "middle of road" between the Orphek V4 and Chinese black box, we might have a real game changer.

I'm not a industrial design fan, but notice that with that design, Philips Coral Care don't need fans, so it's less noise, less energy and less potential for issues...

 

[Tristren]

3. If Ecotech wants to solve their disco ball issue and get the T5 effect and "Change the game" then they should build a fixture like a T5 + LED combo using all LED's and have strips of diffusion similar to this that act as if they were the T5 bulbs.

Isn't that what the Maxspect Recurve is?

https://reefbuilders.com/2017/06/16/maxspect

 

[Tristren]

The only way LED's are going to replace the highly diffused lighting of T5's and large reflector halides is with a highly diffused solution, end of story. Saying it that way makes it almost painfully obvious. Now that the community recognizes that, knows what they want and there is significant demand, one can only hope one of the manufacturers is going to be brave enough to invest in the future. IMHO this is an evolutionary leap and there will be a critical mass of very quick adopters the moment anyone steps up.

First of all thanks for the great videos. As someone starting out in the hobby they are really invaluable.

But as someone who is new to all of this, and so wasn't around for the emergence and growth of LED lighting I find this current shift a bit perplexing.

I don't mean I find it odd that they (Philips CoralCare Maxspect Recurve, Kessil and now ecotech) are adding diffuser plates to the LEDs. As you say above it seems obvious. I mean why have they not before.

This isn't a "I could have thought of that" argument; "but you didn't" is always a valid response to that. But this is an area where people are always testing and trying things out. And the disco ball effect has long been an issue. The contrast with the existing technology in terms of diffusion seems to be something that manufacturers and retailers were selling against. So this seems like one of the first things that they (or diy types) would have done.

And (from my uneducated perspective) this doesn't seem to be a case of "it's more complicated than you think" and they needed to make it work. There are lots of existing product from lighting and av/photography that are directly transferable.

Again, I am excited about this next wave of lights that we all see coming. Just surprised this wasn't in the first wave of lights.

Is the reason it wasn't because there was this hard core focus on maximizing PAR?

What do you think of the Recurve as a part of this evolution?


Tony

 

[Ryanbrs]

First of all thanks for the great videos. As someone starting out in the hobby they are really invaluable.

But as someone who is new to all of this, and so wasn't around for the emergence and growth of LED lighting I find this current shift a bit perplexing.

I don't mean I find it odd that they (Philips CoralCare Maxspect Recurve, Kessil and now ecotech) are adding diffuser plates to the LEDs. As you say above it seems obvious. I mean why have they not before.

This isn't a "I could have thought of that" argument; "but you didn't" is always a valid response to that. But this is an area where people are always testing and trying things out. And the disco ball effect has long been an issue. The contrast with the existing technology in terms of diffusion seems to be something that manufacturers and retailers were selling against. So this seems like one of the first things that they (or diy types) would have done.

And (from my uneducated perspective) this doesn't seem to be a case of "it's more complicated than you think" and they needed to make it work. There are lots of existing product from lighting and av/photography that are directly transferable.

Again, I am excited about this next wave of lights that we all see coming. Just surprised this wasn't in the first wave of lights.

Is the reason it wasn't because there was this hard core focus on maximizing PAR?

What do you think of the Recurve as a part of this evolution?


Tony

Well, I can't speak for anyone because I don't know all the variables of each situation but I can share my window into the evolution. The first element is hindsight is 20/20 and what's obvious to a lot of people now just wasn't then. I also won't pretend the solutions here are easy, the application this type of lighting is being applied to is certainly amongst the most advanced out there. Not many other applications require as much attention to spectrum, intensity, and coverage considerations. While there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence and opinions on what's best there is very limited scientific data that has been universally agreed upon. This is also a fairly small industry which has natural limitations on R&D. Just is what it is.

There is also the challenge balancing between building the right solution for the right application and building what the people buying these things are demanding. It is absolutely true that most people who were actually buying these lights did not want to buy fixtures, a small module form factor was more desirable, PAR was horsepower, more was better and full control over spectrum was one of the desirable aspects for many lights. Most of the entrances to the market that didn't respect this is what reefers wanted to buy have certainly not done well, regardless of the information they shared supporting why their solution was superior.

The difference now is failure makes us all explore why we failed. Dig in from all angles, talk to others who either had the same challenges and others who avoided them. The biggest change in many cases is publicly admitting we failed and having that discussion in an open minded solution orientated format. I think this has happened in the last 3 years and now a critical mass of reefers have come to the conclusion that the issues were largely related to too high of PAR levels, poor spectrum choices/settings, poor spectrum blending and most notably poor distribution of light using what I see a lot of reefers now referring to as "spot lights" rather than highly diffused light sources.

I think the coral care took a huge step in the right direction but this was a product produced by Philips which has billions in a throw away research dollars just to explore new opportunities so I am not surprised they came up with a new innovative way of approaching this. These are all highly intelligent engineers but before we carry them on our shoulders and cheer their praises, this was also a warehouse light that was repurposed for this application and some of the benefits of a highly diffused large format module might be somewhat happy accident related to what they had to work with and how they could make it work.

Reviewing what may have gone wrong over the last decade or so, I think the fundamental flaw in the design and marketing approach was everyone was trying to "use LEDS to light reef tanks and corals." In hindsight, there is/was very limited "agreed upon" data as to what grows corals so identifying how to do that was nearly impossible. I think we now have generally agreed upon PAR, spectrum, and coverage data but it wasn't easy to obtain. It was certainly a challenge for a critical mass within the community to generally agree this is not only accurate but they are also willing to purchase something that solves these issues.

I honestly think manufacturers and reefers, including myself, likely would have had much more success approaching this from a perspective of "how do we use LEDS to emulate the lights sources we are currently having success with." Emulating the results of lighting sources like t5's and halides with large diffused reflectors is a significantly less complex subject than what is the ideal solution for growing corals. I think optimizing for improvements in coral health over older tech is an evolution that comes after using the new technology to recreate current results, not before.

Certainly seems like we are on the right track and I can tell you with complete certainty that the community openly stating and largely agreeing on the type of lighting they are interested in buying is the strongest motivator for the manufacturers to take the risk and develop a new product to fits that need.

 

[N4sty T4te]

Isn't that what the Maxspect Recurve is?

https://reefbuilders.com/2017/06/16/maxspect

Yes, had no Idea these existed. Needs more T5 emulation though.