Would we save money adjusting the total LEDs on most modern fixtures?

Wasabiroot · May 13, 2021

Just a thought experiment:
Any of the popular light manufacturers now have the ability to customize output on the single led level or through schedule intensity and overall intensity - Kessil, Radion, Reefbreeders, etc....All these seem to have some level of adjustment. We also have the ability to run these with varying light profiles - AB+, LPS, Commonly, one sees suggestions from leading experts to lower the intensity to either help acclimate or to prevent bleaching. For example, BRS suggested something like 35% schedule intensity for a mixed reef and 50% for an SPS specialized tank.
So:
Am I crazy, or is it odd to anyone else that virtually every LED light for sale seems to be suggested to run at a significantly reduced light output than it is capable of? If so, why even build the boards with the full capacity if 99% of people will be reducing the output? Is there money to be saved by tailoring the light output closer to what the majority of people will run?

Not that I'm saying people HAVE to, or that NOBODY does (I'm sure there are some stick heavy tanks that are just pounded with light) but it does seem strange that we pay for all this power and then reduce it to 40% in most cases. The flexibility is nice, but...
Thoughts?

T-J · May 13, 2021

Reduced intensity doesn't mean less diodes. Just running them at less power. Also, if they offered, for example an AB+ version, and a LPS version and a Softie version, it would end up being even more expensive due to manufacturing all different versions. Honestly, I don't even think reducing the number of diodes in the light would really reduce the cost much. I'm guessing they are one of the cheaper elements in the light.

Wasabiroot · May 13, 2021

Makes sense. I love the flexibility of different modes, but it does strike me as odd that virtually every fixture gets reduced to such a significant percentage of its total output. Good insight re:led cost. My main confusion or desire isn't around having several different individual fixtures each with their own modes, but rather "reduce every LED to 30% intensity".

T-J · May 13, 2021

Wasabiroot said:
Makes sense. I love the flexibility of different modes, but it does strike me as odd that virtually every fixture gets reduced to such a significant percentage of its total output. Good insight re:led cost. My main confusion or desire isn't around having several different individual fixtures each with their own modes, but rather "reduce every LED to 30% intensity".

FWIW, I run 4 Radion G5 XR15 Pro's at 100% AB+ over my 120g. No reduction for me!

Fishfinder · May 13, 2021

T-J said:
FWIW, I run 4 Radion G5 XR15 Pro's at 100% AB+ over my 120g. No reduction for me!

That’s still a reduction of 75% on all diodes except blue

Wasabiroot · May 13, 2021

T-J said:
FWIW, I run 4 Radion G5 XR15 Pro's at 100% AB+ over my 120g. No reduction for me!

Yes, any data is good data. I'm assuming your tank is SPS dominant. I just figured it'd be food for thought

attiland · May 13, 2021

This is a quote of an another forum but more or less answers your question. The reduction in power construction is very little

“
Indeed, blinking is the most obvious choice and I'd say also the most used when energy is a concern.

You can make a blink as short as 50 ms and still have it visible, and if you blink every second that's a 5% duty cycle. If, as you say, it operates only a hour per day, the effective duty cycle goes down to 0.21%. It means that it will last about 500 times more than going at full power.

Let's make an example: say that you have a LED with a forward current of 1 mA (realistic, I bet you can find a lower power one). The average current over the day will be about 2 uA, or 48 uAh over the whole day, 17.5 mAh for the year.

Depending on what battery, what microcontroller and what else you got in the device, you should be able to make your calculations.

For further reduction you can consider faster blinking, less frequent blinks, lower power LED or just feeding it a lower current.
“

oreo54 · May 13, 2021

Wasabiroot said:
Yes, any data is good data. I'm assuming your tank is SPS dominant. I just figured it'd be food for thought

What color do you want?
"Violet"," violet-blue", "deep blue", "blue", or sort of "ocean blue", or "natural daylight" look?
Each one involves a different diode mix.

Each look will grow corals (I assume some better than others re species ect.)
You can"t just swap out $25-$100 bulbs just to change the look.
Module LED's where one could swap out colors never really caught on.

Radion has 2 flavors.

Coral care catered to European tastes that don't always fit in the US.. so people dim it.
AFAICT it wasn't "designed" to be channel dimmed at least by a lot.

Sanjay runs Radions at 100%.

So in a crude sense .. channel dimming (grossly) is the consumers fault

Globally overpowering is err. not really an issue since you may need enough power for anywhere from 250PAR 30" deep to 100 PAR at 12"..
Besides you increase the diodes life (and hopefully most of the electronics) considerably with dimming.

Philosophy, catering to the most common denominator and marketing..

if you look at spectrums (historical to present) there aren't any that don't really work (some better than others) as long as the photon quantity is delivered..
Yes prob. some species dependency but that's life in general.

HB AL · May 13, 2021

Im currently running 6 Kessils, 2 360x's and 4 360we's and I have them all at 100% intensity from the minute they turn on till they turn off! This is in a mixed reef, 90g Cadlights. Ya that many lights is overkill on a 90g but I can get some pretty cool looking different light combinations/visuals by having some all white, and some all blue etc...
Here's a pic I just took with the whites at 75% and the blues at 50%. This combo allows a decent pic without using filters.