LED lighting - what are my options?

[O2surplus]

There's a ton of these flood lamps on eBay, but many of them come from Hong Kong. They even have the 30w models!!

These look pretty cool, probably not as bright as the 10w single-LED lamp though:

http://cgi.ebay.com/White-6-LED-6W-...245?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f06ea789d

20w, $37 shipped
http://cgi.ebay.com/20W-LED-1600LM-...312?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb4b38b90

50w, $145 shipped!!!!!!!! This bad boy puts about 4000 lumens, this same as a 48" T5HO bulb!!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/110VAC-50W-Whit...650?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c5a78e5f2

Are you gonna buy it? I read the specs.........seams to good to be true.
How the chinese can produce a product and sell it at a profitable price for less than what I have to spend on the raw parts, I'll never know?....(slave labor perhaps).

I'm experimenting with these- 5,000 lumens each!Digi-Key - 976-1011-ND (Manufacturer - BXRA-C4500-00000) $68.00 each

mounted to these- Thermaltakeusa » Cooler » Server Cooler » Intel 1U Solution » CLS0006 : CLS0006 CLS0006 $40.00 each

powered by this-24VDC 6.5A 150W POWER SUPPLY AllElectronics.com $27.00 each

and controlled by these LED Drivers Digi-Key $4.00

Makes one hell of a bright light, but I'm still out approx $150.00 in parts aloneand all the labor involved is FREE!

 

[jcardona1]

Are you gonna buy it? I read the specs.........seams to good to be true.
How the chinese can produce a product and sell it at a profitable price for less than what I have to spend on the raw parts, I'll never know?....(slave labor perhaps).

I'm experimenting with these- 5,000 lumens each!Digi-Key - 976-1011-ND (Manufacturer - BXRA-C4500-00000) $68.00 each

mounted to these- Thermaltakeusa » Cooler » Server Cooler » Intel 1U Solution » CLS0006 : CLS0006 CLS0006 $40.00 each

powered by this-24VDC 6.5A 150W POWER SUPPLY AllElectronics.com $27.00 each

and controlled by these LED Drivers Digi-Key $4.00

Makes one hell of a bright light, but I'm still out approx $150.00 in parts aloneand all the labor involved is FREE!

haha those darn Chinese!! I'm really curious to try one out, but I don't think I'm ready to shell out the $150 for one. I do have the 10w version and it's a neat little fixture. Puts out a decent amount of light for 10w/484 lumens. Those run about $30 each.

As I mentioned in my PM, I don't need a ton of light, but I do want some even lighting. So right now my options are go the DIY LED route we talked about, or run about 8 of these 10w LED floodlamps. Looking at $250ish with the floodlamps or $500+ the DIY route.

8x flood lamps gives me 3800 lumens, less than this 50w for $150, but I would need more than one to give a good light spread on a 60x30 footprint.

EDIT: do you know what the lumnens output is of those XP-G LEDs we were talking about?

 

[Danger_Chicken]

Quaility is an issue with the chinese chips. Lot's of ebayers are saying the cheap chips don't last (people that bought them). That has me concerned with the 10w floods if I buy a lot of them. I wonder how hard, or if it's possible, to replace the chip with cree chips when/if they burn out.

There is a guy on youtube that sells leds and has comparision video's of different lights and different chips. Cree chips put out more lumens and PAR compared with the same wattage bridgelux. His name is gotham somthing.

 

[jcardona1]

Quaility is an issue with the chinese chips. Lot's of ebayers are saying the cheap chips don't last (people that bought them). That has me concerned with the 10w floods if I buy a lot of them. I wonder how hard, or if it's possible, to replace the chip with cree chips when/if they burn out.

There is a guy on youtube that sells leds and has comparision video's of different lights and different chips. Cree chips put out more lumens and PAR compared with the same wattage bridgelux. His name is gotham somthing.

Yeah that's definitely a concern. But Americans in general always downtalk anything made in China. To them, anything made in China automatically means cheap low quality, which isn't always the case IMO. I wonder though, if the LED dies, could you replace it with someting a little stronger?

But at $30 a pop, it may be cheaper/easier to just buy a whole new flood lamp

 

[Danger_Chicken]

There is a lot of talk on non-fish forums where people are buying the leds off ebay and getting junk. Doesn't work out of the box or stops working shortly afterwards. False intensity claims.

That hasn't stopped me from using chinese leds, just makes me research the seller and item a little closer. The 10w floods have to be chinese at that price. I'm more willing to buy chinese chips from someone in the US like LED Warehouse then from Ebay. Someone I can get on the phone if I have a problem.

 

[jcardona1]

Yeah I'm positive those 10w from the California company are chinese also. But like you said, nice thing is they're based here, and in case something goes wrong, you can pick up the phone and call them.

 

[O2surplus]

Here's the specs on the Cree XPG's. If you were to run them full tilt @ 1000ma ( 3 watts) that's 347 lumens per led. 347 x12 per string = 4164 lumens.
Not bad considering that they cost less than $8.00 each and the driver is > $30.00.

 

[RTC GAR TSN]

Have you looked into flexoble LED strips? You can place them anywhere you want and most strips you get have a sticky tape on the back that you can place anywhere. I put blue LEDs on my tank so it screws with my RTC's head and makes him think it's dark so he comes out a lot more.

BTW they're fairly cheap. You can get a 5 meter roll for $50

 

[aclockworkorange]

I made a good bit of money from some CREE stock a while back.

Thanks for all this input guys, really appreciate it and jcardona for making the thread.

 

[jcardona1]

Here's a pic of the 10w LED floodlamp over my 57g tank, just to give you an idea. Tank dimensions are 36x18x21. Keep in mind this is the 3000k light. The dingbats at the company like to give people the wrong color, even when they specify they want white, not sure what that is all about The correct color is on its way.

Video will be posted in a few minutes