I'm a self confessed workaholic. I went to bed thursday night to some night reading. Was I insane? Who the HELL makes heatsinks out of billet aluminum these days, nonetheless IN HOUSE?

I started watching some CNC videos. I spent some time alone. I woke up with this in my head. My wife hasnt seen me in 2 days. I am wearing the same clothes i wore friday morning.

My 5 o clock shadow, which takes 2 weeks to set in, is somehow already a stubble? The mind and ramblings of a man who has survived on too little sleep. Oh I lied. I remember seeing Alice with my wife. Its only been 1 day. I squeezed in some QT right before a marathon of CNCing!!!! CRAZY I TELL YA!!!!

2 x 20w T5VHO + 2 x 5 PAR38 MCPCBs. Usual goodies.

Overall dimensions 12 x 6.5 x 1.5

Fixture is milled out of billet 6061. Integrated passive heatsink & active cooling system for T5s.

Built to order, we are planning on making them available in the full range of anodized colors. No price or lead time yet.

That is all.

Sweet! tagging along for this.

Will the LED's have an adjustable driver?

How much would a kit for a BC29 run?
How soon after can we expect these after all the special UVL T5's are out?


sorry just waiting impaitently
-Kev

now make it fit in a BC8

PC+LED hybrid?

Loving the look of it.

I already want to upgrade my lights on my 2.5. This woud be overkill (and probably out of my price range) but defintely giving you an A+ lol

The hybrid retro is really simple. We will be reconfiguring our heatsink to accept 2 x 20w T5R-VHO and transverse mounted Edison strips / Cree Stars.

There will be the standard options for drivers (meanwell LPC / meanwell ELN-D family) so dimming is a possibility.

Pricing is still being worked out, but it shouldn't break the bank. When I teamed up with Clive (evilc66) I made a promise to myself that I would try to bring high quality, high performance product available to a broader audience.

Clive can send me a file and i will grab some material, throw it on the mill and press play.

Chris

Its off to the beadblaster for a nice satin finish. Jake@reefbuilders was saying black would look sexy. Don't know if there is time for an anodizing run.

Working on version 1.01 which will feature less mass and longer side vents.

ah man, this is what I've been waiting for.

man, those look awesome ... how would these do on a 14" cube tank with clams??

are there plans to make a hanging kit to go with it?

IMHO the stainless steel/silver look is so sexay.
Well, if it doesn't get rust spots.

The anodizing will be available in an array of colors. The 6061 aluminum is aircraft grade aluminum, so it should be pretty corrosion resistant (within reason).

Chris

Seems the T5R VHO from UVL is making hybrid setups alot more popular all of a sudden.

This is great and I think will really set a standard as for price and performance that few will be able to match.

With the addition of these T5s, the options open up so much for small tanks. Options that weren't even remotely possible before. Like Chris says a lot, it's a good time to be in the hobby

sweet baby jesus.

It's amazing (yet sad) how you guys keep putting the big manufacturers to shame. I wouldn't be surprised if you put the big boys out of business with this stuff. The market for Nano's has grown exponentially in the past decade, and most people can't keep up. There has also been a serious shift to smaller specialty manufacturers who show true innovation and are in tune with hobbyist demands. The bigger companies just can't make gear for the serious hobbyist anymore.

I'm speechless, this thing is bad*ss!

x2!
I love seeing this company expand. Over the past couple of years you guys have been coming up with great new products for the nano community. Lately, you've been coming out with product after product, it's great to see. I cant wait to see these lights come to fruition, and I know these lights will be a hit.

What's nice is that being so small, we can be quick and nimble on our feet when we need to make/change something. I don't see us putting any big names out of business, but I do see us turning some heads. The market has stagnated for too long, and those companies that are innovating, are charging a premium. We know the nano market is huge, but can't tollerate stupid prices, so we do our best to come up with cool stuff like this and put in within reach of the average hobbyist. Having our own CNC in house helps a LOT!!

We have come up with some pretty cool head turner products over the last year. Just wait though. There's more Chris and I mesh really well and we are coming up with new stuff all the time. It's actually hard finding the time to work on all of it.

We (Chris really) will have this unit working for Reefstock. I'm sure there will be tons of pictures posted on Reefbuilders, but I'll be dragging the camera along for our own shots of it in action (along with a bunch of other stuff) and we will post it here.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Will there be mounting legs? Would it be cheaper to buy a fixture, or retro it into a BC29 hood?

I'm excited!

this is frickin sick. now you guys need to get past the dimming patent and put that option on the leds. this is just insane. cannot wait. you guys rock. keep up the good work.

so wildly bad ass

I saw this on Reefbuilders first surprisingly. This is just awesome. I don't have a tank that small, but man is it tempting to order a 14" cube right about now....

How will your pricing on the LEDs compare with other vendors? I hope this will be sold with the option to buy LEDs elsewhere unless you are able to get prices near somewhere like cutter's prices.

I would stockpile alot of these before your put them on sale, the first wave of buyers is going to buy these up. You are going to hurt your own sales on alot of your other lighting products!

I want one, NOW!

Need beta tester? My light broke

I want one too!

Nifty!

thats the thing about nanocustoms/nanotuners they love to give you a ton of options to choose from so you can pick the one that exactly fits your needs so they do have 2-3 products sometimes that fit the same niche but have different options so that the consumer gets exactly what they want with no modifying

and i just checked out cutters website and in order to beat nanocustoms prices for cool white XR-E's Q5 bin you have to buy 50-100 of them otherwise it costs more per LED(althought i may be putting in the wrong options but the only options i choose were to have it mounted on a star and the Q5 cold white color option)

Sweet Jesus that's cool!

How will you be able to compare the prices? The LED prices are rolled into the total fixture cost. The MCPCBs from the PAR38s were used out of convenience more than anything, but something similar will be used for production. We get stuff like that cheaper than you can get them at retail anyway. You can refit them with other LEDs if you wish, but we won't be selling these as a DIY kit, only complete.

As for hurting our other products, we aren't worried about that. This company has sold overlapping product lines for years and it hasn't stopped people from buying all of them. It's all about different strokes for different folks. Everyone wants something different. Anyway, it's not like we are betting the farm on just this or any other product that we make. Anything that sells keeps the doors open, and us developing more stuff.

It was mentioned before that these will be built on demand. While we see a lot of interest right now, that doesn't guarantee sales once they are available. If demand warrants it, they will be more "mass produced", but the point was to be able to give the customer a unique and personalized solution (engraving and anodizing options are an on demand item).

Let there be LIght!!!

After doing some prelim testing to make sure the wiring worked out, Nick took care of the rest, putting in the trademark Nanocustoms Aluminum Enclosure with switches and a dongle for the fan. This badboy is ready for the big show!!!

Nick took the par meter home, therefore we have no par measurements as of yet.

Please excuse the iphone pics.

You can get it for cheaper but can you sell it for cheaper? I think they can. Should be pretty easy to tell the price you are paying for the LEDs, similar T5 retrofits are sold on nanocustom/nanotuners, comparable ballasts/drivers that will be in the fixture are sold there as well.

I cant estimate the cost on the milled heatsinks but subtract the above and you have an idea of LED/HSF prices.

IMHO, I would like to see the cost set in such a way that DIYing a setup is not cheaper. The cost basis for selling DIY parts vs a fixture should be about the same. Yet retail prices seem to end up differently.

BTW, none of this is meant as an insult, just thoughts. You guys make great products.

name your price!! could this handle a 20H sps/mixed?

Hallelujah. My 250w sunpod just broke down. Time for change..

i second part 2...
however...
will it be cheaper than a 4x24w ATI Sunpower?

I think it is meant for something a little shorter than 24"

wow it looks amazing all lit up.



you never know they may make a 20in version with the 18in T5VHO and 3 of the PAR38 LED things. *hint hint* lol

And with the lights off.

This thing passes the thermal test. After 1 hour, the unidbody ran "a cooler than your Body" 91F. The sweet spot for T5 flourescent is at 105F, so we may need to turn the fans down a bit.

When I get the par meter, we can temperature tune the fixture to deliver the most power out of the T5s. People forget that we have over 6 years experience "temperature tuning" fluorescent bulbs with a PAR meter. We turn the fans onto a certain voltage/speed. Test and try again.


The T5s should be loving the cool air temps.

I WANT ONE!

+2. Was this question answered? I would also like to know.

yes. i am in love

Mounting legs are to be determined. It's not the easiest thing to do. Remember, this is a prototype and things can/will change. We are always open to suggestions. You will see more pics in action during and after the show this weekend.

what ballasts are the T5s powered with?

No SLR on the T5's? Also, what is the spread like with that big fan in the middle? Is it like two spots or does it all meld together?

the UVL T5s have an internal reflector so individual reflectors would be useless

and a regular PAR38 bulb has an effect radius of 12"x12" so with them being that close together im betting you would never know the light was coming from 2 sources 4-5" apart

lol, while they're at it they should just give a $50 check out with every order.

chris, these are pretty sweet. they almost change my mind about LEDs.

Sick!

We have more coming that could change your mind

You coming out to MAX next month? I know it's a bit of a drive. Not sure if we are going to exhibit, but I'll be bringing some goodies with me anyway.

Thanks for all the kind words guys. When you design retrofits for AIOs, style points isnt what you aim for. Thats supposed to be taken care of by the manufacturers.

With this one, I just wanted to see what was possible with a unibody.

The conventional approach to cooling an LED system is to cool the heatsink. The approach to Fluorescents is to keep the light envelope cool. I sought out to tackle both at the same time.

Surprisingly, the fixture is still here. I was certain that I was going back to my doors being smashed in and the unit gone. You guys are HONEST people!!!

Chris

Yes, yes they should. Actually they have an early adopter special of 50$ on some LED products so I guess you could say they agree with me.

Shipping, tools and misc parts add up. Making a fixture more competitive with DIYer isnt that difficult. Chris can buy all the parts cheaper than us and save us on shipping and tools.

weeeeelll I was google satellite mapping the facilities and ordered some meat for the guard dogs. Plus lapels + baby powder, and mirrors just in case the security system had laser trips.

I wasn't expecting the new russian guards with ak47s when I got there though. So when did you hire them? Lol


So any idea what sized tanks this would be recommended for yet?

This is sweet!

Will you be selling just the Aluminum Housing?