LED Puck's vs Non Puck Fixture's

[luke33]

So LED's have been around for quite a while now. I remember the very first one that was around(Solaris) $4k and could barely keep softies alive and then the whole patent battle and AI paying a royalty, then the china black box fixture explosion, and so on and so on. But the two things I see over and over are puck fixture's and non puck fixture's.

So what are the pro's and con's of a puck vs a non puck. What I define as a puck is the circular cluster of led's, example would be a kessil or radion, AI...etc vs your non puck like any black box, RB Photon V2's...etc

IMO your kessil's look aesthetically great but the performance of this kind of cluster led is inferior to most non puck units. The main issue's I see are shadowing, coverage is poor and intensity spots.

Your non puck units do not have the shadowing effect, much better coverage and the intensity is consistent more like a t5 fixture.

I'm not suggesting your puck led's don't work but I'm suggesting you will need more of them to get that full coverage you need for non shadowing and consistency through the tank.

What is everyone's opinion?

Personally, I do not understand why manufacturers keep making the cluster led's? Maybe they believe it mixes the colors better? Or they know you'll eventually have to buy more for coverage?

 

[Dilan Patel]

i have kessil a160's and black boxes.

kessil pro:
slim form factor
dummy proof as far as what corals use
intense spots
best shimmer
build quality
no disco ball effect
great mix of colors
cons:
shadowing effect where there is a brace
not a great spread
looses intensity near the edges
not super controllable

Black Box:
Pro:
Cheap
high intensity(plenty of par
Great coverage

Cons:
limited controllability
not dummy proof as far as intenisty
crappy shimmer

 

[luke33]

i have kessil a160's and black boxes.

kessil pro:
slim form factor
dummy proof as far as what corals use
intense spots
best shimmer
build quality
no disco ball effect
great mix of colors
cons:
shadowing effect where there is a brace
not a great spread
looses intensity near the edges
not super controllable

Black Box:
Pro:
Cheap
high intensity(plenty of par
Great coverage

Cons:
limited controllability
not dummy proof as far as intenisty
crappy shimmer

Thanks Dilan, why do you consider intense spots as a pro

 

[Dilan Patel]

For me itb allows me to turn the lights up higher intensity for the corals who demand a lot more light than the corals who demand less light. Its a balance I guess for me. You get the intensity but you also can keep a diverse amount of corals happy.

 

[Nano sapiens]

A couple years ago, LED pucks were about all you could get for a small tank. So I built my own 'non puck' array with a large number of emitters to get as much coverage as possible, have nice shimmer and the benefit of running the individual emitters at lower power with a large surface area heat sink (fan not needed, which is a potential failure point).

Besides the good color blending and a smaller form factor, manufacturers build pucks because they can save on costs by using less LEDs (running them at higher intensities) and then adding on a relatively inexpensive fan to keep the array within emitter temp specs.

Ralph.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

A couple years ago, LED pucks were about all you could get for a small tank. So I built my own 'non puck' array with a large number of emitters to get as much coverage as possible, have nice shimmer and the benefit of running the individual emitters at lower power with a large surface area heat sink (fan not needed).

Besides the good color blending and a smaller form factor, manufacturers build pucks because they can save on costs by using less LEDs (running them at higher intensities) and then adding on a relatively inexpensive fan to keep the array within emitter temp specs.

Nice!

 

[Andrewalex11]

Considering that pucks are cheaper if I wanted to run a T5 only system but was willing to supplement in some LED's just for a nice shimmer, and programmable effects like sunrise and sunset I'd probably supplement with an AI Prime or something of that nature. It would be a huge waste to invest in something like an Orphek and change out my T5 bulbs every few months in my opinion.

Just wanted to add this since everyone is thinking LED-Only possibilities.