DIY'ers beware of Steve's Violet LED's

[You_Wrasse_is_Mine]

Hello. I'm creating this thread in attempts to help save others the trouble I'm going through using Steve's violet LEDs. Not trying to do any name calling here.

 

To start from the beginning. When I decided to do a DIY LED fixture I decided to shop on Steve's website as well as other websites to get my LED chips and I ordered the violet LEDs from Steve. His claims on his website or basically that they were the very best LEDs you could possibly use that's basically what his claim suggested. So I eventually came to the end of my DIY project in the LED fixture was complete and I love it. As time went on a few weeks into running my new DIY fixture I noticed some of the lenses falling off of the violet LEDs into my tank. I then took the fixture off my tank and examined the lenses on the on the chips and noticed that the lenses have turned brownish black and began to melt. Some of the lenses actually fused to the auxiliary lens. I figured it was just because I maybe ran them too hard or something maybe my driver malfunctioned and was putting out more current than I thought but I was able to verify with the multimeter that that was actually not true the driver was actually putting out under their rated amperage. So I then ordered some new violet LEDs from Steve thinking it was my fault that they melted and also some other colors that I wanted to add so I basically upgrading and changing out those bad violets at the same time. So I then completed the modifications of the fixture and began to run it again over my tank and basically the same exact thing happened the violent LEDs began to melt and fused to the other auxiliary lenses. I am now looking at replacing the violets on my fixture for the third time. I contacted Steve who then stated that the violent LEDs were only rated at whopping 1000 hours (which was not in the description at the time of purchase but now is) that means that under average lighting conditions these violets running over a reef tank running at nine hours of lighting per day every day you're violet LEDs will last only 111 days before you have to go and buy new ones and replace them. So at that point I began to get very upset suggesting that he give me replacements of some sort of compensation or something and he never offered to do anything and barely could get him to respond to my emails at all. He is not willing to compensate me whatsoever for these cheaply made Violet LEDs that I bought from him twice now. And has recently stated that all violet LEDs are rated at 1000 hours including the ones from LGB rapid LED and all others then he says that the only ones that last longer than 1000 hours are the ones that are created by luxeon.

 

I feel like I got cheated and ripped off and I just wanted everybody else to know my experience before they go through the same thing I did. The final thing I will say is that if you are one of the people that already bought the violet LEDs from Steve's, do not run them more than 50% of their maximum rated amperage. Running them at half their maximum rated amperage will increase your chances that you get the most out of them I assure you that if you run them even three quarters of their maximum rated amperage they will melt even if you have active cooling fans like I do.

 

!!!UPDATE!!!

 

The staff at Steve's LEDs has been talking with me recently and they are sending the new updated v2 violets with new lenses at no cost to me. I feel that they have redeemed themselves and are now doing me right. I withdraw my statement about feeling cheated and ripped off tough that was previously true, I no longer feel that way. The final thing I'll say about buying violet LEDs is just make sure the ones your getting are of high quality especially the lenses or you'll seriously regret it.

[Horerczy]

Lgb Violets are only rated to last 1000 hours? Excuse me while i go tell my leds they're supposed to be burned out.

[gulfsurfer101]

I've ran both tv's and uv's from both Steve's leds and lgb for over a year now and they both show signs of lenses melted off Browning, ect... They still emit light and that's good enough for me. The plastic lens on both my maker's heatsinks serves as a protective lens to the open electric wiring from my leds. Sounds like your running your diy fixture with bare leds directly above the tank with no protection from evaporation exchange and that may also be playing a factor as to why your leds are failing so soon.

[jedimasterben]

The LEDs are not rated for a thousand hours. Their lenses are made of PMMA, which is destroyed (like other plastics) by ultraviolet light. I don't know where Steve's LEDs are from, but they are not SemiLEDs like claimed, you can verify by looking at the datasheets: http://www.semileds.com/UVLED_SemiLEDs.htm

 

SemiLEDs doesn't produce LEDs in that package anymore, they are legacy products, the P2N series, and their output is far lower than Steve's claims on the site, so if they are, indeed, genuine SemiLEDs chips, then they are around half the output that Steve's got on the site. In addition, they'd all still be made with a PMMA lens, and would all brown out after a couple of months of use, but the site says they are using silicone for a lens, which SemiLEDs has on their current products only.

 

Heat will kill the LEDs faster than normal, but running them at 700mA will not, so long as you use a proper heatsink. The lenses will not brown out or 'melt', the LED will fail altogether.

 

RapidLED uses genuine SemiLED diodes, and while I do not know who produces the violets for LEDgroupbuy, they all now use silicone lenses and are in the 3535 package which has significant gains in thermal conductance.

 

 

 

tl:dr The LEDs are fine, lenses are not, scrape the lens off and you can still use them, or buy ones with silicone lenses.

[Horerczy]

I have a few theories on where Milad's violets come from but I'm not saying.

[jedimasterben]

As do I, but Milad won't even tell me if any of my guesses are correct

 

I did at least convince him not to abandon the 3535 package since he figured out that he can get them in the old style package with a silicone lens (that was originally the cause for the switch to 3535, not just that it was easier since they'd only need one PCB type for all the LEDs). The 3535 has far better thermal performance.

[Horerczy]

A different mcpcb. Lower thermal performance. wouldn't fit the 5.2 anymore. Yeah keeping the 3535 package is definitely a good idea.

[jedimasterben]

Well, the PCB for the 5.2 could easily be modified to take the old ones no problem, it just wouldn't look quite as sexy

[Horerczy]

And the actinic channels would more than likely be reduced to a scant 500mA max current for thermal management.

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

Well, the PCB for the 5.2 could easily be modified to take the old ones no problem, it just wouldn't look quite as sexy

 

sexy is high on the priority list actually

 

and for anyone reading the thread, all the violets listed here: http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/search.php?search_query=430nm

Run WAY more than 1000 hours. Out of the thousands in the last couple years, we have had maybe a dozen dead on arrival due to random shipping issues and zero dead once they are installed.

[Horerczy]

 

sexy is high on the priority list actually

Sexy is always important.It has to hang over a tank after all.

[phasezero]

Definitely get the violets from LEDgroupbuy. Customer service is worth it. He went out of his way to replace my older style violets with browned out cracking lenses with the new model HV and TV and they have been good ever since. It's been a year now with the new style violets.

[MeepNand]

I did notice the violets from Steves got brown lenses, but it never seemed to affect their output for some reason. Maybe it's just because I acclimated to the lower output.

[jedimasterben]

The output is less than 10% of normal with the brown lenses, so honestly they should just be discarded, they aren't helping anything at that point.

[R33 GTR]

hi there i have the uv led from steve and they are fine but my friend bought uv from aquastyle and they didn the same the lends turn redish brown he change his uv to the LGB ones but the aquastyle one the redish stuff came off with a Q tip with alcohol his heatsink is pretty large and it runs very cool but he had the led expose to the salt creep from the tank

[frankdontsurf]

What spectrum/LEDs would you guys recommend for a flashlight used for viewing corals and night spot lighting?

 

Figure I could build something better than an azurelite for that price.

[jedimasterben]

hi there i have the uv led from steve and they are fine but my friend bought uv from aquastyle and they didn the same the lends turn redish brown he change his uv to the LGB ones but the aquastyle one the redish stuff came off with a Q tip with alcohol his heatsink is pretty large and it runs very cool but he had the led expose to the salt creep from the tank

The primary PMMA lens needs to be removed, just cleaning it with alcohol will not do that. All of the non-'2.0' LEDs from Steves will have the issue, and all violet LEDs from LEDgroupbuy that aren't the 3535 package (aka the ones that are square like the XT-E) will have the same issue, no matter what current, no matter what conditions, you can drench them in salt on a daily basis and they'll still function like normal, it's just the UV light will break down the plastic lens over a thousand hours or so.

 

What spectrum/LEDs would you guys recommend for a flashlight used for viewing corals and night spot lighting?

 

Figure I could build something better than an azurelite for that price.

Not violet. Red is better for that.

[Milad LEDGroupBuy.com]

What spectrum/LEDs would you guys recommend for a flashlight used for viewing corals and night spot lighting?

 

Figure I could build something better than an azurelite for that price.

 

We have a few manufactures purchase some Royal Blues from us for flashlights for underwater viewing

http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/cree-xt-e-royal-blue/

 

its hard to get it on film but here is a post with underwater flash light using our 430nm LEDs

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/333310-hyper-volets-from-ledgroupbuy-go-for-a-swim-video/

[welight]

Good time to point out that leds above 400nm are not Ultra violet and dont generally react with plastics the way sub 400nm do, in fact the problem with sub 400nm is that most lenses will only allow around 10% of visible light through them. Browing off can be the result of poor primary optics material, materials ingress, chemical incompatiablity, other than the obvious overclocking issue. To extend that a little further for those interested most secondary optics will in fact change light. we have found 4000K neutrals behind plastic lense will alter by up to 300k the CCT of the leds. I would like to say thats relative across the entire mix, but off course different leds vs different optics make the permutations mind boggling when trying to establish an offset constant