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Plasma Lights Hit SA Shores
- Thread starter George
- Start date
Yes, but if you see the real thing, it is far, far better, the photos do not give it full justice, and you can enjoy a full spectrum from 22 000 to 5 000 K. Anita
butcherman
Moderator
@Anita Welcome to the forum
nice of you to start your own mebership account on MASA. now we know if its you or George that we are talking to 
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Wow, these lights are beasts.
They look awesome
if you look at the corals, but 15k for a single light fitting eish babba its a lot of doe to spill on a light fitting to get a saving over 10yrs. And remember you still have to replace the two fluorescent tubes they added for the colouring effect and this yearly, so will you really be saving that much as the LFS charges just as much for the smaller fluorescent tubes as the big ones. I agree that the saving is long term, but it is hectic. But then again if ppl are willing to pay R18k for a flourescent fitting theyll spend it on this most of them just to say they have one, george and the team has put a lot of effort in here so it will be a spectacular addition. I think the effects of savings etc. would be more evident on bigger systems running 400w and 1000w halides, and itll be more efficient on deep tanks. I dont even want to think of replacing four 400w fittings with these eish man. Id think 7,5k would be more reasonable for me and thats double the price of a halide fitting, and with LED fittings getting more and more popular at 450 - 550 dollars or R5000 and R5000 up against R15000 without globe replacements with the same life span. Remember i think this would be made only for a selective few, and not on any big scale production very soon.Personally I think not by the test figures we sent to the USA during the development time. However I can't give a true picture of the heat because I had 3 x 400 wt M/H and now we get better light with much less heat from 2 x Plasma so the comparisons are favouring plasma.
What I can say though is better light and far better electricity usage because the plasma with the diiming cycle avarages at about 150w each through the 12 hr cycle, and that is huge.
Plasma Update
Plasma Update
The developmental Plasma’s have now been running for almost 2 months with absolute amazing results.
At the outset we have managed to reduce our daily kilowatt usage between 8-10kw which results in a +- R 200.00 saving in my pocket monthly, and soon the electricity is going up again.
We have added a controller that can dim these lights (08:00hrs on) from 20% to 100% and then down to 20% at the end of a 12hr day. This results in a full spectrum from of 20,000k in the early morning gradually increasing brightness to 5200k 100% illumination (sunlight) between 12:00hrs & 14:00hrs then dropping back to 20% (19:45hrs). This is a gradual process, hardly noticeable except for the definite visible gradual colour change. Visual effects are quite stunning.
PAR ratings have been difficult to determine as the placing of the sensor has been very hard due to fact we can’t anchor it directly under the lights at specific depths. The plasma globe is currently situated 400mm from the water surface & all PAR ratings are done at this height.
Measuring Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF)
PAR at the water surface 10mm below......700
PAR at 200mm water depth.............470
PAR at 300mm water depth.............315
PAR at 700mm water depth..............350
Strangely enough the deep reading (700mm) was at an angle in front of the tank, which gave a higher reading at 1100mm from the Plasma Globe. This could be due to the efficiency of the reflector. This explains the polyp extension of the broken pieces of Montipora on the floor of the tank. If the Montipora is not shaved daily by cleaning the front glass pane, layers of Monty are damaged and fall off, prior to the plasma’s this shaving regime was every 2-3 days.
I would like to emphasise that these readings have been compromised to certain extent by the very fact that the reef is a high one and no other readings could be made between 300mm & 700mm depth.
The very fact that a Plasma globe lasts between 8-10 years at full strength of 238w alone would be a huge economic gain for any reefer changing conventional globes on a 9-12 month basis.
These units are made from high quality anodised aluminium with high grade stainless steel rivets and bolts which should outlast the corrosive nature of the fish tank. The heat generated from these lights are far less than my previous metal halide fitting, they are much lighter and very easy to place above the aquarium.
IMG]http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f233/Halekas/Plasma%20Pictures/jspb_PlasmaPage5.jpg[/IMG]
Plasma Update
The developmental Plasma’s have now been running for almost 2 months with absolute amazing results.
At the outset we have managed to reduce our daily kilowatt usage between 8-10kw which results in a +- R 200.00 saving in my pocket monthly, and soon the electricity is going up again.
We have added a controller that can dim these lights (08:00hrs on) from 20% to 100% and then down to 20% at the end of a 12hr day. This results in a full spectrum from of 20,000k in the early morning gradually increasing brightness to 5200k 100% illumination (sunlight) between 12:00hrs & 14:00hrs then dropping back to 20% (19:45hrs). This is a gradual process, hardly noticeable except for the definite visible gradual colour change. Visual effects are quite stunning.
PAR ratings have been difficult to determine as the placing of the sensor has been very hard due to fact we can’t anchor it directly under the lights at specific depths. The plasma globe is currently situated 400mm from the water surface & all PAR ratings are done at this height.
Measuring Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF)
PAR at the water surface 10mm below......700
PAR at 200mm water depth.............470
PAR at 300mm water depth.............315
PAR at 700mm water depth..............350
Strangely enough the deep reading (700mm) was at an angle in front of the tank, which gave a higher reading at 1100mm from the Plasma Globe. This could be due to the efficiency of the reflector. This explains the polyp extension of the broken pieces of Montipora on the floor of the tank. If the Montipora is not shaved daily by cleaning the front glass pane, layers of Monty are damaged and fall off, prior to the plasma’s this shaving regime was every 2-3 days.
I would like to emphasise that these readings have been compromised to certain extent by the very fact that the reef is a high one and no other readings could be made between 300mm & 700mm depth.
The very fact that a Plasma globe lasts between 8-10 years at full strength of 238w alone would be a huge economic gain for any reefer changing conventional globes on a 9-12 month basis.
These units are made from high quality anodised aluminium with high grade stainless steel rivets and bolts which should outlast the corrosive nature of the fish tank. The heat generated from these lights are far less than my previous metal halide fitting, they are much lighter and very easy to place above the aquarium.
IMG]http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f233/Halekas/Plasma%20Pictures/jspb_PlasmaPage5.jpg[/IMG]
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Maybe an odd question, but why is the lights so high above the tank.
You would get a lot better PAR reading when they are closer. But then again, that would heat up the water more. How high was the MH fittings you had mounted?
Next year, if all goes well, I want to change (again) my tank. And this is a serious alternative I'm thinking about as for me LEDs do not have it (not yet - maybe one day on tanks 600mm deep). But a very important question that was asked a number of times. And remained unanswered. What is the expected price range we are looking at?
You would get a lot better PAR reading when they are closer. But then again, that would heat up the water more. How high was the MH fittings you had mounted?
Next year, if all goes well, I want to change (again) my tank. And this is a serious alternative I'm thinking about as for me LEDs do not have it (not yet - maybe one day on tanks 600mm deep). But a very important question that was asked a number of times. And remained unanswered. What is the expected price range we are looking at?
+1 on the pricing
The reason the lights are high is because we moved then to take the pictures, they are normally slightly lower....
The question on price remains unanswered because we do not know yet!! We do not want to give prices when they could be higher or lower than a thumbsuck, we want to make them competative and the price will be lower than buying them from overseas. You will get prices as soon as we have worked out all the costs involved.......cheers Anita
butcherman
Moderator
Excellent R&D work
Updates - Price?
Light unit specification per tank size?
A little more time is needed here.
George
I was very fortunate to have seen these lights on Sunday. WOW!!!!!! What can I say. Very awesome.
Can't wait for pricing
Can't wait for pricing
belindamotion
Google Master
...always wanted to do that...
