jedimasterben Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Pretty happy with the new Giessmann bulbs. Ended up with an Aquablue+, Pure Actinic, and two Actinic+. Came out to just about the same color as the UVL bulbs. So now I have a good fresh set of bulbs to compare against Man, your local store hasn't ordered lamps in a while Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 Nope. They aren't the most technically savvy store. They only just started carrying Fluval fixtures Link to comment
markalot Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Good stuff, waiting impatiently for more data. Link to comment
Rory282 Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Update, update, update :-) Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 8, 2016 Author Share Posted February 8, 2016 Not much to update. This weekend got full quickly. Hopefully some testing tomorrow. Link to comment
fredfish01 Posted February 14, 2016 Share Posted February 14, 2016 Impatient. Translation: Time to set life aside and get to the important stuff. Entertaining us. I do have a question. You mentioned the LEDs have a forward voltage of around 3. I believe that makes them somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 watts? I counted 16 LEDs in one of your pictures and that did not seem to be all of them. If that tube is rated at 15 watts, that would mean the LEDs are being driven at less than 1 watt (ie: significantly undrdriven). Do I have that right? Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 15, 2016 Author Share Posted February 15, 2016 Voltage is not the sole indication of wattage. You need to know the current too. There are many LEDs out there that will have a vf of 3.1v at very low currents. You have to remember that the forward voltage of an LED changes very little over it's operating range. There are 14 LEDs in series in 4 parallel strings. If you were to take out any efficiency loss from the support components, then each series string would draw 3.75W. If the LEDs have an average forward voltage of 3.1v with 14 LEDs in series, then each LED is pulling about 0.267W each, which works out to about 86mA per LED. Finally got my test rig set up. It's just a single bulb position driven by a Fulham Workhorse5 ballast. It's not the most ideal, but it is working just fine with the E5 tubes. With this setup though, I can easily swap ballasts with minimal effort. I plan on getting an HEP and a Fulham Racehorse ballast (both program start) at some point in the near future. I didn't get any electrical measurements done. My little Fluke 117 isn't fast enough to get the RMS voltage on the ballast output and only reads something like 13v AC with the UVL T5, and 3v with the E5, both of which I know is wrong. With the ballast switching at something near 100kHz, it's tough for the poor little meter to get a meaningful reading. Going to borrow a meter from work, which will also allow me to get temperature readings too (k-type thermocouple) Link to comment
Sunar357 Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 Pretty cool and following along. Link to comment
FreshwaterNoob Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 I love these posts! Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 I wonder how the different types of ballasts affect these lamps. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 That's what I'm curious about too. Euroquatics already has a Giessmann ballast on their site that apparently does not work, but I don't know specifically which ballast it is. At least we know rapid start ballasts work, even if they aren't the prefered method for T5's. Link to comment
Sherman Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 So not all eballast work with this tube Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Perhaps what's smart to protect the cathode of a florescent lamp doenst have the kick to get an e5 lamp up and running. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 Perhaps what's smart to protect the cathode of a florescent lamp doenst have the kick to get an e5 lamp up and running. Certainly possible. This might be a case of the ballast being too smart for it's own good. Features like End Of Life detection and such may get tripped due to the low current requirements for LED replacements. We will know more soon. An HEP ballast (program start, used in ATI fixtures for those not in the know) is winging it's way to me as we speak. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Another entry into the tube replacement with LED market. http://www.sera.de/en/products/category/led-x-change-tubes-5957.html Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Anyone else find that that site is completely broken? Anyway, from the description it sounds like they are like some of the other T5/T8 replacements where you have to rewire the fixture so they are on low voltage DC. The E5's are the only ones so far that are a direct drop in, for better or worse. As for progress, there hasn't been much. The last few weeks have been pretty busy. I was hoping that I could get some readings over the weekend, but that didn't happen. All I managed to get done was find out that an HEP ballast cannot operate just one bulb. The way these ballasts are set up is that one end of the bulb is wired in series with one end of another bulb. Setting it up so that only one bulb is connected most likely results in too high startup current, and it shuts it all down before it even starts. I'll just have to wire it up so that I have a second bulb mounted off somewhere else that I can black out so it doesn't affect any of my readings, at least for light. Link to comment
Hexadron Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Site is broken for me too. Life happens. Excited to hear more though. Keep doing what you do evil Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I didn't have any issues accessing the site. It's one of those rewire versions where you swap the ballast out but the original endcaps are functional(ish). Link to comment
gus6464 Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 I know Philips Advanced Centiums can all run a single bulb if you want. They list the wiring diagram for single and dual on the ballast. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted February 22, 2016 Author Share Posted February 22, 2016 Yeah, I was going to look into those. I know the Fulham Racehorse ballasts will run a single. Just wanted to try the HEP ballast to see if it worked. Link to comment
Pinner Reef Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Thanks for reviewing these Evil. Interested in these for my next build. Link to comment
markalot Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 My call is they're going to be awful with really bad PAR. Hopefully I'm wrong. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 My call is they're going to be awful with really bad PAR. Hopefully I'm wrong. I would hazard a guess they aren't super high par levels seeing as, like t5, you would use multiple lamps to achieve good par levels. Link to comment
gus6464 Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 My call is they're going to be awful with really bad PAR. Hopefully I'm wrong. Careful, Mark. Gcarrol from RC is going to come after you for saying that. Link to comment
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