Jump to content
Top Shelf Aquatics

Review of the Lumia 5.1 - PAR readings, pics, etc


jedimasterben

Recommended Posts

jedimasterben

Hey guys - I finally was able to fix my Lumia chip that I killed on day one. I accidentally pulled out the lead going into the NW channel. Milad assures me that this is not the norm, but I will still caution everyone to be careful with those leads! Luckily, I was able to melt part of the plastic bits to get to where the wire leads.... lead. Soldered the wire back on, and I was in business!

 

Right off the bat... this thing is wicked bright. I was not paying attention to where I was looking when I removed the jumper to my LDD powering the NW string, and it blasted my eyes - and I still see spots. So don't look directly into them :lol:

 

The product page for the Lumia can be found here. The cost is right around $100 for the chip. The Lumia has five channels, each with ten LED diodes epoxied onto the base and ran in series, for a total forward voltage of 34-38v per channel, so yes, this will require five separate drivers to power, unless you have high-voltage drivers.

 

The channels are as such:

  • 10x 4500K neutral white
  • 10x 450nm royal blue
  • 10x 430nm hyper violet
  • 5x 495nm turquoise (cyan) and 5x 660nm deep red
  • 5x 405nm true violet and 5x 470nm cool blue

 

 

Here is the spectral output (provided by LEDGroupBuy):

lumia-5.1.jpg

 

The chip is pretty straightforward. Comes with wire leads preattached for each channel, so plug them in and you're ready to go.

 

There are no optics for the chip as of yet, so you will not find readings or pictures including any. Once Milad sends me one, I will update this thread with new pictures and PAR readings.

 

The board that the LEDs are attached to is tin-plated copper, which has very good thermal transfer. Clive Bentley (our own evilc66) has a bit more information on the LEDs themselves, and cautions that the maximum LED junction temperature is 70°C for the deep red chips, which is much lower than that of the others, but because of its inclusion, the entire chip is limited to that temperature. To add to it, the LEDs on this chip are not soldered into place, but epoxied, which does limit thermal transfer. I believe that the copper PCB should make up for that, though, and the use of a properly sized and actively cooled heatsink will keep it well under that temperature. blasterman reports that properly cooled LEDs rarely exceed 40°C if I'm not mistaken.

 

I'm running the chip on a 6" MakersLED heatsink with the provided fan, and after running for nearly an hour at full bore (700mA, 126 watts), the heatsink was not warm to the touch, and the LEDs had not lost intensity (as when LEDs get hot, they emit less light). With that being said - I always recommend overkill. I would use a 12" Makers and not one, but two fans - in case one dies, there will be a backup to keep the heatsink cool, which could definitely save your LEDs - well worth the bit of extra money, as the fans will fail long before the LEDs do (I've found an average lifespan of three years on 'computer' fans). Redundancy is your friend.

 

 

First off, some pics of the unit itself, and my professional soldering station. ;)

 

IMG_0002.jpg

 

 

IMG_0004.jpg

 

 

IMG_0011.jpg

 

 

IMG_0020.jpg

 

 

Here you can see where I melted the casing to reattach the wire.

IMG_0039.jpg

 

 

 

Installation was pretty straightforward since I'm using a Makers heatsink. Four screws, run wire to each lead, plug in. Mine was a bit more complex because of the LDD and the boards, but if I wasn't just throwing this together, it would look a lot nicer. All LDD used are 700mA (the maximum you can run the Lumia, and will pull 126 watts of power) on the 250w 48v power supply from LEDGroupBuy.

 

Got it lit up and took some pics. All pictures were taken with a Canon Rebel T1i, 1/125 shutter, f2.8 aperture, ISO 800, and white balance set to 'white fluorescent light (4000K)' as this seems to give consistent results. Photos were imported into Lightroom (taken as RAW) and were not messed with, except for the first set on the table where I needed to lower the exposure so it didn't look like one color filling the frame :P

 

Neutral white channel

lumiaNW2.jpg

 

 

Royal blue channel

lumiaRB2.jpg

 

 

Hyper violet channel

lumiaHV2.jpg

 

 

Turquoise (cyan) and deep red channel

lumiaCDR2.jpg

 

 

True violet and cool blue channel

lumiaTVCB2.jpg

 

 

All channels

lumiaall2.jpg

 

Told ya it was bright. :P

 

 

Next up, I hung it over a tank I have set up (empty) just like I did my 'evil cluster' a couple of weeks ago. The heatsink is exactly 24" above the bottom of the tank, which is a rimless 24" x 24" x 12" 30g. It has a corner overflow, therefore no measurements were taken for that corner. PAR measurements were taken using an Apogee SQ-110 sun-calibrated PAR sensor attached to a multimeter. The measurements of both the multimeter and the PAR sensor are +/- 5%, so I will consider it a wash. All PAR readings for the blue/violet channels were adjusted to match Apogee's provided sensor quantum response graph (located here for reference).

 

All measurements were taken with the sensor on the bottom of the tank, except for one reading taken in the dead center at 18" under the lights, and is noted by a line drawn from the center extending up.

 

Neutral white channel ONLY

lumianw3.jpg

 

 

lumiaNW-1.jpg

 

 

Royal blue channel ONLY

lumiarb3.jpg

 

 

lumiaRB-1.jpg

 

 

Hyper violet channel ONLY

lumiaHV3.jpg

 

 

lumiaHV-1.jpg

 

 

Turquoise (cyan) and deep red channel ONLY

lumiaCDR3.jpg

 

 

lumiaC-DR.jpg

 

 

True violet and cool blue channel ONLY

lumiaTVCB3.jpg

 

 

lumiaTV-CB.jpg

 

 

All channels (PAR reading is just all previous combined, measured separately for accuracy)

lumiaall3.jpg

 

 

lumiaallchannels.jpg

 

 

 

Final thoughts

 

The Lumia is pretty cool. It's pretty potent for such a small chip, and it includes a very large amount of violet light (10x 430nm, 5x 405nm), which I'm pretty happy about. The more violet the better!

 

There was one odd thing I couldn't quite put my finger on. The royal blue channel was very white. I mean, very white, as in not blue looking like any other royal blue LEDs I have on hand do. I don't know what is going on in my unit, but it seems that the RB channel might be very high-kelvin white, almost like it has a little bit of phosphor applied to it (but it doesn't). I checked it again, and the phosphor on the NW doesn't bleed over onto the RB diodes. Again, this may be only my unit, I'd be interested to hear anyone else's experience with this channel.

 

In addition, the neutral white channel is pretty blue for a 4500K white. I've got some 6500K 'generic' chips that I have on hand from an old build, and they look pretty similar, with the Lumia's white channel looking a bit warmer.

 

The light blends very well, and there is almost no color banding (which leads to 'disco' with surface agitation). The light looks great, and is powerful and, best of all, even with its coverage, shown in my PAR readings above. Good, easy full-spectrum LED array with minimal work and time. Even with my wiring to the LDD on the boards, it took me less than an hour to go from separate parts to assembled and over the tank.

 

 

 

Now, a few of you want to know how the Lumia compares to my 'evil cluster' that I made. The Lumia at 700mA (126 watts total) is about 87% as powerful as my evil cluster (70 watts total) when both are run without optics. As I mentioned in other threads when asked about how they compare, in raw efficiency and power, the evil cluster will win every time. The Lumia is easier to use and put together if you're unfamiliar, but does have drawbacks in efficiency (but being a multichip package, that comes standard).

 

 

I'm pretty much required to mention that the Lumia 5.1, two LDD-700H, 48v 250w power supply, and 6" MakersLED heatsink were given to me to review by LEDGroupBuy.com, but this did not effect my take of the products.

Link to comment
  • Replies 118
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Par readings in the 10-20s? in the center? Isn't that weak?

Totals out at 107 Par at 24" in the air. That's pretty darn good IMO.

 

 

Very nice review Ben.

Link to comment
jedimasterben

Par readings in the 10-20s? in the center? Isn't that weak?

Per channel, without lenses, and at 24".

 

Plus the channel that has the lowest PAR, which is deep red and cyan, you don't particularly want or need a ton of light - basically just enough for corals to reflect. This channel you could run at half power and still get the same effect.

Link to comment
Milad LEDGroupBuy.com

Par readings in the 10-20s? in the center? Isn't that weak?

 

LOL thats how i read the first picture too but he did each channel individually and its hung at 2 feet above the tank which is really high considering there is no optics.

 

At about 6-8" above the tank i would think it would be much much much higher numbers.

Link to comment

Very nice Ben! For my next build, I'll probably use an Evil cluster, but the Lumia is a definite recommendation for people looking for a very simple build.

One chip, some drivers, and a power supply.

Link to comment

That thing would need some optics before it kept SPS happy. With all channels maxed and you still only getting 140ish in the dead center....and that is WITHOUT moving water....yikes. You are looking at about half that with water. Cool setup though.

Link to comment
Actually, I managed to get it working last night, I tried again to melt the plastic housing to get to the internal connector and managed to get it! I wrote a review last night, and I'll copy it over to this forum in a bit, will take some work to fix the links.


We do PAR readings in air because results will never be the same twice in water due to any surface agitation, particulate matter, or tannins/stains in the water. Water can also increase PAR up to 25% from surface agitation.

Quoted from Jedimasterben on R2R from his Evil Cluster build

Link to comment
jedimasterben

LOL thats how i read the first picture too but he did each channel individually and its hung at 2 feet above the tank which is really high considering there is no optics.

 

At about 6-8" above the tank i would think it would be much much much higher numbers.

Well, imagine it were lighting a taller tank than my 12" one. These numbers are good for up to an ~18" tall tank. At 12" from the fixture, PAR is around 350ish.

 

That thing would need some optics before it kept SPS happy. With all channels maxed and you still only getting 140ish in the dead center....and that is WITHOUT moving water....yikes. You are looking at about half that with water. Cool setup though.

Not particularly, IMHO. You'd be surprised at how little light it takes for some corals to reach photoinhibition (the point where CZAR actually goes down instead of up).

 

 

Quoted from Jedimasterben on R2R from his Evil Cluster build

 

We do PAR readings in air because results will never be the same twice in water due to any surface agitation, particulate matter, or tannins/stains in the water. Water can also increase PAR up to 25% from surface agitation.

Yep, but it should really be a wash, as it can also decrease up to 25% from that same surface agitation :P

Link to comment

I was too wondering why the numbers seemed so low then I realized it was per channel. I also think 100+ PAR from a fixture 24" w/out is damn good. Sure it may decrease once water is added but I can't see someone running it this high without optics. Nice write up.

Link to comment

Ben, the royals may be looking white to you from the white phosphor being excited by the royals, seeing as they are in such close proximity. Once I get the spectrometer in my hands, we will be able to see if that theory holds water.

Link to comment
jedimasterben

Ben, the royals may be looking white to you from the white phosphor being excited by the royals, seeing as they are in such close proximity. Once I get the spectrometer in my hands, we will be able to see if that theory holds water.

That may be. Thanks for looking into it, you're a badass and a half.

Link to comment

Ben, the royals may be looking white to you from the white phosphor being excited by the royals, seeing as they are in such close proximity. Once I get the spectrometer in my hands, we will be able to see if that theory holds water.

That is so out there, but it seems pretty cool.

Link to comment

I don't think it's that far fetched. Think about it. The royals and the whites are within 3mm of each other. The phosphors are excited by blue light. There is some internal refraction in the encapsulant used over the chips, so it stands to reason that some blue light will reach the phosphors. A simple way to check would be to shorten the exposure time a bunch so you can see the individual chips, and see if the white row is fluorescing at all.

Link to comment
jedimasterben

So lower the aperture on the camera? At f2.8 I can't take it any lower on the camera itself, but I might be able to get somewhere with Lightroom.

Link to comment

Looks like the Hyper Violets will excite the phosphors on the whites. I took this pixture with only the HV's on. and even then I'm going to guess I wasn't even giving them more than a 70mA. I barely turned the pot up (Because as you can clearly see the chip isn't mounted to anything in the picture. I just wanted to make sure all the channels were working and saw this.)

 

P6160374_zpsf370bc15.jpg

Link to comment
jedimasterben

I tried to get some pics of the RB channel, but even with a 1/600 shutter speed and f2.8, couldn't get any that showed the individual chips. :/

Link to comment

Force your cameras flash on. It's how I got these individual chips to show. Running the thing as low as possible (Via Makers Driver) helped considerably as well.

Link to comment
jedimasterben

No dimmable drivers on it, just bare LDD at the moment. I also just gave my sister back the DSLR, so no good pictures for a few weeks probably.

Link to comment
jedimasterben

F/2.8 is probably a wide open aperture for your lens or close to it. Meaning more light. Change it to F/22 if you want to take a darker photo. Unless I completely misunderstand your posts.

Then maybe I had it backwards - I thought a lower aperture reduced the amount of light let in.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...