Yes, all the time. I just had one of these recently when I was forced to go back to using a CFL lamp because of a LED light shorting out. Found that the CFL grows algae faster and greener than the red/blue LED light I was using. Facepalm... sometimes the simpler proven tech works just fine and the fine tuning using other tech doesn't work as well. Of course, using LED's saves money in the long run, but somehow all the effort to make it work didn't seem to actually enhance the scrubber effectiveness much.
What was the LED light? Mine was more related to a way to make a particular part much, much more easily. It happens to be one of the more tedious parts to make, and not just for me, for everyone. Going to try my idea this weekend then will have to run some tests
I was using a 30 Watt version of this. http://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-20W-30W...96?pt=US_Hydroponics&var=&hash=item19e1744d08 I was using two, one on each side of a waterfall scrubber. One side shorted out because of moisture, even though these are supposed to be water resistant. So right now one side is using one of these, the other a CFL warm white, which seems to be growing algae faster and greener. I am going to try and get a light reading of what the actual light emission is and see if that has anything to do with it. I purchased a Seneye which has a light meter in it.
Good to know, lots of people ask about this particular line of fixtures. Not sure how useful a light meter or PAR meter is going to be on a scrubber fixture though, because of the way that 660 is properly measured (using radiometric flux). Kind of like how PAR meters don't work well on DT LED arrays because they don't sense blue right. Also, intensity vs flow might be a factor. so you still have one side running LED and the other CFL, right?
Yes, one side CFL and the other LED. The flow is the same for both [or at least close enough]. It is hard to measure intensity and so on. The Seneye actually gives a frequency curve of the light it sees. If it is useful or not to see what is actually on the algae I don't know. The write up on ebay about the LED fixture sounds good, but since it comes from China, I take it with a big grain of salt. I'll try to measure what I see and get a screen shot using my computer and post here.
Here are readings from the scrubber. Both taken at the scrubber surface - both lights are about 3" away from surface. the first is from the CFL side, the second from the LED side. The CFL seems to have a peak at 645nm and the LED seems to peak at 660nm with a smaller peak around 440nm. The LED seems more powerful in PAR and LUX, not sure why - could be my placement of the Seneye light meter. It may be that the LED is actually too intense for good algae growth?
Trying to come up with an easier way to do the screen. Roughing them up is a total pain. My idea didn't actually work as easy as I thought it would, but I still have the solution on the table. Until I can figure it out, it's the hard way...
