80-up boards from Steve's

[bvolt]

Hey guys,

Just wondering if anyone has looked into these "Full Spectrum Arrays" that Steve's just released?

Instead of mid-power diodes, they're using high power (3W) diodes driven really low - for best performance, efficiency, and longevity.

If you're not familiar with them, Steve's has mostly sold their own in-house assembled fixtures as well as mono LEDs, drivers, and optics.

For anyone looking to get into mono LEDs, Steve's has from 3-up to 80-up MCPCBs that they manufacture in-house with your choice of Luxeon LEDs.

This new FSA - has 80 x 3W LEDs in a 2' strip that can be driven anywhere from .1 A to 4A (2A is recommended for 90W, 4A for 200W).

Lots of new products out there to choose from.

[unkle_psycho]

Does it say a max of 25000lm at 200w? So 125lm/w?

QB's should be quite a bit more efficient, but since Steve is not giving performance values for the advised 100w driver, its hard to really say much.

Certainly you would arrive at a better product through DIY. Digikey has a 75w Thomas Research Products driver at 12$, and one coupled with EB or F series strips would probably emit more light then Steves board @100w. 8 x 1ft EB gen2 strips =24$.

You could build a more efficient light including a driver for similar money.

[majorana]

Not knowing what the diodes are, what CRI they're at, etc., it's impossible to make any knowledgeable judgment about this. I'm guessing particularly cheap Epistar chips, but who knows. As Unkle_psycho pointed out, these are definitely not very efficient when it comes to lumens-per-watt -- and that's the only useful metric that can inferred from the page. (And I don't know if I trust even that, because I don't believe the 300,000 lifespan.) One could say it's worth it for the price, and that's definitely a factor to consider, but I wouldn't take it beyond that. Dissing on competition they way the page does is also bad form, at least in my book.

[FlippyNips]

4 QB120 or QB132 looks like a much better deal unless these chips are something special, the site lists QB's as lasting 50000 hours which is over 7 years at 18 hours a day, lasting 38 years longer than that isn't a selling point as I'm sure current LEDs will be obsolete by them.

Can anyone explain why a QB would create hot spots but the 80-up wouldn't as claimed?

[tazztone]

Can anyone explain why a QB would create hot spots but the 80-up wouldn't as claimed?

light spread. more space between LED rows

[unkle_psycho]

Optics, likely. The statement does not mean much though...

The lifespan of any led increases like crazy if you run it soft. Some companies would provide that data, perhaps Steves supplier did, and perhaps its accurate, but for sure Samsung did, and the QB's life projection would depend on how hard it was driven and how well it was cooled.

[Aolelon]

I don't like the fact that he doesn't list the diodes used. If he was so confident in his light he would have definitely done so. And I even emailed him to see if he has any data to back up his claim.
Also his claim about it being more efficient than the 304 is pretty far fetched. at 161w the QB has the light beat by far.

[unkle_psycho]

Absolutly, any red diodes that are more efficient then the lm561c cost more then this. And he's talking about running soft (although he is not running very soft) and the qb's go over 200l/w when driven soft. He is just making a total idiot of himself acting like his product -not only can stand against the qb, but would actually surpass it.