So after trying a few refugium lights with little success. I was on the cusp of ordering a AI prime fuge light. Delivery issues in the UK and price got me thinking. Why not modify my dust gathering prime (non hd).
Word of warning, I did this with careful consideration and I did look at the drivers to the leds and understand the electronics involved.
I replaced x4 cree white leds with cree photo red and x3 blue with cree red. I also replaced the green with one of the white leds.
After purchasing a few refugium lights I decided to test them with my Seneye. All at 9 inches below.
LEFT: First is the 50W cob growlight from amazon. Uk, but price is about $20. Smartplug reports 13W usage.
MIDDLE LEFT: 50W equivalent E27 grow bulb from amazon. Price again is about $20. Smartplug reports 9W usage.
MIDDLE RIGHT: Refugium growlight (found this in a box with lots of stuff I got off another reefer who was closing down). Never tried this due to not being bothered to change the very short mains cable and thought it look cheap and nasty. It's reported as 18W light with 4x red 3W leds and 2x blue 3W leds and on ebay here in the UK. Power consumption was 5W so wasn't expecting much and expect cheap led drive circuitry or quality of leds mean they are not pulling 3W from each led. However I'm impressed with the PAR output for the power consumption.
RIGHT: My modified AI PRIME. Power consumption 43W on the smart plug.
Measurement shows a large increase in PAR over the other lights. The use of Cree XP leds and good led driver circuits for each colour bank shows where the performance is coming from compared to the other lights. Happy with this modification, I did see a video were the AI prime fuge light was measured at 750 PAR at 9 inches. So happy with the modification and hope I start seeing some good growth.
Will report back in a number of weeks to see if my cheato growth has taken off.
Word of warning, I did this with careful consideration and I did look at the drivers to the leds and understand the electronics involved.
I replaced x4 cree white leds with cree photo red and x3 blue with cree red. I also replaced the green with one of the white leds.
After purchasing a few refugium lights I decided to test them with my Seneye. All at 9 inches below.
LEFT: First is the 50W cob growlight from amazon. Uk, but price is about $20. Smartplug reports 13W usage.
MIDDLE LEFT: 50W equivalent E27 grow bulb from amazon. Price again is about $20. Smartplug reports 9W usage.
MIDDLE RIGHT: Refugium growlight (found this in a box with lots of stuff I got off another reefer who was closing down). Never tried this due to not being bothered to change the very short mains cable and thought it look cheap and nasty. It's reported as 18W light with 4x red 3W leds and 2x blue 3W leds and on ebay here in the UK. Power consumption was 5W so wasn't expecting much and expect cheap led drive circuitry or quality of leds mean they are not pulling 3W from each led. However I'm impressed with the PAR output for the power consumption.
RIGHT: My modified AI PRIME. Power consumption 43W on the smart plug.
Measurement shows a large increase in PAR over the other lights. The use of Cree XP leds and good led driver circuits for each colour bank shows where the performance is coming from compared to the other lights. Happy with this modification, I did see a video were the AI prime fuge light was measured at 750 PAR at 9 inches. So happy with the modification and hope I start seeing some good growth.
Will report back in a number of weeks to see if my cheato growth has taken off.
