# 5050SMD LED Light Bar Flexible LED Clip Light



## Rasbora (13 May 2014)

I'm a huge fan of TMC GroBeam 600s, but they are a bit pricey. I've just taken delivery of two of these from eBay to go over low tech 60cm long by 25cm wide by 20cm high tanks:




 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121241246852

To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much but I've just plugged them in and I'm well impressed. Looks like a bargain. Anyone else tried these?


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## allan angus (13 May 2014)

i use 8 meters of 5050 waterproof to supplement the lighting on my 3 foot long tank in conjunction with a t8 tube it seems to be working well i have it in 3 banks timed to come on at 30 mins apart after they come on the tube comes on stays on for 6 hrs then each of in turn at 30 min intervals . the best thing about them is the great lighting effects i can achieve using the remote control since 5 meters of the strip is rgb. im not sure they add real amounts of growing light but great for viewing


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## parsonsmj (19 Nov 2015)

Don't get these, This is what happened when I unplugged it......


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## ian_m (19 Nov 2015)

Look nice but I doubt they are actually very bright your eyes are very very easily fooled into apparent brightness.

Assuming they are Cree LED's (which at that price they are certainly not) they generate 100lumens per watt and this bar consumes 4W, therefore is 400lumen in 48cm.

For comparison a good old T5 HO tube @ 55cm is 1900lumens, these LED's are a factor of five not as bright as a good old T5 and that is assuming they were Cree LEDs, so I suspect my 400lumen is way off. Lucky if you get 200lumen I suspect.

The GroBeam 600 are rated 2000lumen.



parsonsmj said:


> Don't get these, This is what happened when I unplugged it......


That is because the CE mark on the plug is not the "European Conformity" safety label but "Chinese Electric".

Again Ebay, China and LED occurring in the same sentence does not mean a quality product.

If you are looking for decent proper built LED lights (other than GroBeam) these are worth looking at, most are about 1.5times a T5 lumen value.
http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/a...antis-easy-led-universal-lighting-freshwater/


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## Martin in Holland (20 Nov 2015)

If you go to IKEA and find a table with 4 chairs for less than 100 Euro's, do you expect this to be a quality product?...probably not. Same with Chinese products, although I have a lot products that are made in China and they work perfect, I would not suggest to look for high quality in a low price.
For me it is a bit different as I am living in China and products are mostly very cheap, the price here is without shipping though and that's the thing that is often more expensive than the product itself.


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## ajm83 (20 Nov 2015)

Martin in China said:


> If you go to IKEA and find a table with 4 chairs for less than 100 Euro's, do you expect this to be a quality product?...probably not. Same with Chinese products, although I have a lot products that are made in China and they work perfect, I would not suggest to look for high quality in a low price.
> For me it is a bit different as I am living in China and products are mostly very cheap, the price here is without shipping though and that's the thing that is often more expensive than the product itself.



Ikea wasn't a great example as their stuff is pretty good actually. It's cheap but generally designed well and in fact I don't think I've ever had a single product fail from there (and my complete kitchen, incl. utilities, plus my front room (besta&billy units, settee) etc are all from there) but I agree with your point.

I have a few different sellers versions of those LED bars, many have failed, some have leaked as well.
I've actually seen electrical arcing inside one of them too which was worrying.

On the subject of brightness, they are a fair bit dimmer than an equivalent length T8 with a reflector.

On the plus side, they use less power than the equiv. T8, and you get a decent shimmer effect. They also seem to bring out fish colours (esp. blues) better than planted tank T8s.


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## Martin in Holland (21 Nov 2015)

I agree, the IKEA example wasn't good (actually all my fish tank cabinets are IKEA kitchen ones and the quality is great)....what I meant was, if something looks like a 100 euro but only costs 10, you can be sure it's not the 100 euro quality.


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