Gilroy 425g Build Thread (All Apex, all the time)

[Terence]

Easy guys, here's another tease... someone should be able to guess by now...

 

[markstubb]

what sort of witchcraft is this?!

 

[slief]

Philips CoralCare LED lights??

 

[Terence]

Scott nailed it. I have the opportunity to try out these lights over my tank. I am very satisfied with my choice of Reef Brite Strips and 250W Metal Halides but two things were nagging me. First, I made the decision to go to MH for a few reasons (go back a few pages and you can see), but one of the key things I wanted to be able to do was dim the MH with the Apex. A small mistake was made in telling me that they could be dimmed 50% when in reality it worked out to about 25-30% based on my tests. Evidently confusion at ReefBrite existed because their 400W version DO dim that much.

Add to this the big kicker. Up until now I have yet to see an LED that gave broad, shadow free coverage, without some blending issues (disco effect). To combat the shadowing, most end up either going hybrid (with T5) or having a "matrix" of these "point-source" style lights.

Then I went to InterZoo. Seeing is believing and seeing is a big part of the equation (the other being efficacy). Out of everything I saw there, I saw only two LED lights that had the broad, edge to edge, coverage without the color-artifacting we so commonly see. Those lights were the CoralCare by Philips and the LupyLED. The picture below is of the CoralCare light, straight out of my iPhone6. No filter, no post on it whatsoever. There were no crazy colors in the shadows and the fact that the photo looked just like my eyes saw it really blew me away.

Neither one of those lights has officially hit the US shores. Philips is working on a 120V version and I have no idea what the plans are for the LupyLED, but while it looked awesome, it looked like something that would be hard-pressed to become a consumer product - and the price point was crazy.

I spoke to Luc (the head of the CoralCare product team) at InterZoo and followed up after the event. I told him I would run a special 220V line from my box to under my tank under the house if I could give the lights a try. A few weeks ago they agreed and I will have the left (SPS) side of my tank running with two of these while I leave the right side with the MH combo I currently have. I will run them for a while and if they work out I may change over altogether - just depends on how they do. And, in that department I am pretty confident. There are a number of hard core reefkeepers running these already in Europe (including 2-years for Luc), and they also have done some real scientific tests on coral growth.

It will be a few weeks until I can run the wire from the breaker box and fashion a mount for them. I will say these things are bullet-proof - literally. They may not win any beauty contests but they are water proof and solid. And, NO FANS! I can see this as the GO-TO light for those with canopies, in-wall tanks, commercial tanks, and institutional use.

For now you will simply have to wait a bit longer to see how they look over my tank.

 

[locito277]

Scott nailed it. I have the opportunity to try out these lights over my tank. I am very satisfied with my choice of Reef Brite Strips and 250W Metal Halides but two things were nagging me. First, I made the decision to go to MH for a few reasons (go back a few pages and you can see), but one of the key things I wanted to be able to do was dim the MH with the Apex. A small mistake was made in telling me that they could be dimmed 50% when in reality it worked out to about 25-30% based on my tests. Evidently confusion at ReefBrite existed because their 400W version DO dim that much.

Add to this the big kicker. Up until now I have yet to see an LED that gave broad, shadow free coverage, without some blending issues (disco effect). To combat the shadowing, most end up either going hybrid (with T5) or having a "matrix" of these "point-source" style lights.

Then I went to InterZoo. Seeing is believing and seeing is a big part of the equation (the other being efficacy). Out of everything I saw there, I saw only two LED lights that had the broad, edge to edge, coverage without the color-artifacting we so commonly see. Those lights were the CoralCare by Philips and the LupyLED. The picture below is of the CoralCare light, straight out of my iPhone6. No filter, no post on it whatsoever. There were no crazy colors in the shadows and the fact that the photo looked just like my eyes saw it really blew me away.

Neither one of those lights has officially hit the US shores. Philips is working on a 120V version and I have no idea what the plans are for the LupyLED, but while it looked awesome, it looked like something that would be hard-pressed to become a consumer product - and the price point was crazy.

I spoke to Luc (the head of the CoralCare product team) at InterZoo and followed up after the event. I told him I would run a special 220V line from my box to under my tank under the house if I could give the lights a try. A few weeks ago they agreed and I will have the left (SPS) side of my tank running with two of these while I leave the right side with the MH combo I currently have. I will run them for a while and if they work out I may change over altogether - just depends on how they do. And, in that department I am pretty confident. There are a number of hard core reefkeepers running these already in Europe (including 2-years for Luc), and they also have done some real scientific tests on coral growth.

It will be a few weeks until I can run the wire from the breaker box and fashion a mount for them. I will say these things are bullet-proof - literally. They may not win any beauty contests but they are water proof and solid. And, NO FANS! I can see this as the GO-TO light for those with canopies, in-wall tanks, commercial tanks, and institutional use.

For now you will simply have to wait a bit longer to see how they look over my tank.

Amazing!!!

 

[slief]

Scott nailed it. I have the opportunity to try out these lights over my tank. I am very satisfied with my choice of Reef Brite Strips and 250W Metal Halides but two things were nagging me. First, I made the decision to go to MH for a few reasons (go back a few pages and you can see), but one of the key things I wanted to be able to do was dim the MH with the Apex. A small mistake was made in telling me that they could be dimmed 50% when in reality it worked out to about 25-30% based on my tests. Evidently confusion at ReefBrite existed because their 400W version DO dim that much.

Add to this the big kicker. Up until now I have yet to see an LED that gave broad, shadow free coverage, without some blending issues (disco effect). To combat the shadowing, most end up either going hybrid (with T5) or having a "matrix" of these "point-source" style lights.

Then I went to InterZoo. Seeing is believing and seeing is a big part of the equation (the other being efficacy). Out of everything I saw there, I saw only two LED lights that had the broad, edge to edge, coverage without the color-artifacting we so commonly see. Those lights were the CoralCare by Philips and the LupyLED. The picture below is of the CoralCare light, straight out of my iPhone6. No filter, no post on it whatsoever. There were no crazy colors in the shadows and the fact that the photo looked just like my eyes saw it really blew me away.

Neither one of those lights has officially hit the US shores. Philips is working on a 120V version and I have no idea what the plans are for the LupyLED, but while it looked awesome, it looked like something that would be hard-pressed to become a consumer product - and the price point was crazy.

I spoke to Luc (the head of the CoralCare product team) at InterZoo and followed up after the event. I told him I would run a special 220V line from my box to under my tank under the house if I could give the lights a try. A few weeks ago they agreed and I will have the left (SPS) side of my tank running with two of these while I leave the right side with the MH combo I currently have. I will run them for a while and if they work out I may change over altogether - just depends on how they do. And, in that department I am pretty confident. There are a number of hard core reefkeepers running these already in Europe (including 2-years for Luc), and they also have done some real scientific tests on coral growth.

It will be a few weeks until I can run the wire from the breaker box and fashion a mount for them. I will say these things are bullet-proof - literally. They may not win any beauty contests but they are water proof and solid. And, NO FANS! I can see this as the GO-TO light for those with canopies, in-wall tanks, commercial tanks, and institutional use.

For now you will simply have to wait a bit longer to see how they look over my tank.

Wow!! That was a stab in the dark.. I've followed the Philips threads and the screw and molding of the case looked similar. The fact that the box appeared to come from overseas left that as my best guess. I think you will be very pleased with those lights. Congrats!

 

[Terence]

Looking forward to getting them going. The mounting will be a bit challenging as they are really meant to be hung from wires since they just have loops in the light for hooks. So, what I am planning on doing is making a couple of wood standoff pieces with a cut out to match the center section. Then I will put screw eyes in the top of the lid, place the wood pieces on top of the center section, and use turn-buckles between the screw eyes above. Once I get them tighened down with positive pressure against those wood pieces, they should be fixed well in place for when I open the hood. But that hood is going to be heavy. Good thing I made each half of the hood as lightweight as possible because these bulletproof, passively-cooled lights = 25 pounds each!

 

[Damion]

25lbs! Geez! And about $900. I'll be needing to make a lighting purchase in about a month, so far, I think I may go Radion G4s, but still researching.

 

[slief]

Looking forward to getting them going. The mounting will be a bit challenging as they are really meant to be hung from wires since they just have loops in the light for hooks. So, what I am planning on doing is making a couple of wood standoff pieces with a cut out to match the center section. Then I will put screw eyes in the top of the lid, place the wood pieces on top of the center section, and use turn-buckles between the screw eyes above. Once I get them tighened down with positive pressure against those wood pieces, they should be fixed well in place for when I open the hood. But that hood is going to be heavy. Good thing I made each half of the hood as lightweight as possible because these bulletproof, passively-cooled lights = 25 pounds each!

I might have just what you need to mount those... Text me a picture of the top of the lights so I can see the mounting points. The Mitra mount shown below has as a 1"-4" adjustable drop and allows full articulation. It mounts with a single 1/4" screw. I also have them with a 3" drop that has a mounting plate and also allow full articulation. The lighting adapters are made out of stainless steel and could easily make them for these lights too.

This is the other style shown with a Radion. Some lights the AI's and Mitra's have two mounting points where as the Radions and others have 4 mount points on the lights themselves. The stainless adapter plates are specific to each light.

 

[Terence]

I think you misunderstand. Threaded mounting points would make this pretty simple. Unfortunately this light does not have this. Instead it has four "loops" to attach cables via hooks/carabiners. That's a great design for cable hanging but for anything that mush hinge up, it creates some challenges. But I think I have it figured out.

 

[Terence]

The challenge is the lateral motion as the plane of gravity shifts when the hood is raised, combined with the sheer weight of these lights. That is why I have decided to create the wood block standoffs so that I can create positive pressure between the hood and the light.

 

[slief]

The challenge is the lateral motion as the plane of gravity shifts when the hood is raised, combined with the sheer weight of these lights. That is why I have decided to create the wood block standoffs so that I can create positive pressure between the hood and the light.

Yikes.. That is definitely different than what I was thinking. If those holes can be tapped, I could easily come up with a solution but it would have 2 mounting points so you would be able to angle it but not have the full articulation.

 

[Terence]

Here is a rough illustration on how I will mount it to the inside of the canopy.

 

[gtbarsi]

Here is a rough illustration on how I will mount it to the inside of the canopy.

Connected like that the units will shift when you open your hood. I would be worried for the wiring that comes out the top, as it would be at risk of crushing when that happens.

If you put the eyes out further than the mounting points on the unit you can get an angle on the turn buckles and hooks to provide stabilization, so when you open the hood the angle minimizes the shifting of the light and keeps it from crushing anything. If you do this there is going to be a lot of twisting force applied to the material the eye is mounted to. You would want to seriously reinforce this using a wide strip of metal on the back side of the green board that is connected to as much structure as possible, or the twisting force is going to break the hood.

Alternately if you could fashion some 90 degree brackets to mount under your hood, that would be on both sides of each mounting tab you could use a bolt to pass trough the bracket and mounting tab. Each of these brackets could have broad bases and be secured by 4, 1/4' bolts. If you felt it was needed you could use a metal backing plate on the the other side of your board and then there is nothing left to worry about at all.

What is the diameter of the hole on the mounting tab?

 

[Terence]

Thanks for the advice. I think you may be misunderstanding the blue section. It is only 1" thick and I will use probably three of them. The green part is the 3/8" plywood and white FRP liner (read earlier in the thread). I will also use fender washers on the eyes. More than strong enough. I intended on angling the turnbuckles, I just didn't illustrate it - it is a simple drawing. If I do L brackets, it will be very difficult to get in there to do the bolts. Also, with the turnbuckle solution, if I don't like the height, I just go make a few new wood spacers.

 

[gtbarsi]

I missed the detail about the standoff, that is what I get for glossing over some of the earlier posts. If you have that and angle the turnbuckles then you should be in great shape.
I look forward to see how it goes and how these lights perform. I think Philips has a great product line when it comes to LEDs and it seems that they have done their homework with this light. It seems to have some unique features that could signal the beginning of some interesting changes in the LED market that will have an impact for years to come.

 

[RamsReef]

Wow!! That was a stab in the dark.. I've followed the Philips threads and the screw and molding of the case looked similar. The fact that the box appeared to come from overseas left that as my best guess. I think you will be very pleased with those lights. Congrats!

Scottland Yard

 

[RamsReef]

Terence if you have a dedicated circuit for your tank you probably already have 220v available to you.
If you have a breaker with the tabs joined together, you have 2 hot wires and 1 neutral wire, which is 220, also known as split receptacles, similar style for kitchens.
You can tap off of that and run it to a 220 volt receptacle beside it. To check to see if a receptacle is a split one, grab a multimeter and put one probe in top receptacle small slot, and the other probe in the bottom receptacle small slot. If it reads 0 it is the same circuit, if it reads 220, you are in business.

Can't wait,

Ram.

 

[Terence]

Terence if you have a dedicated circuit for your tank you probably already have 220v available to you.
If you have a breaker with the tabs joined together, you have 2 hot wires and 1 neutral wire, which is 220, also known as split receptacles, similar style for kitchens.
You can tap off of that and run it to a 220 volt receptacle beside it. To check to see if a receptacle is a split one, grab a multimeter and put one probe in top receptacle small slot, and the other probe in the bottom receptacle small slot. If it reads 0 it is the same circuit, if it reads 220, you are in business.

Can't wait,

Ram.

I have tapped an existing 220 circuit already (originally for the previous owners tanning beds) in the garage and used that for two separate circuits for most of the gear that is down in the FishCave. The circuit for the tank is shared with the Kitchen (I think) and I am only using it for the lighting and the WAV pumps at the display tank. For these lights, I would rather just not fool with the kitchen circuit as it is really easy to get around under the house anyways (you can see pics early in this thread) and there is room in the box for a couple more breakers. Should be pretty easy. I just have to make it happen.

BTW, the second light arrived at my office today. I guess I will have to no more excuses to get working on this.

 

[RamsReef]

Tanning beds / tank lights, same thing.