New orphek cube light

Ditto · Jul 14, 2022

@mtraylor - I went with 3 with no light bars. This was after extensive talking with them on my design which they were great about. They answered all my questions and concerns. I am very interested to see if it is a spread type appearance or more spotlight appearance. I also ordered multiple lens sizes to try different configurations to see the impact. I have an Apogee device to measure par and will provide the results.

Ditto · Jul 21, 2022

The lights arrived yesterday.

They are big lights, the they have some output on them. These shipped with 60 Degree Lens, and I need to place the 30 Degree Lens inside them as the spread from these 10 feet up is quite wide. I will be doing par and a video of them once I have them fully up and running.

As for initial thoughts, very well made can say almost commercial grade in quality. Heavy, much heavier then I thought. PAR values off the scale and can see that 100% is not going to be used.

Want to thank James for assisting me on this from Orphek, and the questions. He was great walking me through a few setup issues on one of the lights.

mtraylor · Jul 21, 2022

They look really nice. Cant wait to see how they look and some PAR numbers from your setup

oreo54 · Jul 21, 2022

Ditto said:
The lights arrived yesterday.

They are big lights, the they have some output on them. These shipped with 60 Degree Lens, and I need to place the 30 Degree Lens inside them as the spread from these 10 feet up is quite wide. I will be doing par and a video of them once I have them fully up and running.

As for initial thoughts, very well made can say almost commercial grade in quality. Heavy, much heavier then I thought. PAR values off the scale and can see that 100% is not going to be used.

Want to thank James for assisting me on this from Orphek, and the questions. He was great walking me through a few setup issues on one of the lights.

Yikes did they know you were hanging them 10 ft up?
At 30 degrees your beam spread is 5.36 ft in diameter..AFAICT
you got me curious..
This the tank?
96x30x25

And you are using 2?
7.5' from water line to light exiting surface (front of reflector) "calculates" a bit better..
Obviously some trial and error would be needed. Numbers are good but not absolute.

They should know their reflectors though..

Ditto · Jul 22, 2022

Good Morning,

No, I was in my living room testing and shining it on the ceiling and was surprised on how large the light spread was. What I told them exactly was 74" inches from the light to the bottom of the tank in the dining room. They recommended 3 Lights with 30 Degree Light reflectors, and not needing them at full intensity using the 3.

jhuntstl · Jul 22, 2022

Nice to see more passively cooled and IP rated fixtures. Looking forward to your updates @Ditto.

Uriken · Jul 22, 2022

I may be totally incorrect but being a Tidal Gardens fan I'm almost sure Than has had these over a couple of his systems at his coral farm for over a year. He does a lot of videos from inside the coral farm and there is one tank that gets in the videos quite often that I see these lights over and the tank has been running for sure over a year plus. I'm wondering if they just now hit the market for us hobbyist but been out for testing and trials to some of the private coral wholesalers? The tank I'm referring to I recall has all SPS in it and everything looks beautiful. He has them mounted pretty high over the tank as well.
I may be totally wrong and they are just look alikes of some other brand that Im not familiar with.

oreo54 · Jul 22, 2022

Ditto said:
Good Morning,

No, I was in my living room testing and shining it on the ceiling and was surprised on how large the light spread was. What I told them exactly was 74" inches from the light to the bottom of the tank in the dining room. They recommended 3 Lights with 30 Degree Light reflectors, and not needing them at full intensity using the 3.

OK that makes a lot more sense.

Rough estimates to cut room spill and maximise photons entering the tank comes to 56" from light face to water surface.
That would be about 80" light face to substrate.

Soo close enough.

Thanks for clarifying.

Then there is spacing. Dividing the lights equally is not always the best choice.

Ditto · Aug 11, 2022

Good Morning,

I updated my build thread with the initial installation of the lights but wanted to also make sure I posted here. With the lights 7 Feet 2 Inches from the bottom of the tank and 30 degree reflectors installed I am getting the following Par Levels with the lights at 100%.

At the top of the Tank the PAR Reading was: 1861

The PAR reading right below the water line was: 1025

The PAR level in the middle of the tank was: 743

Par Level at the Bottom of the Tank was: 508

We are placing egg crate at the bottom of the tank so we take take point readings equally before we remove the egg crates and place the live base rock into the tank.

mtraylor · Aug 14, 2022

Wow. You are getting some serious par. How we do you like spread and look of light?

Ditto · Aug 14, 2022

@mtraylor - The Spread is outstanding. For the lights being that far off the water and PAR it produces I can not complain. For the final settings I had to go down to a peak of 55% which provided me 220 Par on average on the tank bottom.

It does create a shimmer off the water on the bottom of the tank. Almost like your in the ocean underwater with the sun shining and looking at the sand and seeing the shimmers of light reflect off the sand.

I will take a few video's of the light in action. I ordered some camera lens so that I can filter out some of the blue.

I think 2 Lights may have also been enough based on the total spread but at the cost of turning them up or going back to the 60 degree reflectors based on the overall spread. 3 Of them cover the tank very nicely without any issues, and would been more with any other light manufacture.

Would for sure purchase again.

LARedstickreefer · Aug 30, 2022

So how do we buy one of these? I don’t see them for sale, anywhere…

Ditto · Aug 31, 2022

I went to this page:

Contact Orphek - Reef Aquarium LED Lighting Support & Sales

Contact Orphek for reef LED lighting inquiries. Free consultancy, worldwide express delivery, expert support. Email [email protected] for sales & technical help.

shop.orphek.com

And explained I was looking to purchase the lights and within 24 hours a person from Orphek reached out to me and coordinated with me asking questions to determine the lens configuration. They will explain estimated shipping times and all the costs and if you wish to order then will invoice you.

Hope this helps