The Cost Of LEDs (1 Viewer)

[Cody]

There was a recent thread about the cost of the hobby in general being so expensive, but I wanted to dial it into LED lights for a minute.

What is in your reef LED light? What makes them tick? Well, there’s a printed circuit board with diodes attached to it. That circuit board is attached to a heat sink, and the heat sink has a computer fan. The circuit board is controlled by a pwm controller with a WiFi chip that has a power supply behind it. Add a plastic case around everything to tie it up into a nice bow, and voila, you have a reef LED light. These are all extremely cheap items, like pennies or dollars each for most of these, despite some modern lights being close $1,000 per unit.

So my question is: is there really a higher production cost than what I understand or is this just the case of the price not correlating to the value? It seems it’s the later, in my opinion. For instance, the smaller version of the new radion is maybe $500-600 while the full one is about twice that. The actual material and production cost difference between those two models can’t be more than $20-40. Like I said, all the components involved in making them are dirty cheap.

Anywho, just something I’ve been thinking about lately while looking at the new lights on the market. Having purchased all these parts at retail prices, not wholesale, and made them myself, there just seems to be a major disconnect between the value and price of reef LED lights.

 

[R-BallJunkie]

im running coralcares.....if weight was a deciding factor in value, they'ed win hands down. these suckers are heavy as heck. 15+ pounds each, IP65 rated, no cooling fan.

 

[decimal]

I suspect T5 not really that different either. LED’s do have per bulb costs that increases with quality. I suspect that fixture manufactures like Red Sea and Ecotech have their own proprietary LED designs and layouts. Even if they are subcontracted it’s still proprietary designs etc. they don’t use Off the shelf Cree bulbs for instance. Lower production runs equal higher per cost per item products. That’s not to say a $300 RS light doesn’t cost $30-50 to make. Add shipping, taxes, broker fees and markup by the various hands it passes through you wind up with a $300 price tag. It’s easy.. radion probably a little higher production cost but I would be surprised if it was higher than $50.

 

[decimal]

im running coralcares.....if weight was a deciding factor in value, they'ed win hands down. these suckers are heavy as heck. 15+ pounds each, IP65 rated, no cooling fan.

How do you like it? I personally think it’s a missed opportunity for fixture designers not to take advantage of the passive cooling feature of LED’s. Weight does have an impact on cost though so getting more for your $$ definitely a better value lol.

 

[R-BallJunkie]

How do you like it?

Well, getting back into the hobby after a 3 year hiatus after leaving the marshall islands for the middle east, was a bit selective about picking my new equipment. After my endless comparisons, settled on the CC's and have been really happy with them.

I've seen some great growth with the radions (second on the list), well proven lamp but I was looking for a light that i could keep in service for 5+ years and not worry about or have to do any type of service to like cleaning fans etc. These fit the bill nicely. There's a bigger community in Europe for these lights especially since Phillips is based out of the Netherlands, manufactured in Europe. My take is this lamp can really grow corals but is limited to two spectrums for adjustments, more blue, more white. You dont get the infinite choices as you do with other brands which may be good or bad however you look at it.

From a 'can it grow corals' standpoint..its excellent. I do find many corals color morph after some time. I've been sold purple acro's that end up having more of a green tint after a few month.

From an eye pleasing aesthetic standpoint, might not be your cup of tea but im not chasing the actinic pop anymore......run my tank closer to natural lighting as possible, as observed under the sea.

I also do like that the designer of the lights (Luc Vogel) is a facebook message away if you have a dumb question. I think thats a true anomaly in the hobby to be able to have a question answered if needed from the person who has spent thousands of hours creating this light. He's a reef & lighting nerd all rolled into one.

 

[Cody]

I suspect T5 not really that different either. LED’s do have per bulb costs that increases with quality. I suspect that fixture manufactures like Red Sea and Ecotech have their own proprietary LED designs and layouts. Even if they are subcontracted it’s still proprietary designs etc. they don’t use Off the shelf Cree bulbs for instance. Lower production runs equal higher per cost per item products. That’s not to say a $300 RS light doesn’t cost $30-50 to make. Add shipping, taxes, broker fees and markup by the various hands it passes through you wind up with a $300 price tag. It’s easy.. radion probably a little higher production cost but I would be surprised if it was higher than $50.

Sure. But how do we get to $1000 per unit?

 

[decimal]

Everyone is marking up 50%? I have no idea what the pricing structure and supply chain looks like in this industry but I’m my experience factory, master distributor, distributor and then finally retail is not unusual.

 

[Cody]

Well, getting back into the hobby after a 3 year hiatus after leaving the marshall islands for the middle east, was a bit selective about picking my new equipment. After my endless comparisons, settled on the CC's and have been really happy with them.

I've seen some great growth with the radions (second on the list), well proven lamp but I was looking for a light that i could keep in service for 5+ years and not worry about or have to do any type of service to like cleaning fans etc. These fit the bill nicely. There's a bigger community in Europe for these lights especially since Phillips is based out of the Netherlands, manufactured in Europe. My take is this lamp can really grow corals but is limited to two spectrums for adjustments, more blue, more white. You dont get the infinite choices as you do with other brands which may be good or bad however you look at it.

From a 'can it grow corals' standpoint..its excellent. I do find many corals color morph after some time. I've been sold purple acro's that end up having more of a green tint after a few month.

From an eye pleasing aesthetic standpoint, might not be your cup of tea but im not chasing the actinic pop anymore......run my tank closer to natural lighting as possible, as observed under the sea.

I also do like that the designer of the lights (Luc Vogel) is a facebook message away if you have a dumb question. I think thats a true anomaly in the hobby to be able to have a question answered if needed from the person who has spent thousands of hours creating this light. He's a reef & lighting nerd all rolled into one.

How much does these lights cost? Got a link? I’m not familiar with them.

 

[decimal]

Philips CoralCare Gen2 LED Light Fixtures

Philips CoralCare Gen2 is the LED equivalent to T5, with best-in-class spread, color blending, PAR distribution, & warranty. No fans = no noise. Control w/ app, PC/MAC, Apex, HYDROS, or ProfilLux. IP65-Rated + UL Listed. Built-in presets. Available in bla

www.coralvue.com

 

[Cody]

Everyone is marking up 50%? I have no idea what the pricing structure and supply chain looks like in this industry but I’m my experience factory, master distributor, distributor and then finally retail is not unusual.

How much are these specific diodes you mentioned in the previous post? What would be unique about them versus a spectrum specific Cree? Spectrum is spectrum.

 

[decimal]

Interestingly the same people as the Hydros hardware @soymilk

 

[Cody]

Philips CoralCare Gen2 LED Light Fixtures

Philips CoralCare Gen2 is the LED equivalent to T5, with best-in-class spread, color blending, PAR distribution, & warranty. No fans = no noise. Control w/ app, PC/MAC, Apex, HYDROS, or ProfilLux. IP65-Rated + UL Listed. Built-in presets. Available in bla

www.coralvue.com

Dang. $900 with tax for an LED light. That’s a lot of money.

 

[decimal]

How much are these specific diodes you mentioned in the previous post? What would be unique about them versus a spectrum specific Cree? Spectrum is spectrum.

Pure speculation. I am not in the LED business. The radions at least have custom pucks. The RS however are a small tight small square where each bulb is the size before it get dipped in a glass or plastic cover/lens. So that’s not a normal thing you just order online. The radions have a design team and engineering behind it. I’m pretty positive they don’t purchase bulbs off the shelf online like u or me. Even if they did, they would still be installed in custom pucks. Idk, what is the difference between g4 and g5? Not features but what is different? Hardware? Bulbs? Wiring harness? Maybe I’m wrong.. there is 0 difference between the 2, all pure market hype, Off the shelf Cree bulbs and cheap plastic cover. I would not be shocked

 

[decimal]

Dang. $900 with tax for an LED light. That’s a lot of money.

Same as radion and Neptune sky.. but no fans, no noise.. should last forever?

 

[Cody]

Pure speculation. I am not in the LED business. The radions at least have custom pucks. The RS however are a small tight small square where each bulb is the size before it get dipped in a glass or plastic cover/lens. So that’s not a normal thing you just order online. The radions have a design team and engineering behind it. I’m pretty positive they don’t purchase bulbs off the shelf online like u or me. Even if they did, they would still be installed in custom pucks. Idk, what is the difference between g4 and g5? Not features but what is different? Hardware? Bulbs? Wiring harness? Maybe I’m wrong.. there is 0 difference between the 2, all pure market hype, Off the shelf Cree bulbs and cheap plastic cover. I would not be shocked

Custom printed circuit boards aren’t super expensive, and that’s ordering them one at a time. And I don’t believe they have a research team, or rather, maybe they’ve got a guy or two. I believe their marketing team is driving that product more than whoever does their research. They wet their beak on the compact puck design. After the black boxes spread out and made a better spread, then they changed their tune, in addition to adding diffusion panels. They keep changing them enough and you might as well just get t5s.

 

[foos]

The cost of a light is more than the parts. You have the design, prototyping, testing, certification, tooling, building, testing, packaging, shipping, storing, shipping, and RMA's. It can easily cost over $100k on a simple device before the first one is made. On top of that you have the cost of all the staff at the company.

I have not looked at the parts of any new lights, but if they are using high quality components the raw material cost is probably $100 or more. Keep in mind a high power high quality led can easily be $1-$5.

So yeah, $1,000 is a large markup and they could probably sell for quite a bit less, but not as low as you think.

 

[PorpoiseHork]

Sure. But how do we get to $1000 per unit?

 

[Cody]

The cost of a light is more than the parts. You have the design, prototyping, testing, certification, tooling, building, testing, packaging, shipping, storing, shipping, and RMA's. It can easily cost over $100k on a simple device before the first one is made. On top of that you have the cost of all the staff at the company.

I have not looked at the parts of any new lights, but if they are using high quality components the raw material cost is probably $100 or more. Keep in mind a high power high quality led can easily be $1-$5.

So yeah, $1,000 is a large markup and they could probably sell for quite a bit less, but not as low as you think.

Oh I get that. I’m very well aware of all the things that go into these products. Even being generous with the cost that goes into the product, $1000 a light seems pretty high. I get the feeling that it’s more so “what the market can bear” in this situation though. Maybe I’m just getting old and have the “it costs how much?” dialogue going on in my head too much.

 

[decimal]

Maybe a mix of both?

 

[foos]

I agree that $1000 is high and feels like a cash grab and it is probably marked that high since that is what people will pay. I was just pointing out that the markup is probably closer to 2x instead of 20x.

I just hope most the profit goes into r&d and not sports cars for execs.