Luxeon Rebel ES 'Lime' - pics and PAR

[tibbsy07]

Just being ridiculous. Don't mind me

[markalot]

This is the first I've built that didn't, but it's only because the violets I have on hand are the N5 that will be on my main array. If this were my final array, it would be loaded down with violets

 

Depends on how much white light is already in the array. Going 50/50 lumens to lumens seems to give the best result while still keeping the blue in the white LEDs.

 

The issue with that picture is that it is measured in meters, not feet. Few photosynthetic animals live at or below 50m, with 15m being 'average' for a coral reef, and 30m being the lower depths where corals have really thinned out or are shifting to NPS. Most of the corals we consider to be less demanding actually come from shallow water and are exposed to immense quantities of light, not only raw PAR but total DLI.

 

I've read the literature from Dana Riddle's tests and also Tim Wijgerde's published papers - and one thing to note is that the tests used only single colorvery spectrally-narrow LEDs, one of which is far narrower than the other, which is the 660nm deep red Rebel.

 

 

I could have told them that if you give 128 or 256 PAR of solely 660nm that the corals would not be all that happy lol. Unfortunately the majority of people that see that post will not read that far, all they see is 'hmm, red light bad, ok' and we get more fixtures like Kessils, which exclude as much as possible above 500nm, which leads to poor rendition of warmer (non-fluorescent) colors.

 

Red light isn't harmful to corals, and neither is green light. The Iwasaki 6500K metal halide is still regarded by many to be the best light for coral growth, and many coral farms still use them today - though many have switched to 100% LED and more are joining them. I haven't had a single one of the ones I've personally designed the lighting for come back and say that they were having issues with coral growth or color, so I will assume that they're keeping on keeping on on the same path as before.

 

 

Yep, a balanced light is best, not only for growth, but for exhibiting a multitude of colors instead of focusing on one or two.

 

Good stuff, thanks. Damn metric system.

[Paleoreef103]

Having seen them in person, I wonder what your thoughts are about an array that got it's spectrum over ~510nm from purely the pairing of 2700K WW Rebels and Lime LEDs. P.s. great job on the write up.

[jedimasterben]

Having seen them in person, I wonder what your thoughts are about an array that got it's spectrum over ~510nm from purely the pairing of 2700K WW Rebels and Lime LEDs. P.s. great job on the write up.

The 2700K Rebels vs the 4000K I'm using here have less blue and more in the amber/red range. The warm white is significantly warmer in appearance versus the 4000K (I have some 2700K here that I've got in another array) and is more difficult to increase color temperature with.

[Paleoreef103]

The 2700K Rebels vs the 4000K I'm using here have less blue and more in the amber/red range. The warm white is significantly warmer in appearance versus the 4000K (I have some 2700K here that I've got in another array) and is more difficult to increase color temperature with.

I know, I figured that the 2700K rebel could be used to avoid the PC-Amber and the Red discrete LEDs. Do you think say, 2 Lime:1 2700K WW might work well or do you think that the 2700K WWs are just too difficult to bring up the CCT on for it to be used as a primary LED?

[metrokat]

I like this

Lime 50%, NW 50%, the rest 100%

[farkwar]

Making it brighter to our eyes reverses the advantage.

 

 

Well, Im not growing corals in a closet for their own sake.

 

Im growing them to look at them with my human eyes.

 

 

And of course its subjective. Some people love the Windex RB tank. I like it for about a minute before Sunset becomes Night.

 

But I started this hobby when 7500K was consider blue. I leave for a few years and come back to this all blue 20K K look being preferred. And I dont find the majority of your (all) blue tanks visually appealing, to be honest.

 

 

[fishnlou]

Not that i like to bash something I havent tried, but i just dont get how these lime leds can help that much. When comparing the spectral distribution on data sheets, the spectral curve of a rebel lime led looks very similar if not the same as the spectral curve of a cool white led minus the 450nm spike. Many people despise the thought of running cool white leds due to the majority of them having poor cri ratings/ lack of proper warm colors. I understand the lime makes things brighter, but I would think it kind of lowers the cri when combined with high end whites thus requiring the addition of warmer colors to bring it back? You know the idea of cant really give without taking away from somewhere else? I would like to assume the same results would occur if the proper cool white led were used in place of the lime(while dimming down the royals to match the same cct).

 

But dont get me wrong, I still want to give them a try.

[DaveFason]

Let me break this down.

 

The lime blends VERY well with the other colors while NOT taking over or washing anything out. I have been running 2 lime, 2 NW ( 3900 ), 1 WW ( 2700 ) on the same channel for two months now. When you adjust the blues it creates the following, 1:1 very crisp white, however looks like an old school 10K MH bulb. 2:1 12-14K Ham/Phoenix. 3:1 Little more blue than 20K Radium ( maybe even 12K MH + 2x T5 ATI Blue ), but stunning to me.

 

What I fear. People going buck nasty with limes and adding to many. DONT!

 

-Dave

[farkwar]

Not that i like to bash something I havent tried, but i just dont get how these lime leds can help that much.

 

These lime LEDs weren't made for you.

 

They were made for photographers, videographers, and cinematographers.

 

 

And residential and commercial lighting designers/engineers.

 

 

 

 

CRI and CCT is completely meaningless to corals or marijuana growth. They dont care one bit that the color shifts as the output of the LED changes.

 

Its pretty meaningless to the vast majority of reef aquarists that a 5000K white LED is really 4800K at full output. I dont give one shit myself because im mixing it with half a dozen other colors anyway.

 

 

What they will be mostly used for is to fill a panel of always on lights, that do not burn a naked set of models having sex(or make the sweat, making thier makeup run), that never burn out for all intents and purposes, and the videographer doesnt have to go through a buch of time consuming steps to color correct his porno.

 

Your use, reef aquarist use, is an after thought, a microscopic wedge of a pie of income.

[fishnlou]

Let me break this down.

 

The lime blends VERY well with the other colors while NOT taking over or washing anything out. I have been running 2 lime, 2 NW ( 3900 ), 1 WW ( 2700 ) on the same channel for two months now. When you adjust the blues it creates the following, 1:1 very crisp white, however looks like an old school 10K MH bulb. 2:1 12-14K Ham/Phoenix. 3:1 Little more blue than 20K Radium ( maybe even 12K MH + 2x T5 ATI Blue ), but stunning to me.

 

What I fear. People going buck nasty with limes and adding to many. DONT!

 

-Dave

 

Sounds good, im going to have to give these a try!

 

Any recommendations on how many to use with a standard evil cluster?

 

Thanks

[evilc66]

Let me break this down.

 

The lime blends VERY well with the other colors while NOT taking over or washing anything out. I have been running 2 lime, 2 NW ( 3900 ), 1 WW ( 2700 ) on the same channel for two months now. When you adjust the blues it creates the following, 1:1 very crisp white, however looks like an old school 10K MH bulb. 2:1 12-14K Ham/Phoenix. 3:1 Little more blue than 20K Radium ( maybe even 12K MH + 2x T5 ATI Blue ), but stunning to me.

 

What I fear. People going buck nasty with limes and adding to many. DONT!

 

-Dave

 

I absolutely 100% concur with this. The Mini Tide that Dave sent me has this exact config, and it's the best LED combination I have ever seen. You don't need a lot of lime. If you are scared about how much you want to put in, put it on it's own channel. If you put it on the whites, I don't think a 1:1 ratio is the best idea.

 

There really is no green tint to the light, unlike what you would see from adding too many direct color greens. From a color perspective, I don't see any issue with using these. I haven't seen any detrimental effects from using lime.

 

As for growth, these aren't useful at all, but with the way "full spectrum" lighting has been going, do we really care? 410-500nm is where most of the growth is coming from, and we have that covered in spades at this point with white, violet, royal blue, blue, and cyan LEDs. So you are using a few extra watts to make everything look better. So what. Get over it.

 

These lime LEDs weren't made for you.

 

They were made for photographers, videographers, and cinematographers.

 

 

And residential and commercial lighting designers/engineers.

So that means that LEDs can't be used outside of their intended purpose? Guess that means we should all throw away our LEDs due to the fact that they were only made for general lighting and wall washing buildings to make them into pretty colors. Get a grip. These LEDs have a benefit to us, even though they weren't intended for our specific use.

[farkwar]

I wasn't finished with that post when you quoted, sorry.

 

I didnt mean to say that they cant or shouldnt be used. The meaning is that our use is so small to be inconsequential to the makers of LEDs, that if you use them or dont use them, makes NO difference to them being made or not, used or not.

 

Thats all. The poster's message that I was rebutting seemed to have a sense that Phillips cares what we think or use.

 

 

The people who make and use these care alot about CRI and CCT

https://www.google.com/search?q=photography+led+lighting+panels&client=tablet-android-att-us&hl=en-US&source=android-browser-suggest&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=OpN7U7-zB5KJogSYvIGACA&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=800&bih=1280

 

And you can see, they use a LOT more than you or I do.

 

 

I will make the point again, notice how they are arranged to be used in a diffused manner. Not as a point source light. Diffused lighting is superior for coral growth, diminshes most of the negatives of LEDs over coral.. You will see a lot more of it in the future in LED lighting fixtures in this hobby.

[evilc66]

Fair enough. But in reality, none of the LEDs we use today were intended for our end application. They never will either. Ever since we started working with LEDs years ago for reef lighting, we have made do with what we had available. This is just another example of that.

[farkwar]

Fair enough. But in reality, none of the LEDs we use today were intended for our end application. They never will either. Ever since we started working with LEDs years ago for reef lighting, we have made do with what we had available. This is just another example of that.

 

Exactly.

 

I dont think we need to inflate our collective egos in believing that Phillips or Cree give too much heed to our needs and wants.

 

We are getting the benefit of their development, of course.

 

They want to put CFL manufacturers and vapor lighting manufacturers out of business. They dont care about us or corals.

[Moolelo]

Hey Ben, Clive, or Dave, how do you think Lime will blend with Cool White? I currently am using 2x CW with my 2x NW + 1x WW for added brightness. I am curious how the lime blends with the CW, seeing as it covers what is missing in bulk from CW. Would this still be effective in taking the purple edge off the RB+HV+White combo?

I thought I would just throw in a little bit about photosynthesis, lots of accessory pigments and even some chlorophyll molecules will absorb light in the upper 500nm and mid 600nm range, which this Lime led seems to give out quite a bit of radiant power in. While not all use these molecules or even solely required in most cnidarians, this spectrum can be important to many species. Even diving deep off reef crest the water takes on a cyan-ish hue, visually indicating lots of green light (autotrophs are not known for wasting light). I'm not only saying don't knock it till you try it, but also don't discount usefulness until its useless.

[evilc66]

Lime blends with white, period. Doesn't matter what the color temperature is. I have an LED setup next to me at work that has cool white, warm white, and lime (it's for a freshwater planted setup), and the lime just makes everything brighter.

[andi.rahl]

The 50/50 was the second most appealing, to me.

[jedimasterben]

The 50/50 was the second most appealing, to me.

Admit it, you liked lime only the best

 

[Horerczy]

Exactly. I dont think we need to inflate our collective egos in believing that Phillips or Cree give too much heed to our needs and wants. We are getting the benefit of their development, of course. They want to put CFL manufacturers and vapor lighting manufacturers out of business. They dont care about us or corals.

 

 

I feel the need to point out that Phillips is a major supplier of CLF technology as is OSRAM (through Sylvania) so they aren't so keen on the idea of CLF manufacture going by the wayside just yet.

[jedimasterben]

I feel the need to point out that Phillips is a major supplier of CLF technology as is OSRAM (through Sylvania) so they aren't so keen on the idea of CLF manufacture going by the wayside just yet.

Fluorescent and vapor lighting is still big, of course, but LED and other tech are growing by leaps and bounds. Technology can't sit still, and Philips and Osram both know that, and both are moving forward, but are still keeping legacy products because sales continue - as they decline and LED sales continue to rise, their manufacturing gear will shift, as well.

[andi.rahl]

Admit it, you liked lime only the best

Oh gods, no! That color literally makes me want to be sick, and I'm not even remotely kidding - that color is making me feel nauseous right now. I like the addition of lime to the other colors, though.

[Moolelo]

Lime blends with white, period. Doesn't matter what the color temperature is. I have an LED setup next to me at work that has cool white, warm white, and lime (it's for a freshwater planted setup), and the lime just makes everything brighter.

I guess my question was more about color rendition. From the photos Ben posted it looks to be better, but lots of focus on brightness and not a lot on visual color rendition. The nanobox you tested looked to have great color rendition, but once again all of these are pictures on a computer and are often not visually honest.

[evilc66]

It's not so much about color rendition, at least for reefs. The limes aid in raising CRI without changing CCT in general lighting, where the white LEDs are usually deficient. It's really just about the visual appearance of the light to the end user on the reef end of the application spectrum. There aren't too many corals that are green that don't have green fluorescing pigments. There may be some corals that may benefit from lime for color rendering, but the vast majority won't show any benefit. Again, it's benefit is for the end user.

[andi.rahl]

What is CRI and CCT, evil? Sorry, beyond how much lighting I need for my tank, I don't know much else. >.<

 

It's not so much about color rendition, at least for reefs. The limes aid in raising CRI without changing CCT in general lighting, where the white LEDs are usually deficient. It's really just about the visual appearance of the light to the end user on the reef end of the application spectrum. There aren't too many corals that are green that don't have green fluorescing pigments. There may be some corals that may benefit from lime for color rendering, but the vast majority won't show any benefit. Again, it's benefit is for the end user.