# FUN high CRI LED strips



## oreo57 (8 Jan 2022)

Even have some RGB "backlight" modules..
I recommend DIY-ers spend some time here..
Prices are err "competitive" but not inexpensive..





						LumiFlex3098+ SunLike CRI98+ LED Strips (1800 lm/m)
					






					www.ledrise.eu


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

Interesting! I’d be tempted to give them a go if it weren’t for the £187 for a 5m reel.

Are these the first consumer LED’s to offer this kind of sunlight equivalent full daylight spectrum @oreo57?


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

This strip light appears to use the same LED’s and is a more palatable price for experimentation!









						LumiBar-26-3098+ Toshiba-SSC LED Strip Sunlike CRI98 cold white 5000K 704lm 175mA 39.6V 26 LEDs 11.02in/28cm module (762lm/ft 7.6W/ft)
					

Non-stocked product. MOQ: 200 pcs, production time 10 weeks (contact us for details) LED Module with CRI97, for professional use that requires the best color rendering Designed for general or task lighting luminaires (723 lm/ft) Solderless installation and form in accordance with Zhaga standard




					www.uk.lumistrips.com


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

A bit more digging and a company called ‘Remez’ has started using them in standard light bulbs. I can’t seem to source them in the UK, but AliExpress has them:

AliExpress

No shipping to the UK though unfortunately! Must not have passed UK regs approval yet or something?


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## oreo57 (9 Jan 2022)

Wookii said:


> Interesting! I’d be tempted to give them a go if it weren’t for the £187 for a 5m reel.
> 
> Are these the first consumer LED’s to offer this kind of sunlight equivalent full daylight spectrum @oreo57?


Well... afaict Yuji, SORRA, and Kyocera 
have violet pump rgb phosphor and Cree and Luxeon have high cri blue pump diodes but 
almost each of the above had an issue or 2 from poor longetivity to availability of chips  to not high enough k temp for a decent look.


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## oreo57 (9 Jan 2022)

Wookii said:


> A bit more digging and a company called ‘Remez’ has started using them in standard light bulbs. I can’t seem to source them in the UK, but AliExpress has them:
> 
> AliExpress
> 
> No shipping to the UK though unfortunately! Must not have passed UK regs approval yet or something?


Well that is a bulb, not exactly what I was referring to. I just can' t ever get comfortable w/ aliexpress though..

Oh in the US forgot this retailer.
ABSOLUTE SERIES 99 CRI LED Technology |         Waveform Lighting 

Violet emitters are nowhere near ( or were) as efficient as royal blue.
Secondly blue phosphors for leds were not as stable as others.
So always watch est. lifespans..


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## erwin123 (9 Jan 2022)

There are a lot of videos/articles on how to DIY High CRI lights for video. Quite informative (though for aquarium lights waterproofing/electrical safety has to be considered). 
For video, I'm using softboxes with a standard e27 mount and high CRI E27 light bulbs.

Interesting fact from google - California has Regulation called Title 24 that all residential lighting must be CRI 90 or higher... which suggests it would be pretty easy to get high CRI bulbs in the USA whereas in my country the common bulbs are the philips >CRI 80 LEDs.


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

oreo57 said:


> Well that is a bulb, not exactly what I was referring to. I just can' t ever get comfortable w/ aliexpress though..
> 
> Oh in the US forgot this retailer.
> ABSOLUTE SERIES 99 CRI LED Technology |         Waveform Lighting
> ...



Yeah, I don’t use AilExpress either for the same reasons, but for £5 it’d be worth a punt.

I know your original link was to LED strips, but if the exact same LED can be had in a commercially available bulb, that would be even easier for testing of colour rendition on an aquarium.

It’s also surely the holy grail for aquarium lighting - full sunlight spectral response in a dimmable bulb that can be used in any domestic light fitting. Most people could light their tank for less than £20 if they chose. (I appreciated people could do that now, but the LED performance doesn’t match the best dedicated aquarium lights currently).

For me personally, if I could get these LED’s in a GU10 bulb format, that would be perfect for some suspended pendants - and there are plenty of water proof garden fitting available to house them.


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

erwin123 said:


> There are a lot of videos/articles on how to DIY High CRI lights for video. Quite informative (though for aquarium lights waterproofing/electrical safety has to be considered).
> For video, I'm using softboxes with a standard e27 mount and high CRI E27 light bulbs.
> 
> Interesting fact from google - California has Regulation called Title 24 that all residential lighting must be CRI 90 or higher... which suggests it would be pretty easy to get high CRI bulbs in the USA whereas in my country the common bulbs are the philips >CRI 80 LEDs.



Whilst there are many high CRI LED’s available, the key point is none of them match the spectral response of natural sunlight very well at all, and no where near as well as those linked to by @oreo57 - particularly at the red end of the spectrum, which is frequently why white LED aquarium lights often have washed out reds (and other colours) unless they are boosted by additional red LED’s, or are pure RGB combination LED’s (Chihiros, ADA Solar RGB etc).

That would be the key test for me if we could get our hands on these new LED’s - what would be the final colour rendition? Hopefully better than either traditional white LED’s and combination RGB LED’s.


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## zozo (9 Jan 2022)

Don't get your hopes too high up with those newly invented CRI numbers, I guess it still is as vaguely and likely as non-standardized as the older °K values.

What they basically do to get a CRI number is use a table of a few standard colours.






Place this under the sun at 5000K and look at the colours, then place the same table under an artificial 5000K light source and look at the colours again.
Now if the colours reflect fairly the same under the artificial 5000K then it means the spectrum is similar to 5000K sunlight and it gets a high CRI number.

I wonder a bit how and when and where and at what time and condition did they determine the sun being 5000°K and look at this colour palette and record it, bring this back indoors to test and compare all artificial lights? They probably have a nice story to take you for a ride and pump up the price. But how would you as the consumer test its validity? In the end, there is no guarantee that you as a buyer and spectator will like what you see when looking at a different colour palette under this light... 

How can one standardize a taste?


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

zozo said:


> Don't get your hopes too high up with those newly invented CRI numbers, I guess it still is as vaguely and likely as non-standardized as the older °K values.
> 
> What they basically do to get a CRI number is use a table of a few standard colours.
> 
> ...



I don’t think the CRI number is particularly relevant either - personally it was the published spectral response I was looking at:





Ref: Seoul Semiconductor SunLike Natural Spectrum LEDs reveal color and depth of artistic works


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## oreo57 (9 Jan 2022)

zozo said:


> Don't get your hopes too high up with those newly invented CRI numbers, I guess it still is as vaguely and likely as non-standardized as the older °K values.
> 
> What they basically do to get a CRI number is use a table of a few standard colours.
> 
> ...


Suppose I should mentioned that  there is a " new" CRI ..









						TM-30-15 vs. CRI and the Future of Color Rendering - Premier Lighting
					

Most in the lighting world are aware of CRI, also known as Color Rendering Index. It can best be described as the quantitative measure of the ability of a given light source to reveal the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. The higher the CRI...




					www.premierltg.com
				




The R(f) score is high. Uses 99 patches..
There will always be differences since how the spectrum is created is different.
Led, metal halides,  t5s are not black body sources .
Of course nothing is perfect.


> Although planets and stars are neither in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings nor perfect black bodies, black-body radiation is used as a first approximation for the energy they emit


If you want to go down another rabbit hole, even people's individual perceptions of color varies.


> But research has found that we experience colors differently, depending on gender, national origin, ethnicity, geographical location, and what language we speak. In other words, there is nothing objective about colors





			http://www.seoul-semicon.co.kr/common/img/tech/propo_03_kr.jpg


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## oreo57 (9 Jan 2022)

One word if caution is " natural" is not always perceived as "best".
Rgb arrays with high R(g) (representing saturation an  d > 100) and lower R(f) representing color fidelity) may " look" better to some.

Personally the 2 schools look really different to me. Not better or worse, just different.
Hard to describe ....

One thing though . Both look better than standard white leds alone


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## zozo (9 Jan 2022)

oreo57 said:


> If you want to go down another rabbit hole, even people's individual perceptions of color varies.



This specific topic is discussed in the podcast from 2016 bellow








						Lighting the Planted Aquarium with Cara Wade | ScapeFu059 - ScapeFu
					

Cara Wade , a lighting expert from Build My LED , tells you exactly what you should be looking for when thinking about lighting your planted aquarium.



					scapefu.com
				




Interview with Cara Wade, she works as a researcher for a manufacturer developing Horticultural grow lights. They used to contain the company BuildMyLED for aquariums which they, unfortunately, discontinued for economical reasons. Anyway, she mentions as long as the light is in the white spectrum plants will grow regardlessly of the rest of the spectrum. One should choose a light colour that looks best to the personal perception since it's only you that needs to look at it and like it.


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## hwscot (9 Jan 2022)

Wookii said:


> Interesting! I’d be tempted to give them a go if it weren’t for the £187 for a 5m reel.
> 
> Are these the first consumer LED’s to offer this kind of sunlight equivalent full daylight spectrum @oreo57?


There's loads of good LED stuff on the photo lighting market. I've been shooting portraits with LED continuous lighting for several years. I use a 150W and a 60W .. CRI around 95 is widely available. For some reason the 60W heads have gone up a bit the last year or so, from around £100 to more like £120 or £150. Have often wondered how they would work as aquarium lights. There's all sorts of light modifiers for reasonable money.
This is the kind of thing.








						Godox SL-60W 5600K LED Video Light Lamp White Version Continuous Light Camera  | eBay
					

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Godox SL-60W 5600K LED Video Light Lamp White Version Continuous Light Camera at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products!



					www.ebay.co.uk


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## Wookii (9 Jan 2022)

hwscot said:


> There's loads of good LED stuff on the photo lighting market. I've been shooting portraits with LED continuous lighting for several years. I use a 150W and a 60W .. CRI around 95 is widely available. For some reason the 60W heads have gone up a bit the last year or so, from around £100 to more like £120 or £150. Have often wondered how they would work as aquarium lights. There's all sorts of light modifiers for reasonable money.
> This is the kind of thing.
> 
> 
> ...



Agreed, there is lots of good value LED stuff around, but as mentioned above it’s not the CRI that’s particularly important - with the LED’s mentioned in the OP it’s specifically that these LED’s can fairly closely match the spectral response of natural sunlight in a way that most other LED’s fail miserably at, that makes them of interest.


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## Mr.Shenanagins (11 Jan 2022)

While we’re on the topic, GE has a newer bulb called “Sun Filled” that is their closest match to sunlight, boasting 97 CRI. Seems like a good experiment for a smaller tank.


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## Wookii (11 Jan 2022)

Mr.Shenanagins said:


> While we’re on the topic, GE has a newer bulb called “Sun Filled” that is their closest match to sunlight, boasting 97 CRI. Seems like a good experiment for a smaller tank.



You'll have to test one out for us - I can't see it for sale on the side of the pond.


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## dw1305 (11 Jan 2022)

Hi all, 


Wookii said:


> It’s also surely the holy grail for aquarium lighting - full sunlight spectral response in a dimmable bulb that can be used in any domestic light fitting. Most people could light their tank for less than £20 if they chose.


Coming soon would be my guess.

cheers Darrel


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## erwin123 (11 Jan 2022)

Wookii said:


> You'll have to test one out for us - I can't see it for sale on the side of the pond.


Europeans already have access to Philips ExpertColor MasterLED, CRI97 R9>85, in either 12v GU5.3 or GU10 mounts.

However, it is 4000k which might be too yellow for some (probably have to mix in some 6500k), whereas the GE is 5000k.


Amazon product


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## Wookii (11 Jan 2022)

erwin123 said:


> Europeans already have access to Philips ExpertColor MasterLED, CRI97 R9>85, in either 12v GU5.3 or GU10 mounts.
> 
> However, it is 4000k which might be too yellow for some (probably have to mix in some 6500k), whereas the GE is 5000k.



To quote my previous post . . .



Wookii said:


> Agreed, there is lots of good value LED stuff around, but as mentioned above it’s not the CRI that’s particularly important - with the LED’s mentioned in the OP it’s specifically that these LED’s can fairly closely match the spectral response of natural sunlight in a way that most other LED’s fail miserably at, that makes them of interest.



The only spectrum graph I can find for the Philips units is this:







Which is quite a way off natural sunlight if I'm reading it correctly:


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## oreo57 (11 Jan 2022)

Wookii said:


> To quote my previous post . . .
> 
> 
> 
> ...


CRI measurements on lights equal or below about 4000K are based on tungsten lights not daylight.
Some of the "standards" used..


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## Wookii (11 Jan 2022)

oreo57 said:


> CRI measurements on lights equal or below about 4000K are based on tungsten lights not daylight.
> Some of the "standards" used..
> View attachment 179721


 Even more reason to just compare spectral response then.


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