The 'Evil Cluster' revisited

[jedimasterben]

At what, six watts? Can't find these specs anywhere on Steve's site.

3.1v at 1A, so 3.1w

 

Philips doesn't give binning information in their datasheets, but Steve's got it on the page. http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-...-royal-blue.htm

[blasterman]

So, it's not one of Steve's Asian LED's but a Luxeon Rebel....you had me confused for a second.

 

We can agree to disagree on this, but having tried all wavelengths as base royals Im really not thrilled about going below 450nm. Tank starts turning purple when you mix with neutrals, although you can balance it with a bit of standard blue.

 

Luxeon is moving this direction with the Royal Rebel to make it a better remote phosphor LED.

[jedimasterben]

So, it's not one of Steve's Asian LED's but a Luxeon Rebel....you had me confused for a second.

 

We can agree to disagree on this, but having tried all wavelengths as base royals Im really not thrilled about going below 450nm. Tank starts turning purple when you mix with neutrals, although you can balance it with a bit of standard blue.

 

Luxeon is moving this direction with the Royal Rebel to make it a better remote phosphor LED.

Yep, the Chinese started making quality knock-off products.

 

In other news, hell froze over.

 

Do you have any comparison pics? I've seen a few, and it hasn't been that bad, a slight purple cast IMO, but they could have been questionable quality pics.

 

So they are moving towards higher or lower wavelength? And what is remote phosphor?

[McJosh13]

We can agree to disagree on this, but having tried all wavelengths as base royals Im really not thrilled about going below 450nm. Tank starts turning purple when you mix with neutrals, although you can balance it with a bit of standard blue.

 

Luxeon is moving this direction with the Royal Rebel to make it a better remote phosphor LED.

 

My fixture started out with 20 luxeon rebel 440nm's from Steve's site + 16 4500k XP-Gs + 3dr/3tur and the tank was very purple. In an effort to get rid of the purple I changed the rebel 440nms to XT-E 452nm's from LEDGroupbuy.com. Its hard to say if it made any difference because the tank still looked just as purple... maybe a tad bit better, it's hard to say. It wasn't untill I changed the 4500k XP-Gs to 5000k Luxeon ESs and switched 3 royal blues to cool blues that I got rid of the purple (thank god) and the tank looks really good now. I'm adding a few more cool blues to see if they further improve the color

[jedimasterben]

My fixture started out with 20 luxeon rebel 440nm's from Steve's site + 16 4500k XP-Gs + 3dr/3tur and the tank was very purple. In an effort to get rid of the purple I changed the rebel 440nms to XT-E 452nm's from LEDGroupbuy.com. Its hard to say if it made any difference because the tank still looked just as purple... maybe a tad bit better, it's hard to say. It wasn't untill I changed the 4500k XP-Gs to 5000k Luxeon ESs and switched 3 royal blues to cool blues that I got rid of the purple (thank god) and the tank looks really good now. I'm adding a few more cool blues to see if they further improve the color

Very interesting. Well, glad you posted this, because I have been emailing Steve, and he said that the NW Rebel ES are definitely coming, and should be an amazing bin (300-400lm at 1A). Retail pricing should be at or less than the cool whites ($3-3.50 each). He is also working on getting exotic LEDs, pricing is up in the air on those, though.

 

I will have to keep the blue thing in mind as I set my kit up. I ordered 6x XM-L, 24x RB Rebel from Steve, and I have 6x cool blue, 6x deep red, and 6x turquoise, but I am gonna skip the XM-Ls and get 15-18x of the NW Rebels instead. Will give me a better light spread, and more light overall. Should be pretty awesome.

 

Just about anything would be better than these Bridgelux I have now, in terms of color. Growth is good, but I have to crank the royals and violets to get anything to really look good.

[McJosh13]

Very interesting. Well, glad you posted this, because I have been emailing Steve, and he said that the NW Rebel ES are definitely coming, and should be an amazing bin (300-400lm at 1A). Retail pricing should be at or less than the cool whites ($3-3.50 each). He is also working on getting exotic LEDs, pricing is up in the air on those, though.

 

Did he specify the LXW8-PW50 5000k Rebel (cri 80-85) or the LXML-PWC2 Rebel (cri 60-70) which can be gotten at 5000k also? My tank looks much better since switching the 4500k XP-Gs for the LXW8-PW50 rebel. I don't know if its because of the increased color temp, better cri (80-85 vs 70) or maybe its a combination of both.

[jedimasterben]

Did he specify the LXW8-PW50 5000k Rebel (cri 80-85) or the LXML-PWC2 Rebel (cri 60-70) which can be gotten at 5000k also? My tank looks much better since switching the 4500k XP-Gs for the LXW8-PW50 rebel. I don't know if its because of the increased color temp, better cri (80-85 vs 70) or maybe its a combination of both.

Very specifically the LXW8-PW50, and that they are CRI 85.

 

I'd imagine that it was simply because of the much higher CRI. Are your royals still the Luxeon ES?

[McJosh13]

Very specifically the LXW8-PW50, and that they are CRI 85.

 

Awesome!

 

I'd imagine that it was simply because of the much higher CRI. Are your royals still the Luxeon ES?

 

I think it was a combination of both factors (the 5000k have less in the red spectrum to combine with blue to make purple, and the higher cri leds have more green/cyan to offset the red and decrease the purple look)

 

I am no longer using using royal blue luxeon es. These were the first to go when trying to rid my tank of the purple tint. What the tank would look like with rebel es royals + rebel 5000k white I can not tell you but it seems that my main problem was the 4500k XP-Gs (other people may be satisfied with the results of using this LED but I am very sensitive to having any purple tint on the tank)

[Giga]

Great thread and I thought Id share what I did I kinda took it to the next lvl. I use the 56C5300 which can be ran up to 100w. I run them at 50w watts and holy crap it's powerful. I run two of them but the pic is just one side of the heatsink. I run full spectrum and will have a diffuser to blend the colors. I need more royal blue as I only have 6 on each side and 2 blue. I gonna run two bars on the side of the fixture like t5 with all RB on it

 

 

Orsam deep red,Cree xp-e blue-xt-e royal blue,bridgelux 56C5300, 420nm violet (unknown brand), and 500nm turquise not in the pic

[jedimasterben]

I think it was a combination of both factors (the 5000k have less in the red spectrum to combine with blue to make purple, and the higher cri leds have more green/cyan to offset the red and decrease the purple look)

 

I am no longer using using royal blue luxeon es. These were the first to go when trying to rid my tank of the purple tint. What the tank would look like with rebel es royals + rebel 5000k white I can not tell you but it seems that my main problem was the 4500k XP-Gs (other people may be satisfied with the results of using this LED but I am very sensitive to having any purple tint on the tank)

Very good, I will keep that all in mind. My LFS has asked me to start making LED fixtures for them to sell (they are tired of buying the garbage 120w cool white + royal blue 1w LED things, or expensive Radions), and I'm probably going to use nearly all Rebels now that Steve will be stocking them. 10x NW, 15x RB, 6x blue, 3x red, 3x green (maybe turquoise instead, will test coral colors with both), 4x violet. They'll eat that sh-- up like candy!

[blasterman]

Just about anything would be better than these Bridgelux I have now

 

Aquastyles? Yeah....the color is a bit (trying to think of a term) 'flacid' I guess would be appropriate. The Neutral Aquastyles are fair, and certainly better than many Chinese lights, but the color is still weak compared to the American neutrals due to poor CRI. Plus, as I've been trying to explain to people, a neutral XP-G at double the price is still a deal compared to a 700mA limited Aquastyle.

 

It's next to impossible to record the color of LED's once you get below 450nm because dSLR sensor cutoffs for blue are usually 455nm. Your eye sees it, but the camera can't. I used to run those 10watt 445nm Satistronics, and they worked fine. However, my tank had a violet tinge I could never get rid of, and actinic response in corals drops as you get lower than 460nm or so. Some colors start to pop again as you get closer to UV-A, but the short story is 450-452nm XT-Es seem to be the sweet spot for me.

 

My LFS has asked me to start making LED fixtures for them to sell (they are tired of buying the garbage 120w cool white + royal blue 1w LED things,

 

I know the ones. Same beasts you see for as low as $175 on Ebay. Local reef shop had a 2 / 1 White-Royal, and it was hands down the worst light I've ever seen over a tank.

 

Thing is, these lights are actually a pretty good deal and PAR is fine. I was actually thinking about getting a few and seeing how many LEDs I had to retrofit to get the color straight. I think the base blues are OK, although I think they are in 455-460nm territory. Throw some warm-whites in the thing and you might have a decent light. Not sure of the electronics though.

[jedimasterben]

Aquastyles? Yeah....the color is a bit (trying to think of a term) 'flacid' I guess would be appropriate. The Neutral Aquastyles are fair, and certainly better than many Chinese lights, but the color is still weak compared to the American neutrals due to poor CRI. Plus, as I've been trying to explain to people, a neutral XP-G at double the price is still a deal compared to a 700mA limited Aquastyle.

 

It's next to impossible to record the color of LED's once you get below 450nm because dSLR sensor cutoffs for blue are usually 455nm. Your eye sees it, but the camera can't. I used to run those 10watt 445nm Satistronics, and they worked fine. However, my tank had a violet tinge I could never get rid of, and actinic response in corals drops as you get lower than 460nm or so. Some colors start to pop again as you get closer to UV-A, but the short story is 450-452nm XT-Es seem to be the sweet spot for me.

 

 

 

I know the ones. Same beasts you see for as low as $175 on Ebay. Local reef shop had a 2 / 1 White-Royal, and it was hands down the worst light I've ever seen over a tank.

 

Thing is, these lights are actually a pretty good deal and PAR is fine. I was actually thinking about getting a few and seeing how many LEDs I had to retrofit to get the color straight. I think the base blues are OK, although I think they are in 455-460nm territory. Throw some warm-whites in the thing and you might have a decent light. Not sure of the electronics though.

"flaccid" is a good word for it lol. THe ones I have are supposedly 6500k, but compared to the 5000K CFLs I have on the planted tank in the same room, these are significantly more yellow. The more I run the numbers, I could have gone with much less XP-Gs than these, and with a much better CRI.

 

I am going with the 440-450nm Rebel ES just because not many have tried it, they put out a ton of light at 3.1w (as much as an XT-E at 5w), and are inexpensive. I will be adding enough cool blues to offset the amount of purple in the light (though I do like the purple effect that some T5 bulbs make). Adding deep red won't help, but with turquoise that should also cancel out some of the purple. Plus, now that I'm thinking about it, I will run the turquoise and blue on their own driver and the reds on another so that I can turn down just the red.

 

 

Those lights aren't made to be over display tanks, they are only meant to be grow lights over frag tanks, so they don't really care what color they give so long as they grow coral/plants/stuff. I'd imagine the electronics are complete garbage.

 

I should be able to sell my lights no problem as they will be for superior color rendition over display tanks, put out a lot more pPAR than the Radion, give more color fluorescence, and be cheaper.

[McJosh13]

Very good, I will keep that all in mind. My LFS has asked me to start making LED fixtures for them to sell (they are tired of buying the garbage 120w cool white + royal blue 1w LED things, or expensive Radions), and I'm probably going to use nearly all Rebels now that Steve will be stocking them. 10x NW, 15x RB, 6x blue, 3x red, 3x green (maybe turquoise instead, will test coral colors with both), 4x violet. They'll eat that sh-- up like candy!

 

The combo that you have listed above sounds pretty good, I like the rebel cyan better than the turquoise. Turquoise is at 495mm, too close to the cb spectrum in my opinion to not be somewhat redundant. The rebel cyans are nominal at 505nm which I think is more of a sweet spot. Also you can see from the datasheet that they have a very wide spectrum and encompass from 485-525nm at >40% of max output and that's pretty sweet. I don't know the exact spectrum of the 495nm turquoise because we don't have access to the datasheet. We need to get Steve to offer cyan, deep red, and cool blue rebel 3-ups.. that would be the end all be all in my opinion.

 

Blasters right, I would def test the 440nm rebels first to make sure their not too purple

 

Edit-

BTW with the greater output of the rebel royals and the cooler color of the 5000ks you *may* need a greater ratio of neutral white/blue.. just something to consider

[McJosh13]

Steve got the new 5000k rebel ESs in... great bin too 220-240 lumens rated at 700mA.

 

http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-...utral-White.htm

 

Sorry Blaster, not really in line with the original post but these do share some similarities with the bridgelux you are using (i.e. high cri) which is why I think good results are had with both. What color temp are the bridgelux your using? I would think that with a deeper tank an evil cluster may have more punch where as in a smaller tank these may be a better option.

[blasterman]

I'm using a 4000k Bridgelux, and again, not the Aquastyle ones but the actual commercial Bridgelux arrays.

 

No issues with Rebels, except for the royal color difference I outlined above, and that's really splitting hairs. Bridgelux (commercial), Cree and Rebel all make excellent white LEDs, and I'm hardly locked into Cree in any respect. The only thing you have to watch out for is the low CRI Rebels are often sold as regular CRI Rebels, and you don't want these at all. LEDSupply was doing this for awhile, and I think they stopped. You don't want to use any white LED regardless of brand or color temp less than 80 CRI on your tank if you want to keep the color decent.

 

Bridgelux Arrays, Crees, Rebels....mix and match accordingly.

[jedimasterben]

Steve got the new 5000k rebel ESs in... great bin too 220-240 lumens rated at 700mA.

 

http://shop.stevesleds.com/Philips-Luxeon-...utral-White.htm

 

Sorry Blaster, not really in line with the original post but these do share some similarities with the bridgelux you are using (i.e. high cri) which is why I think good results are had with both. What color temp are the bridgelux your using? I would think that with a deeper tank an evil cluster may have more punch where as in a smaller tank these may be a better option.

Holy hell, and he lowered the price on the other LEDs, too!

 

He should be getting in cyan, green, and deep red Rebel ES pretty soon, too, and they should all be wonderfully priced, as well!

[CarrillXXP]

Wait wait, so this cluster was created ideally for deeper tanks?

[jedimasterben]

Wait wait, so this cluster was created ideally for deeper tanks?

Or completely ludicrous amounts of PAR on a pico.

 

 

[McJosh13]

You don't want to use any white LED regardless of brand or color temp less than 80 CRI on your tank if you want to keep the color decent.

 

Bridgelux Arrays, Crees, Rebels....mix and match accordingly.

 

I definitely agree with this statement. The problem is that the neutral white XP-Gs have a typical CRI of 75. Only their warm white (2,600 K - 3,700 K CCT) XP-Gs have a cri of 80 or higher

[jedimasterben]

I definitely agree with this statement. The problem is that the neutral white XP-Gs have a typical CRI of 75. Only their warm white (2,600 K - 3,700 K CCT) XP-Gs have a cri of 80 or higher

And that's pretty crazy warm. I was reading somewhere that to add CRI to a cool white LED to add some red (630nm), is that true, blaster?

[pwreef]

So I ordered the 2200 lumen Bridgelux:

http://www.newark.com/bridgelux/bxra-40e22...00lm/dp/73T6208

Its a very impressive light source even at 700mA.

I tried it over my tank by itself and I find that the light it produces is very yellow, making some of the rocks seem like gold, but totally taking out the purple in coraline, quite different from neutral XT-Es or Bridgelux from LEDgroupbuy I have. I then had it combined with 16 XT-E RBs running at 700mA, but I did not like the result at all. Specifically most of the green colors were muted for example on my goniopora, compared to 1:2 neutral:RB XT-Es. Being 80 CRI, per the data sheet, lack of colors is surprising on this Bridgelux. I would try the cool white, but thats 70 CRI, so probably even worse colors. I am wondering if the phosphor used in these arrays is different from what you bought. I will do more experimenting, but for now I would not put this one over my tank. Thanks for a good idea!

[evilc66]

Wait wait, so this cluster was created ideally for deeper tanks?

Umm, yes I initially created it as an experiment to try out a few different new parts, including the large Bridgelux LEDs, as well as a new heatsink design, and new high wattage drivers. My setup also used medium angle optics to create stupid PAR numbers. I think I was hitting 1500 PAR @ ~18" at ~180W (400PAR at 4ft).

 

I definitely agree with this statement. The problem is that the neutral white XP-Gs have a typical CRI of 75. Only their warm white (2,600 K - 3,700 K CCT) XP-Gs have a cri of 80 or higher

Stop worrying about CRI numbers. For the most part, the Ra (the average of all 9 base CRI points) is not a good indication of color rendering performance. Even if you have all the CRI point data, it's still not the best indication of what the real rendering performance is. CRI is a flawed system that sadly has no real replacement.

 

And that's pretty crazy warm. I was reading somewhere that to add CRI to a cool white LED to add some red (630nm), is that true, blaster?

Partially. It's all dependent on what the light source is lacking spectrally. Typically, higher kelvin whites benefit from a little amber to raise CRI, as well as a little red (this is what Cree does with their TrueWhite products). Again, don't worry too much about CRI numbers.

 

So I ordered the 2200 lumen Bridgelux:

http://www.newark.com/bridgelux/bxra-40e22...00lm/dp/73T6208

Its a very impressive light source even at 700mA.

I tried it over my tank by itself and I find that the light it produces is very yellow, making some of the rocks seem like gold, but totally taking out the purple in coraline, quite different from neutral XT-Es or Bridgelux from LEDgroupbuy I have. I then had it combined with 16 XT-E RBs running at 700mA, but I did not like the result at all. Specifically most of the green colors were muted for example on my goniopora, compared to 1:2 neutral:RB XT-Es. Being 80 CRI, per the data sheet, lack of colors is surprising on this Bridgelux. I would try the cool white, but thats 70 CRI, so probably even worse colors. I am wondering if the phosphor used in these arrays is different from what you bought. I will do more experimenting, but for now I would not put this one over my tank. Thanks for a good idea!

Interesting. I'm using the older versions of their arrays, and don't have issue with greens. Maybe with the new versions they shifted the spectrum up slightly more into the red to improve efficiency numbers and color rendering performance, sacrificing green output as a result.

[jedimasterben]

Good to see you back around, evil!

[evilc66]

I've been around, just lurking in the shadows. I'm going to try posting with a little more frequency, but I don't think I'll be back to 20-40 posts a day like I used to. Work, Reefbuilders, and various projects are certainly keeping me busy.

[jedimasterben]

I've been around, just lurking in the shadows. I'm going to try posting with a little more frequency, but I don't think I'll be back to 20-40 posts a day like I used to. Work, Reefbuilders, and various projects are certainly keeping me busy.