useful life of LED

[wjgeese]

Has anyone performed analysis of LED performance over time (years)? Just curious to see how much dropoff occurs after 1, 2, 3+ years.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea I have wondered the same thing, bump.

 

[oreo54]

Lifespan is fixture/enviroment dependent....
The diodes themselves can push >50000 hours (11 years 12hrs per day) w/ less than 20% loss but the measurement is err impractical..

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Where did that graph come from?

 

[oreo54]

LED lifespan

An important feature of semiconductor diodes is their lifespan. LED lifetime is incomparably longer in comparison with another light sources but we need to know which factors affects LEDs properties.

gomarplus.pl

 

[AC1211]

All I know is that the radions can likely go around 10 years at max intensity before a drop off occurs in most conditions.

 

[wjgeese]

Id like to see the data that supports that claim. That is what my original post was asking for.

 

[oreo54]

One measurement..but probematic since you do't know if old diodes faded or new diodes are just more efficient.

I have a friend who runs his 2-3 year old Gen 4s had like 11% less par than a brand new unit that he just got... so he runs two at 100% and one at 89% with the same PAR. This could be a manufacturing anomaly, but the difference is real... I went and tested it too with my PAR meter.

It appears that 5 years is safe with diode burnout, board issues and power supply problems, which appear to be more of a problem than PAR loss.

Radion life expectancy

if you have radions and run them at max, say 50 percent intensity, 12 hours a day, how many years would the par still be good for? I understand people upgrade to better ones, but simply for performance, how long are these good for? Do they lose par where 50 percent intensity year 1, now needs to...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[madweazl]

All I know is that the radions can likely go around 10 years at max intensity before a drop off occurs in most conditions.

I'd be surprised if it were even half that.

 

[jda]

The anecdote in post #8 is about as good as it gets. Nobody has done any real type of investigation. I would caution anybody not to really believe a tech company with longevity or performance issues... both in reefing or in the real world... if there are no third party estimates, then just think of everything as unknown.

I would go with 5 years. This seems to be a pretty good figure considering support, parts, warranty, power supplies, boards, new "stuff," and who knows about the actual diodes. The critical mass of people do not use panels longer than this and the ones that are are more of outliers - I would go with the actual over the academic on this one.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Diodes will "light up" as opposed to just failing (most of the time) like fluorescent tubes or incandescent bulbs.

They will color shift, heat being the main factor and loose their intensity over time.

All Led Fixtures Do This. Regardless of manufacturer of the diodes for Industrial, household and in our case, hobby.

You will not see this change as it is slow and gradual over time. You may perceive a light intensity difference as a fixture gets older, but in most cases not in color. But in time they will color shift from when they are new. Corals will adapt to this as it is slow.

Just Google " led doide color shift" and there's a bunch of studies done on this subject. Most are PDF files.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Here's one:

What You Should Know about LED Fixture Reliability: Color Shift

The U.S. Department of Energy publishes report that explores the impact of LED color shift over time.

inside.lighting

 

[alton]

I do not have anything on paper other than a picture of my new 310 with corals and lighting from my 180 and my 300DD before that. This 310 (96" x 30" x 25" tall is lit by 4 6' BML leds with the oldest purchased in 2012, the second 2013 and last two 2016. All still run at 80%. The leds are positioned over the corals with a Par average of 100+ to 250. I am in the middle of adding a lighting rack that will add 6 AI leds to the BML's which the oldest is 6 years old from a friend who just bought new Radion fixtures. Is it a gamble, yes but for the price I think it's worth it. I will post pictures and Par levels after the first of the year. The electrical company I work for is installing lighting from Phillips that comes with a manufactures warranty of ten years, so evidently they feel LEDs can now hold up. My first Led site lighting project Cooper lighting replaced $100,000 worth of pole lights on a project.
Oh yea I always forget the golden rule about cleaning the glass before taking pictures

 

[SDK]

Five years is what I am using for a guide as well. My plan is to start buying one new fixture every other year starting at year three. Then sell the one I replace at a fair price.

This should keep me from shocking my tanks with drastic changes and not be too much of a financial burden....

 

[GabeM]

It depends on the fixture really and what % of max voltage the LEDs are being driven at. 50% of max should give the best longevity vs efficiency/power.

 

[madweazl]

I do not have anything on paper other than a picture of my new 310 with corals and lighting from my 180 and my 300DD before that. This 310 (96" x 30" x 25" tall is lit by 4 6' BML leds with the oldest purchased in 2012, the second 2013 and last two 2016. All still run at 80%. The leds are positioned over the corals with a Par average of 100+ to 250. I am in the middle of adding a lighting rack that will add 6 AI leds to the BML's which the oldest is 6 years old from a friend who just bought new Radion fixtures. Is it a gamble, yes but for the price I think it's worth it. I will post pictures and Par levels after the first of the year. The electrical company I work for is installing lighting from Phillips that comes with a manufactures warranty of ten years, so evidently they feel LEDs can now hold up. My first Led site lighting project Cooper lighting replaced $100,000 worth of pole lights on a project.
Oh yea I always forget the golden rule about cleaning the glass before taking pictures

I'm less concerned with PAR and more concerned with spectrum shifts due to the phosphors degrading.

 

[oreo54]

I'm less concerned with PAR and more concerned with spectrum shifts due to the phosphors degrading.

Only applies to whites which most seem to run pretty low. So not too concerning AFAICT.
Well lime and PCAmber and those cheap "full spectrum" Epistars..

you can go through this for more scientific details..

https://www.cree.com/led-components/media/documents/Remote-Phosphor.pdf

https://www.osapublishing.org/DirectPDFAccess/06703885-E5C8-2B37-4C98115BEEC353B1_240932/ome-2-9-1292.pdf?da=1&id=240932&seq=0&mobile=no

and it's really only one phosphor in the yellow/green region..

Gets better every day...

A highly efficient and thermally stable green phosphor (Lu2SrAl4SiO12:Ce3+) for full-spectrum white LEDs

Traditional phosphor-converted white LEDs suffer from the so-called blue-green cavity in their emission spectra. Hence, satisfactory phosphors with sufficient emission around 490 nm are still lacking. Herein, we report a newly designed garnet-type phosphor, Lu2SrAl4SiO12:Ce3+ (LSAS:Ce3+)...

pubs.rsc.org

 

[Auto-pilot]

Lifespan is fixture/enviroment dependent....
The diodes themselves can push >50000 hours (11 years 12hrs per day) w/ less than 20% loss but the measurement is err impractical..

Cool good to know

 

[alton]

I'm less concerned with PAR and more concerned with spectrum shifts due to the phosphors degrading.

Sounds like the same concerns I encountered when I ran my Metal Halide lamps from 18 to 24 months while changing them only after a 10% loss in Par. And yet my corals grow just fine. First with Metal Halide and now with Led. Although don't tell the led users MH grew them faster, I just got tired of the big bulky pendants on top of my tank.

 

[oreo54]

Sounds like the same concerns I encountered when I ran my Metal Halide lamps from 18 to 24 months while changing them only after a 10% loss in Par. And yet my corals grow just fine. First with Metal Halide and now with Led. Although don't tell the led users MH grew them faster, I just got tired of the big bulky pendants on top of my tank.

Did you use the same "PAR"? and at least close spectrums?

Probably would have grown faster w/ 6500k MH's..