LED lighting, next technology?

Ranger

Ranger

AC Members
Jun 20, 2001
117
2
18
Everett, WA
Hi Gang,

I was noticing a few months ago, at work, that the mechanics had flashlights and head lamps that had a different look and they were leaving them on all day long in the hanger. Turns out they were LED flashlights. Of course seeing how cool they were I went out and got one. The bulbs (plural) are LED and are suppose to last the life of the flashlight. With one bulb turned on, four AA batteries should last about 5 days strait!! The light is not as bright as a mag-light but for the trade off its great.

The bulbs have a bluish tent to them but I don't know the spectrum. I know visual light doesn't equate to PAR necessarily but I was wondering if there might be wavelength options for these types of lights. Perhaps they have the potential to be the next big evolution in aquarium lighting, if used on a larger scale?

Anybody have any thoughts, facts or comments on the technology?
 
Someday it will be a good competitor to fluorescent, as of now its still far too expensive, even when considering bulb replacement, energy usage, and heat generated. It will not replace HID lighting though, unless someone creates a single 100+ watt LED..

At current, LEDs make for great moon and night lights though. And there are some nifty things like this- http://www.thelebos.com/main/cgi-bin/lunartracker.cgi that are starting to hit the market.
 
I use a couple of gu-10 tracklight fixtures that are comprised of 24 8000k LEDs (per fixture) as accent, 'evening/morning' lights on timers as part of my light regimen. They draw 17 watts each, and would be excellent for a nano-tank alone, but I doubt they would be of significant plant-growning output on larger tanks unless +6 fixtures were used.

The nice thing is that they're zero IR signature makes them very very cool bulbs (compared to the obscene heat from normal gu-10 halogens). Look on ebay, there's always some for sale, and you can buy a track light mount for 30 bucks that could hande many, many of these LED bulbs. Just make sure you dont accidentally buy the 220 volt ones, as they are common.

The funny thing about LED lightsources is that the wattage is not a clear analog into the WPG rules we live by. One finds oneself playing mind games with millicandelas to lumens and so forth. Still, I wager that a flat 'sheet' of leds of the same surface area as the lid of a tank would be a significantly higher output than traditional fluorecents, and not nearly as hot or power hungry as CF or VHOs.

My thoughts.
 
i hope that one day they make LED for tanks. I have a LED light on my cell phone and one day i was using it to look for stuff in my tank and then i noticed it reall showed off the fishes colors they were really rich and viabrant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom