AlohaTropics
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Okay, I'm jumping in here to help out Rafal on this topic. First of all for One Timer, The LEDs are rated to go for at the very least 5 years before they will lose any potency. If you were to replace individual lights at that time, it would be very inexpensive to purchase. Its very hard to say because unlike MH and T5's, these units are not MEANT to have bulbs replaced. You can, but it will be like trying to put together a vintage car. Rather, in 5 years time, LED technology will have improved soooooo much that you would more than likely buy a new fixture. Who knows, maybe we will offer an upgraded PCB board that can be easily installed and Viola! Brand new LEDs in the fixture. My point being, these units are not meant for switching out individual bulbs. If you wanted your unit to last forever and ever, you could do it buy just purchasing 1W LED bulbs and DIY replace them...shouldn't be too difficult.
NOW, you are putting Rafal in a tough position. I realize that other manufacturer's are proudly displaying the CREE LED as a component. The LED lighting industry is changing pretty rapidly. What was once the best LEDs a few years ago, is not today. On top of that, the aquarium industry is seeing an influx of LED lighting from cheap manufacturers to upper tier like PacificSun. What separates us? One major factor is the bulbs we use. It takes a lot of time, money, and studies to decided which is the best bulb to go with when producing these lights. You should see how many tanks needed to be setup side by side with the same corals and each with a differnent board of LEDs. It was a ridiculous sight to see but it needed to be done to really document the growth and response to different manufactured bulbs. There were tanks were the entire stock died in a matter days! The right combination of UV bulbs with different UV intensities all down...I mean we are talking about a lot of test tanks setup....EXPENSIVE RESEARCH to find the right light combination. Unfortunately, with the amount of copycats out on the market who benefit off of the research done by others, this is why certain component parts are kept secret. The wrong LEDs in a unit will wipe out your entire tank. So when we have the right chemistry between bulb types, light spectrum, power, controllability, etc... it becomes propietary to protect our investment in the design.
That being said, we are NOT using cheap LEDs and CREE is NOT the only brand out there that makes good LEDs...and not all fixtures use only 1 kind of LED in their makeup...many hints in there. Our fixtures have been tested and tested and show amazing coral response as you can see from the Feedback thread. And they will only get better as we continue to work on creating a better product everyday with research.
NOW, you are putting Rafal in a tough position. I realize that other manufacturer's are proudly displaying the CREE LED as a component. The LED lighting industry is changing pretty rapidly. What was once the best LEDs a few years ago, is not today. On top of that, the aquarium industry is seeing an influx of LED lighting from cheap manufacturers to upper tier like PacificSun. What separates us? One major factor is the bulbs we use. It takes a lot of time, money, and studies to decided which is the best bulb to go with when producing these lights. You should see how many tanks needed to be setup side by side with the same corals and each with a differnent board of LEDs. It was a ridiculous sight to see but it needed to be done to really document the growth and response to different manufactured bulbs. There were tanks were the entire stock died in a matter days! The right combination of UV bulbs with different UV intensities all down...I mean we are talking about a lot of test tanks setup....EXPENSIVE RESEARCH to find the right light combination. Unfortunately, with the amount of copycats out on the market who benefit off of the research done by others, this is why certain component parts are kept secret. The wrong LEDs in a unit will wipe out your entire tank. So when we have the right chemistry between bulb types, light spectrum, power, controllability, etc... it becomes propietary to protect our investment in the design.
That being said, we are NOT using cheap LEDs and CREE is NOT the only brand out there that makes good LEDs...and not all fixtures use only 1 kind of LED in their makeup...many hints in there. Our fixtures have been tested and tested and show amazing coral response as you can see from the Feedback thread. And they will only get better as we continue to work on creating a better product everyday with research.
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