Questions about purchasing a Robo-Tank DIY Aquarium Controller Kit

[jeremyh]

I emailed www.americanaquariumproducts.com and received this response:

Jeremy
It is the Nature Perfect emitters that are patented. As per our website, the Cree emitters are licensed, not patented
Licensing simply means a specific variation from a bin is licensed for TMC

From Aquarium Lighting article:

What is also noteworthy is that these best licensed emitters can be driven at higher voltages. As an example, the standard XB-D White LED can produce 139 lumens when driven at 350 mA. However the licensed version (used in the GroBeam) can be driven at 700 mA producing 206 lumens with an efficiency of 86 lm/W and thus a much higher output than most LEDs used.

Reference: Cree XLamp XB-D

Which is a fine response other than the reference link doesn't seem helpful. From the "Cree XLamp XB-D" link I clicked: "Documentation" > "XB-Family Binning & Labeling" if you Ctrl+F: "XB-D" the only results are 350ma. The "XB-H" on the other hand does say 700ma.

Do you think it's safe to assume the "licensed version" of the XB-D simply doesn't list information publicly?

I realize I'm probably looking into this more than most people might...but that's just how I am. ^^

[Rob F]

I've heard of some companies using many sites to do marketing, maybe that's what they are doing, hard to say. But it's pretty easy to do. I could open all kinds of sites that review controllers and guess who's always on the top of the list. 

The only good LED's I know of are from Cree and Phillips but I'm sure there's many others. When I looked up those Cree XB-D's I also only saw 350ma yet they told me the driver put out 700ma so I also questioned that, don't know if they have an unpublished LED or not. Maybe they run two strings in parallel to make the 700ma although it sounded like 1 string in my emails. 

I don't envy you right now, I know how difficult it can be to pick a light, I went crazy for weeks when I made mine, in the end I went with a simple design and it seems ok. :) It's easy to get overwhelmed with all the charts and specs, I guess the best way for factory made lights is user reviews.

[jeremyh]

I re-evaluated which lights I wanted to get. I will try to give the short version of how I (eventually) re-decided.

Starts here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lig...ights.html downloaded: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AuHFJHCYI0pnqDP28y0dIkK9PNXu I then clicked the "Results" tab and pulled every row of information for a 24" depth (close to my aquarium setup) into a new spreadsheet. Next I created a new column "Watts/PAR" which does exactly that.
EVO Quad Clip 3W Timer 6500K was the winner at about 0.4. I could not find any spectrum chart so I moved on to the next winner which was the Finnex Ray 2 at 0.8.

From here all of my research was in regards to the Finnex and TMC GroBeams. Looking back at the original spreadsheet I find myself wishing I had started from a source with more variation in brands. Starting spreadsheet had these brands: Finnex, Light Your Reptiles, Zoomed, Samsung, EVO, Beamswork, and VivaGrow

I pulled data for the GroBeam1000 ND and the GroBeam500 from http://www.aquarayusa.com/growbeamspecsheet.pdf. TMC has updated (better) versions of these GroBeams but I could not find spec sheets on the updated products.

I pulled data for the 16" Finnex FugeRay Planted+, 36" Finnex FugeRay Planted+, 18" Ray II DS, and the 36" Ray II DS from http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/145-fi...-data.html.
To my surprise Finnex had a very nice spectrum graph...it appears to extremely similar to the GroBeams spectrum graph. This is very important as I plan on having a heavily planted tank.

I have been told by American Aquarium Products that I should have 4 GroBeam 600s for a 55 gallon aquarium. Based on spec sheet that is 224 PAR (at 16" depth) I went on to figure out how many of each product I would need to get as close to 224 PAR as possible. I then pulled prices from Amazon and American Aquarium Products.

At this point I used an old spreadsheet to graph costs of the various systems in terms of initial cost and electricity costs. Graphs show 12 month and a 121 month costs. Graph assumes lights are on 100% for 10 hours a day, that there are 30 days in every month, wattage cost were calculated with this formula: Cost of operation per month = (Watts x .001) x (rate/kWh) x (hours used per month) (https://www9.nationalgridus.com/niagaram...liance.pdf) at a rate of 9.4 cents/kWh (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/1...your-state, Oregon)

   
   

[Rob F]

Nice, based on that it looks like the Growbeams win. :) Interesting how the 2 different size rays cost is close but the fuge has a big cost difference.