# arcadia classica otl led



## Mr P (2 Nov 2014)

Hi, has anybody got this light and what do you think of it?many thanks roy.


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## Alastair (2 Nov 2014)

Hi roy 
It's a brilliant light unit. Par levels are phenomenal and you have multiple control over channels. I have a spare 80cm still boxed.


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## Mr P (2 Nov 2014)

Hi alastair,I want to get a led light for my 60cm long tank,I am concerned with reliabilty has your light been trouble free,can you adjust the colour of the light and would you consider it as power as 2t5s ? Thanks .roy


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## Alastair (3 Nov 2014)

Mr P said:


> Hi alastair,I want to get a led light for my 60cm long tank,I am concerned with reliabilty has your light been trouble free,can you adjust the colour of the light and would you consider it as power as 2t5s ? Thanks .roy



Never experienced any trouble from them at all, not one bit. The lights run on 4 channels. The main 10000k on one, the reds greens and blues and others on the rest. It's far more power full than two t5s.


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## Mr P (3 Nov 2014)

Many thanks alastair for your help.I bought today tmc grobeam ultima ,I spoke to richard at AE and after chatting about my needs he recommended the grobeams,I think led lighting is still in its infancy and over the next few years there will be a lot of advances and I think I will hang on a bit longer before a really serious investment in lighting.I have a sllpondsolution t5 pendant at the moment on the tank which didnt cost a fortune and does a great job,the led lighting is an early xmas pressie from the misses so I can't complain .thanks again alastair .roy.


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## PedroB (16 Nov 2014)

Hi Alastair, do you still have the extra Arcadia OTL?


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## Jan Larsen (23 Nov 2014)

I've been looking at LED lighting too (common pastime I reckon eh?)

I need a new light for my daughters 50Cm 50L tank. It came with a hood that carries a single T8, which just won't do.
I have my own 100L 60Cm wide tank which came with a 3xT5/24W Aquaone light, it looks nice, except for the legs looks less than super.
The glass on my daughters tank is very thin, 6mm I imagine, maybe less, can't find my calipers.

Seeing as I'm a stingy sod I've been looking on eBay, have found the Arcadia Classica for £60, the Aqua one Plantglo for £70 and a generic 2xT5/24W for £50
As far as energy and bulb consumption goes it's a no brainer, the T5 will eat 70KWh more a year (8hrs daily) and will require new bulbs every 12 to 18 months I gather. 70KWh don't exactly cost a fortune mind but two T5 tubes will run me what, £35? So a quick ball park figure if the LED unit lasts 5 years and we assume that in those 5 years I'd go through 8 T5's and that 70KWh will average £6 over them 5 years that's £170 in tubes and power, not an insignificant amount.

And by what I see and hear people write and say the LED units outperform the twin T5's in light output.

The temptation to sell the triple T5 aqua one unit and buy 3 60Cm LED jobbies is strong. (I reckon maybe two LED units would be appropriate for the 100L but I could be wrong?

Another added bonus would be the moonlight. Getting the little rocker switches out and wiring in two clocks should be relatively easy. The electrical part is very easy for me, making it stay IP67 compliant a bit more of a challenge. perhaps I could replace the mains cord with a 4 core cable and do it that way, sounds like a better plan really.

If the drivers are PWM types, a proper gucci way of doing it would be to jam a microcontroller in there and have proper sunrise/sunset sort of stuff go on.

So. Question time, is the Arcadia or the Aqua One the better choice?

//Jan


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## OllieNZ (23 Nov 2014)

Already done 
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/index.php?threads/30941/

It won't out perform triple t5s. Tbh I'm not sure it even matches a single but they certainly have no issues growing plants.


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## Jan Larsen (23 Nov 2014)

No I gathered that triple T5's would be beyond the performance of the Arcadia LED unit, hence why I imagined using two LED units for my 100L tank and a single one for my daughters 50L.


I really should try and learn a bit more about light, I know about electronics but not a lot about light.

Ah so the switches are in a little inline box with the power supply, I thought they were going to be on the side of the luminaire/LED bar looks like a regular switch mode circuit that, rather than a PWM driver no? One would imagine that the actual luminaire then contains the LED's and a bunch of resistors connected to that little box with a three core cable.

Or even better LED's and no resistors, if that was the case connecting that cable to a different circuit comprised of a microcontroller and two PWM drivers would realise the fading operation nicely.

Ehe, I just looked closer at the eBay listing:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ARCADIA-C...UK_Pet_Supplies_Fish&var=&hash=item5d45cff786

Yah I can see the little box there, why does it say 'AquaZonic' on it? Uhm, am I looking at some sort of counterfeit product here?


//Jan


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## dw1305 (24 Nov 2014)

Hi all,





Jan Larsen said:


> the T5 will eat 70KWh more a year (8hrs daily) and will require new bulbs every 12 to 18 months I gather.


 You don't need to change electronically ballasted triphosphor tubes until they fail. 

You should get at least 20,000 hours with very little <"lamp lumen depreciation">.  Even if you do need new tubes daylight (6500K) 60cm 24W tubes are about a £5 each. 

LED are definitely the future, but at the moment I'd be surprised if they offer any financial advantage over linear T5.

cheers Darrel


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## Jan Larsen (24 Nov 2014)

Aah I see,

I really don't know a fat lot about these tube lights, I'd bought into the idea that they degrade with time and also that I'd have to buy special 'aquarium tubes' stands to good reason that 6500K, as I understand it being the temperature of daylight, would be just dandy for plants 

So, I can get that cheap and cheerful eBay twin T5 for £50, including some tubes of unknown quality - I notice that for instance Arcadia T5 over tank luminaires are quite expensive, 5-7 times more expensive than that eBay unit in fact. should I be concerned with other qualities than the housing construction, I gather that reflectors for instance are probably not born equal, ballasts?

But I digress, back to the cheap eBay luminaire, if I buy that and get me an extra 4 tubes I should be out close enough to the same money as the Arcadia LED luminaire and set to go for quite a lot longer than 5 years. Plus it would give the light output of 2 24W T5's which as has been pointed out is probably quite a lot more than the 23W LED unit.

Moonlight's I could realise simply by putting a bunch of blue LED's a small switchmode PSU and an NC relay in the luminaire.

If I wasn't torn between what to do before I sure as hell am now! 


//Jan


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## dw1305 (24 Nov 2014)

Hi all, 





Jan Larsen said:


> I notice that for instance Arcadia T5 over tank luminaires are quite expensive, 5-7 times more expensive than that eBay unit in fact. should I be concerned with other qualities than the housing construction, I gather that reflectors for instance are probably not born equal, ballasts?


 The aquarium lights have a much better finish, but I'd be surprised if either the ballasts or reflectors are much different. I've had 10 of the 8 tube 4' 54W T5 "lightwave" units in our glasshouse for the last few years and none of the ballasts have failed, so they seem pretty reliable. 

I've also got a 3 x 8W Boyu unit, and other than the plastic legs crazing I'd highly recommend it.

cheers Darrel


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