why are some led lights SOOO expensive?

Can you control the reefbreeders with any controller or do they require a certain one.

 

Because Ecotech and others have already proved that some people are willing to throw lots of money into glass boxes full of water and slimy creatures.

And you get what you pay for, so if you want the best , you'll pay for the best. Same as anything else, you can buy a $3 bottle of wine or pay hundreds for one.

 

The one with the controller only uses the controller it comes with, the rest can be modded to use any 0-10v analog controller for $99 extra

 

not to discredit the reasonable priced items because with that $3 bottle of wine you can make a delicious french meal to pair with your hundred dollar bottle of wine. I think the same case can be used with this hobby, You can make something quite beautiful with the cheaper options and if you add a little bit of the best it can be quite amazing.

 

The standard option wouldn't be for me (colored or white/blue). But when they come out with the customized puck option. I'm going to be in LED heaven. It just fits my obsessive need to tinker for that perfect spectrum. And all colors contribute to growth. This is proved through halides where 10k bulbs grow faster because they have all peaks at a higher number. More light. But the blues are definitely used more efficiently by corals to grow.

 

I agree, I guess I already have access to custom layouts, and didnt think of it that way.

 

True. In the end. I'll probably end up bugging you for another custom light anyhow!

 

The untold major advantage to using the lights that Logan sells (bridgelux), is that you can actually change each individual led at will. There is no need to buy an expensive puck. All you need to do is buy a $1-2 led, and take 10 seconds to solder it where you want.

As long as the current requirement remains the same, you could swap in newer leds or different colors at any time. I currently am testing all sorts of color combos within the one fixture.

I also agree that in order to make a stellar light, you need to mix both Cree and Bridgelux at this time.

The majority of fixtures on the market ARE overpriced, and not worth the $. AI Sols are actually very similar in output/PAR to the 120w fixtures, with a much less useful led ratio. The Vegas also focus more on color than output.

 

R&D plays a huge part of the higher cost.
To be the leader in a "market" much of your profit needs to be dumped back into the business for development.
Once a leader creates a new path (to a product), they'll continue to keep costs high as some money will be continually dumped into R&D of new designs.
Now a little bit down the road, the end product can be copied and mass produced which may not "seem" to be "worth" the price it goes for when the leader entered the market.
The market prices will deflate eventually when other companies can produce a comparable product with "only" manufacturing costs - no heavy investment into R&D.


... companies like rapidled give us a better idea of the acutal cost of manufacturing a unit (not mass produced price either) so now your baseline for comparison is skewed.

If I made an engine modification to a car and it could run for a year straight on one take of gas, people would pay huge money for it...

If it turned out I only used $1,000 worth of off the shelf parts to do it, well, people would be quite angry. Then someone would reverse engineer the design and sell DYI kits for $2,000 and folks would be thrilled.

HOWEVER, they neglect to see or care for the fact that I may have spent 4 hours a night for the last 25 years coming up with the design.

Get it?

 

to me you are paying for the convience, there are alot of computer nerds out there that are starting to build there own DIY fixtures and do alot of the same thing. I cant figure out how to upload a video most of the time much less prog. anything as complicated as a multie chip led fixture.

same with vortechs MP line they are almost perfect cause they have more flow features and no heat, but at the end of the day you can grow SPS with a ebay powerhead or korlina just the same look at 2in10 as an example T5 ;D

its how much time you are willing to put in vs the convience of doing it yourself