Cheap black box vs more expensive LED's question

[Brian_68]

It is a legal requirement for them to have an appropriate safety cert to be sold in North America or Europe.

That is not actually true, you can develop and sell a product without UL, ETL or CSA safety approval in the US and europe. I work in new product development with industrial safety products and some we do get approval some we do not. If the radions have it they would be on their product label or manual. The one manual I see for the X15 only has emissions approval for the radio, not safety approval......

 

[Salthead007]

That's the thing tho I don't know if upgrading is the right thing to do with the results I'm seeing from both systems. I would like to find a black box thats a better quality and peace of mind that it won't catch fire one day.

Check out this thread. Very interesting!

Interesting 'New' LED Light

I just received two ReeFi LED lights for testing purposes. This company has been around for a while, but it is new to me, and I'm impressed with the thoughtful design. There are 72 LEDs in the array including cool white, warm white, amber, lime, blue, royal blue, violet, 420nm and 400nm, each on...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[AquAttila]

From my experience - spend the money for better equipment. I had my share of mistakes and have a crap load of used equipment that I purchased in the past and now sitting in a box. Just remember, you get what you pay for ... I also have the A360x Kessils and love them, no complaints. I had these black boxes and visually they are fine, my corals were doing ok for a few months then slowly started not doing so good. I invested in a PAR meter and let me tell you those black boxes measure at like 100 PAR at the surface of the water! the kessil on the other hand is about 500 at the surface and about an inch from the surface below water 400 - like it should. Before doing this test, I was considering getting the T5 hybrid fixture, but not sure if I even need it. I mean yes, T5 will probably produce the better growth, but seeing these PAR readings I think I will just wait and see if that investment is necessary.

 

[srad750c]

Look at these 2 corals for example, which looks better to you guys? These are the same coral BTW.

#2

 

[djray77]

The black box is definitely winning the votes lol

 

[hotdrop]

How much do you value not burning your house down and not electrocuting yourself? There is increased risk of that in black box leds because they are designed often improperly or not to code knowing that the company that made them is not liable when your house burns down.

 

[djray77]

How much do you value not burning your house down and not electrocuting yourself? There is increased risk of that in black box leds because they are designed often improperly or not to code knowing that the company that made them is not liable when your house burns down.

This topic got brought up in this thread, I don't think theres ever been any evidence of them actually catching on fire.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

How much do you value not burning your house down and not electrocuting yourself? There is increased risk of that in black box leds because they are designed often improperly or not to code knowing that the company that made them is not liable when your house burns down.

This again..... Enough, please. This is getting a bit ridiculous. This horse has been beaten to death, brought back to life, and beaten again...and anyone is yet to provide a minutiae of evidence to back up and of this nonsense.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Heard way too many stories of those cheap box's catching fire.

In my opinion, do it right and get the good stuff.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Heard way too many stories of those cheap box's catching fire.

In my opinion, do it right and get the good stuff.

I give up.....

 

[hotdrop]

I give up.....

The black box leds work, but to keep costs down they use fake/cheap/knock off electrical parts, so there is more risk of catastrophic failure. They also use sketchy build practices like not grounding or running power traces too close toughened. If you need to keep costs down imo T5s are just as good or better and could be had for the same price without all the associated risks with black box LEDs. Often you can get decent fixtures used for not very much money.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

The black box leds work, but to keep costs down they use fake/cheap/knock off electrical parts, so there is more risk of catastrophic failure. They also use sketchy build practices like not grounding or running power traces too close toughened. If you need to keep costs down imo T5s are just as good or better and could be had for the same price without all the associated risks with black box LEDs. Often you can get decent fixtures used for not very much money.

Use of cheaper components, something I won't argue with, is a far cry from burning your house down; which is what you and some others have tried to sell.

Now, there a lot of Chinese ebay lights that get lumped into the "black box" category, whether that is out of ignorance or something else. Some of these lights are constructed better than others (ie. Viparspectra, Mars Aqua, SB ReefLights), which I would argue account for a significant portion, if not majority, of "back box" aquarium lighting used by refers. Many of these companies also produce agricultural/hydroponic lighting.

Thus far there is yet to be a factual account of any incident where one of these lights malfunctioned to the point of producing anything even remotely close to an electrical fire or an electrical short causing an injury.... and there is a very large amount of these lights out there putting in work, as is evident by this forum alone.

 

[MichaelReefer]

I've seen a video somewhere of one just flat out shorting and lighting on fire. Cant find it now.

Personally I think you have to spend to play the game...if you want to go the cheap route you cant complain later if something happens.

It's just like the car game. You spend 2,000 on a turbo, you can expect better gains than a 500 dollar Chinese one.

 

[NanoDJS]

My 2c is that the black box style is built with so many spaced out leds , like some other expensive units , reef breeders , orphek , or anything good at growing sps , the puck style ones give to much shading and tend to self destruct colonies after "such good growth" basically a sheet of lights works better for sps, cheapo, expensive or otherwise , I have also found the spectrum in some "gold standard" lights to be NG for me or my corals happiness, I have finally been using a new lighting setup the last few months and really works out much better than any lights I have owned or used.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

I've seen a video somewhere of one just flat out shorting and lighting on fire. Cant find it now.

Personally I think you have to spend to play the game...if you want to go the cheap route you cant complain later if something happens.

Absolutely. Your personal opinion is just as valid as anyone else's here.

However, these fire stories have just been that... Stories. Unfortunately, these stories, get peddled as factual accounts.

 

[cvrle1]

From my experience - spend the money for better equipment. I had my share of mistakes and have a crap load of used equipment that I purchased in the past and now sitting in a box. Just remember, you get what you pay for ... I also have the A360x Kessils and love them, no complaints. I had these black boxes and visually they are fine, my corals were doing ok for a few months then slowly started not doing so good. I invested in a PAR meter and let me tell you those black boxes measure at like 100 PAR at the surface of the water!....

It would help to post which exact light fixture did you use. Reason I am saying this is, if you only got 100 PAR at the surface, you were using wrong unit. That par will be produced by units using 0.5W LEDs, which are only good for really shallow tanks and low light corals. And the whole "you get what you pay for" is just flat out wrong when it comes to LED fixtures not called AI, Kessil or EcoTech. There are at least 3-4 fixtures I can think of that will give big boys run for their money that are made in Asia (btw: where are these big 3 fixtures made?) at 1/2 the cost.

 

[djray77]

I've seen a video somewhere of one just flat out shorting and lighting on fire. Cant find it now.

Personally I think you have to spend to play the game...if you want to go the cheap route you cant complain later if something happens.

It's just like the car game. You spend 2,000 on a turbo, you can expect better gains than a 500 dollar Chinese one.

This is the exact point of this thread really, I have had all the high-end lights and still currently run a T5/hyrid with a360x's( switched from the XR15G4Pro's) on one of my tanks, the question was is why are cheap lights producing better growth and coloring than the expensive ones. I posted pics of the exact same coral that I fragged from the same colony and everyone voted on the Black box tank, so its not just my eyes seeing things lol.

 

[cvrle1]

This is the exact point of this thread really, I have had all the high-end lights and still currently run a T5/hyrid with a360x's( switched from the XR15G4Pro's) on one of my tanks, the question was is why are cheap lights producing better growth and coloring than the expensive ones. I posted pics of the exact same coral that I fragged from the same colony and everyone voted on the Black box tank, so its not just my eyes seeing things lol.

Majority of people that bash BBs are folks that spent major $ on high end lights, only to see that they could have had same results (if not better) with much cheaper BBs. In order to affirm their choice and money spent, they spread stories about how they suck, how they dont produce proper PAR and how they are dangerous and will set your house on fire, so that they can feel a bit better about their decision. It is their prerogative I suppose, but I will keep using my cheap LEDs and spend my hard earned money on some other things.

 

[alton]

If you are going to sell BB's to people you need to post pictures and records of what your Par levels where at on day one on what percentage you ran the lights in year one, year two, year three, year four and so on. Like I said in my earlier post I liked the Mars Aqua fixtures, I just didn't like by year two I had to run it a 100% versus the newer two Mars Aqua fixtures I added later that ran at 50%. If you have to buy leds every two or three years, that gets expensive. All Diodes are not the same, there are bottom of the barrel and top of the shelf.

 

[cvrle1]

If you are going to sell BB's to people you need to post pictures and records of what your Par levels where at on day one on what percentage you ran the lights in year one, year two, year three, year four and so on. Like I said in my earlier post I liked the Mars Aqua fixtures, I just didn't like by year two I had to run it a 100% versus the newer two Mars Aqua fixtures I added later that ran at 50%. If you have to buy leds every two or three years, that gets expensive. All Diodes are not the same, there are bottom of the barrel and top of the shelf.

In all honesty I am not sure why, but you are the 1st person I heard that had to buy new MA fixtures after 2 years. Looking at your pic above, I am guessing it is your 180g tank. If that is the case, 1 MA fixture wouldnt be able to do much for that tank at all, especially at the height you have it mounted. Suggested height is min 8 inches from water line, most have it 10"-12".