Cali Kid Corals

PAR38 Lighting

sid700

Supporting Member
I'm thinking of getting a Par 38 lighting. Nanotuners carries one with 5 leds and uses 21w. SunBrite also sells them with 9, 12 & 15 LEDs with wattage 11w, 13w and 16w, respectively.

Would more wattage mean more PAR, given if it's the same color temp? Which would be brighter to the eye? tia
 
LEDs are a bit tricky, since efficiency of the LED comes into question, where as with other bulbs its not so much of a night and day difference.

The SunBrite ones run each LED at close to 1 watt each, the upside to this is that is at 350mA is where the LEDs are their most efficient, where as the nanotuner ones push them at 1000mA I believe, which gives more light, but the efficiency drops off. Another good thing using less wattage is you'll need less cooling.

That said, I can't emphasize enough you can't tell from watts alone without knowing which LEDs are in each setup, even with Cree LEDs there's a world of difference between the XP-G and XR-E.

I would stick with the NanoTuner one myself, it looks to be quite a bit cheaper than the SunTuner one, and it in reality it probably will put out more light.
 
Kraylen said:
Robert had some cool PAR38s at his store, forgot who made them but they were pretty cool.

Nanocustoms/NanoTuners... the real deal, made in America ones with actual CREE LED's. The original ones in other words.
 
If there is any confusion, PAR38 is a lighting format. In the LED reef world, the name "PAR 38" is often associated with the NT/NC's offering of Evilc66's implementation of the format which uses Cree LEDs.
 
Seems there are different sockets too for PAR lamps; I had the hardest of the time looking for PAR 16 bulbs for a track light set long ago.
 
eldiablosrt8 said:
What are u lighting up
It's 12g nano Jess. A pair of clown fry survived so I thought of housing them with a nem, zoas and maybe acans. I'd like to go with LEDs because of low wattage and longer life.

Thanks guys. I'll go with Nanotuners.
 
thta way more than enough light for that.... i want to build a custome hood for my 14g nano and run on e on there in a 14k or 20k bulb.....

you will be happy for the price
 
Heh, I caught myself looking at a bulb with a single 4W LED in it at the hardware store the other day, it was MR16 so I was thinking HMMM, I bet they make some neat modular track lighting for this bulb...

Then you remember how expensive the fixtures are and walk away.
 
Those are nice little things; I'm trying to get my sister into buying some for her store; she's running quite a few MR16 Halogen; the not so nice is the color temp. warm white most of them and cost a little fortune to have them on.
The LED version might be easy to mod and squeeze a different LED?
 
xcaret said:
Those are nice little things; I'm trying to get my sister into buying some for her store; she's running quite a few MR16 Halogen; the not so nice is the color temp. warm white most of them and cost a little fortune to have them on.
The LED version might be easy to mod and squeeze a different LED?

What kind of store? If clothing LED is not the best choice (yet), although, the no UV part is very desirable in that department.
 
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