Warning: Some Companies are INTENTIONALLY Mislabelling LED Lights!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2020
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Thanks for this. Let's all be just honest. It's a good product why do they need to pretent its more then it is. Again thanks your a big influence.
If I have a car that goes 270mph but restricts it 170 mph with no means of unrestricting it for mechanical safety, can I advertise the car as going 270 mph?
Shady stuff TMC
Well done for doing this video - really interesting. I'd love to see what all the main brand lights come in at 👍
Im based in the UK and TMC hold the market for marine stock but as a hardware brand I don’t knowing buy one of their own products. Even their suppliers in the UK bad mouth their in-house products behind close door (or to the hobbyist if you know them well enough). Thanks for bringing this to a larger audience but given their reply they won’t change their ways. Surprised they didn’t blame an intern for a typo!
That is crazy, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes I’d never of believed it. We all buy lights and take what the manufacturer states for granted. It’s unbelievable to think that this is actually real and a company is blatantly lying to potential customers and the community.
Well done you for highlighting it and giving the community the facts before handing over their hard earned cash..
Top video as always 👍👍👍
We are troubled by some content of this video and want to explain. The Cetus 2 is sold for a purpose. That is to provide enough light to a reef tank near to 20"x 20"x 20". 84W is maximum power draw of the LEDs in the light ( 6W x 8+ 4W x 6 + 3W x 4 = 84W). These LEDs drive at 66W give increase efficiency and lifespan. It allows the attractive shape and size too. Power is not good measure of light, so higher/lower power does not mean more/less light. We prefer to make lower power lights, with high PAR. This is the way to make reef lights more effective and cost effective. Jake says he used our lights for more than a year in his tanks with great results. This means that Cetus 2 achieves the purpose it was sold for, but costs less to run. We are happy that Cetus 2 is seen as good product and this matches the support received around the world. It is tried and tested as one of the best and most affordable reef aquarium lights. The Reef Photon is manufactured for the European market and so packaging must be compliant with EU law. This mean that it shows the maximum power of the LEDs. The Reef Photon is based on the Cetus 2, but TMC redesigned app control and some hardware for their market. We are not purposely misleading, but we are now looking at how we make this clearer, as well the PAR and tank size that is already on packaging. Thank you.
By your own admission, if the LEDs were run at 84w, they would have less efficiency lifespan. Therefore, no one would run 84w and the fact that you advertise that figure bold on the box is deceptive.
Yes I saw what you said about EU law and max wattage. However, based on its size and placement, you're clearly using it as marketing.
No one is denying it's a great little light. If it cant be run out of the box at 84 watts then it should not be advertised as such. Simple as that. I completely agree with Jake here on this.
thanks for looking out brother! we appreciate you.
Enjoyed the video Jake. Learned several new things relating to lighting. Thank you. 👊🤙
I like both of those fixtures. 😎🐠
Well done and Well said sir ! Love the content your channel produces; I’m a long time subscriber !
Great video, we have a lot of TMC electrical products in the UK and the general advice from reefers is to avoid anything electric from TMC... Their pumps fail, their skimmers are awful, their lights are always rebadged stuff you can get for half the price online from China... Even their aquariums are lucky to last 5 years thanks to the cheap particle board/melamine stands they supply with them that are not designed for humid sump environments. The problem is basically all of our shops use TMC for livestock wholesale. They are the biggest importers of fish and coral and the only real supplier where shops can go and visit to buy rather than import sight unseen. They push this gear out aimed at noobs and slightly undercutting competitors on price and many new people buy it not knowing better and shops are happy as it pushes their TMC total up for the year making discounts available to them on future purchases.
Awesome video and thanks for making it!
So true 🏴
Fantastic insight and well presented Jake.
Well done, Jake. Totally what I’ve seen and cool you’re sharing.
This is a great video. You give the Information reefers want. I just ordered two cetus lights for my 50 gallon lagoon yesterday.
Love what you do.
I was going to buy a cetus 2, now I dont know what I should do kkkk, I have a 60 L or 15 Gallon reef, what do you recomend? In Brazil its like 2500$ for the cetus 2
Thanks for sharing Jake. I think you are highlighting the industry does not have a standard to report to. There is a difference between led light output and total draw, which are often not disclosed and there is also max draw short circuit ratings which can be important in the electrical world. I believe we should be demanding a standard which shows all these so consumer can be properly informed.
Hey would it be possible for you to do a par reading on them? I have these lights and I’m struggling to figure out what to intensity to run them at
Hey Jake, would the same thing apply to pumps? I’ve never tested lights but I tested pumps with my killawatt and they were sometimes off.
If they're short up to 10% that is within the margin of error but I'm sure there's lots of companies that are taking liberties with their product claims
Hey Jake I got a pare of Cetus 2ss for my 40 gallon breeder . I’m having trouble setting up the lights. So I have it set to Hawaii on at 12pm and off 10pm . Also the lights ramp up blue and at the end of the day ramp down whites . ?? Help please 🙏
Hey Jake! Just wondering if you still use these lights, I can't decide between them and a Kessil A160.
Wow Thanks for this information.
Nice video, but, for you...who is the winner between two plafo??ai 16 hd can overpowered the channel and cetus 2 no...but to look tank with cetus 2 or with Ai 16 hd....what do u prefere about color of light?
I think the thing that concerns me about this video is that you have not actually tested a TMC photon. Your testing a light which may or may not be the same light with a different label but then directing criticism at a light you do not actually have! The very least you should do is test the actual light your criticising before bad mouthing it. Im afraid this leaves me with very little faith in the validity of this channel.
the hardware is identical, the only thing different is a reskinned app and the box it comes in.
@@ReefBuildersVideo How do you know ?
My guess is that you’re probably spot on. People are so money hungry. Thx for posting up!
Just got the tmc ones feel alittle cheated but would u say they good for sps many thanks for sharing 👍🏽
what settings were used on TMC?
Thank you for the test👍
Hi although u had issues with these advertising on these light u said they where ok would you hav the spectrum settings u use love the vids 😁
Love the Conspics and Blueline swimming with all those euphyllias! Keep up the good work
Its fraud, as simple as that, i remeber seeing it before. You are being very lenient in your comments. Here it is, output 64w: www.reef2reef.com/threads/cetus-2-led-fixture.463085/
We need more people like you to protect the aquarium reef community. Thumbs up!
Great video Jake 👍👍
much respect for this video man. sharing knowledge no matter if its good or bad. not just being pushed by companies to sell stuff.
see you in march! maybe?
lots of LED's are less wattage than they advertise. learned that when converting from metal halides. any of those 165 watt chinese boxes dont even go past 120-130 watts. but they can be great lights!
I have a couple Kessil A160s that run abit under their rating but they are about a year old for one and and year and half the other , I don't remember the numbers but one was quite abit lower than its rating ,I didn't test them when I first got them so im assuming one has a burnt out led maybe , and I have notice Kessils really really need to be cleaned and the fans blown out or they will overheat and lose power and or burn out , they are awesome lights but they do need regular cleaning especially if you have a lot of dust in your house , im going to test all my lights from now when I first buy them , I also have a brand new AI hydra 26 that one of the uv leds doesn't come on until I turn it up past 20-25% theres two uv leds and the other led comes on properly though ,and both uv leds in my other hydra26 come on properly.
Good on you for pointing this out. It would seem the manufacturers are deceiving people, perhaps not maliciously. It seems a bit concerning that these lights are being advertised at a certain wattage but they are not being driven at that wattage.
could it be that the Prime is new from the box and the other one have been used for quiet some time and the LEDs loose their power ??
The power used won't really change over time, only the light output
How wide is that tank? I’m thinking of buying a 48 inch tank and I think I need 3 ai primes
this tank is 36 inches long, and 24 inches wide.
I have found this to be a trend with many LED fixtures and it is pretty much standard with off-brand/Chinese lights. Based on my experience working with LED manufacturers through Alibaba to build a bunch of custom lights it is standard practice to under power led chips to maximize efficiency and longevity (often around 2/3 of maximum rated power). What happens as you've seen is the manufacturers will rate their light's total wattage as a sum of the maximum rated power output of the led chips themselves when in reality the light fixture and heat sink are only designed to drive the led chips at 2/3 max power for example.
At this point, I think that the overreporting of wattage is becoming commonplace and even some of these more respected brands might start choosing to do it as well to compete. That said from what it looks like I can almost guarantee you that the "reef photon" led is sourced straight from a manufacturer in china and given a brand name and nice packaging. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing but just something to be aware of.
I think this problem is widespread among the off brands. Imagine how many people bought one brands 100w light and had good results. Then had those lights burn out after a few years. Then buy another brands 100w light and have their coral bleach. All because the first brand exaggerated their numbers.
Great video.! ALL companies should be held accountable for branding but also not overdrive LED's just for a marketing scam. not cool!
Is it possible if you do one on the Aqua Knight A029 as well it’s a pretty popular light that many people are using
I don't have these, but I'm really hoping more people will test their aquarium LED lights to verify who's accurately marketing their lights, and who's not
TMC also known as Tacky Marine Crap in the UK
Hi jake what are your settingsd for ai's over the euphyillias?
simply put about 10 hours of all blue, ramping up and then down for two hours, with a three hour window in the middle with everything on, ramping for an hour this time
Merci mon AMI pour cette vidéo !!! 👍👍👍
I have three over a tmc reef habitat 90 which I thought was over kill now I'm not sure. I need to Par test them.
Again a better way to rate these and other lights is the area they cover for general coral tanks.
Great vid.
Funny. They are going the route of shady hifi and car audio companies which have been doing this a long time, listing Peak power instead of RMS output rating. It's all marketing BS. They look for any possible way to misrepresent without 'lying' , as they know a lot of people don't research and buy things on impulse.
Sure you can drive those leds at higher wattages, but at great cost to their longevity, largely due to the exponential increase in heat they will radiate by driving them above their most efficient operating power range.
FYI, was looking at getting a refugium started and checked out Amazon "grow lights", literally every single one of them lies in their title, 300W LED grow light... that's a lot of watts? sift though all the information, find out they're actually closer to 100W worth of lights. Even the Q/A part mentions this on quite a few and the response is either "well this replaces 300W worth of HPS lights" or "they're 3W LEDs" basically they all lie. I'm sure they'll grow Chaeto (or pot) fine, but don't assume you're getting some super powerful LED for a really good price, because you're not. Funny thing is I've even seen some labeled as 600W LED grow lights which also pull only around 100W, but it is Amazon, good luck finding any sort of "report" button to tell them they're using false advertising.
I'm familiar with this practice to some degree for general lighting applications, claiming the wattage equivalent but you have to look closer for the actual power, which is clearly listed. NONE of the documentation for this light reveals its true power output.
@@ReefBuildersVideo Yeah that super sucks. I assume this light isn't sold in the US like this though? I mean it's sold through importers? I remember CFL bulbs when they first came out they were often guilty of saying "100W equivalent" but the grow lights mentioned they don't say the word equivalent in the title, they describe them as 300W LED fixtures, which to me is 300 watts of power to the LEDs not equivalent watts.
You see this all the time in horticulture lights - 100 3w LED's rated at 300w, even though they drive them with only 150watts. Very misleading, but I guess since there is a slight shred of legitimacy based on the specs, they claim truth and rationalize it in the name of marketing - even though it is far from the truth. A better rating system would be total PAR output at a standardized distance from the lens (in air or water).
I really like the look and the intensity of those AI lights. A question that Has come up in the past, will the AI with 16 LED'S penetrate enough on a 220 gallon tank 30" deep? I realize that I would need more of them to cover the whole tank as opposed to my radion that I use 3 and are a much higher wattage.
AI Prime 16 use the same clusters as the larger Hydras, so best to consider those for a 220 gallon tank.
If they were sell these in Australia and it doesn't Output what it says our Consumer commission would be all over them for false advertisement! this would cost them in a fine in the thousands!
We need more tank updates. It is not fair to show them off and then not provide us with updates. What is the point of the gallery and channel if you don’t provide updates? Twice a year per tank is not fair for those who have been loyal to this channel. I am blindly speaking for others....but I think it is safe to say that we want more! You are a leader in this space. You produce the best content. Feed us more! Live stream the updates if you have too.
Love the channel! Keep up the excellent work!
I hear you loud and clear, MUCH more tank updates in the queue
Jake based on your experience with both of these lights would you consider lighting a most Lps mixed reef with either two HDs or Cetus 2s? The aesthetic of the cetus 2s is very appealing to me but not sure if either option would give me enough for a mixed reef. Awesome channel and website btw. Thank you for helping to advance the hobby.
I'm running a reefer 250 btw
Thanks for doing this difficult but important video. What they are doing is blatant false advertising and consumer manipulation. Their claim might stand if they were selling just LED pucks, but they are not selling just an LED cluster, they are selling you the complete fixture that cannot and never will output at 84W. So for that reason their claim is a lie.
Great video and completely agree with you. The light seems to work great so there should be no reason to hype the numbers for advertising or any other reason. It's a bit disappointing to see that.
With grow lights it's unscrupulously used to mean fluorescent light equivalent wattage. It's trash but not unsurprising
TY for this information. Never thought this would be a thing. Very deceptive and in the near future i plan on buying new LED fixtures. I wonder...if these off brands are doing it and have been getting away with it, who's to say some of the major brands don't do the same? If someone has Gen4pros...please test for this. I would really like to know.
You can count on ALL future LED reviews getting measured for peak power output.
great work! We dont need lying companies in this beatifull hobby of ours.
Great video and investigation.
Looks like we really need to investigate ALL led products and not just take the marketing BS as gospel.
Can you guys test the par readings and post them for the photons because tmc are massively vague on this also
I wanted to but it would have been distracting to the real point of this video, and would have taken a lot more time to explain the TIR vs. HEI lenses
Disgraceful. The more the truth is out there, the less they will sell, until they realise that lying to the customer no longer sells their product. Ultimately it will damage their brand and they will loose market share. Well done for spotting and highlighting this Jake :)
interesting info
Can you also check TMC's pumps, please?
I purchased a TMC reef pump which is meant to pump 2,000 LPH but it isnt as strong as my Aquamedic pump with the same pump rating.........I feel like they have been misleading with their pumps as well!
How are the Angels with those Euphyllia? Are they behaving?
Is there any power loss by plugging the measuring device into a power strip vs directly into the outlet?
I Have Been Saying This Got Years they add the amount of led wattage ratings butt most led are under driven by the driver so they last longer
theres a huge issue with this within the horticulture industry, really have to do research.
The cetus dosnt say its a 85 watt only 50 Maybe reef photon does but cetus which is an H& m product dosnt. I am looking into this led but worrying about the spread being enough for a 30 wide tank. Its a 20g long so very narrow 30 x 12 x12. I know Jake has passed on sadly :( but just incase anyone else is reading comments on this led!!
You'll need to take into consideration of the power supply efficiency. Most are probably 70%-85% efficient, so measured 55W is only 44W to the LEDs. Most LED manufacturer under power their LEDs to prevent burn out because of insufficient cooling solution for their product.
i would love an AI prime for my tank the cheap light i am using just does not cut it but an AI prime here in australia is 350 dollars for just the light no mount
Under power but still stronger than the Ai prime 16 and I think they look nicer. But good video good to know. Thanks! Love the videos.
TMC big themselves up on all their products, not surprising they added wattage.
Off topic... but have you got any experience with the noopsyche k7 light? They look like a very affordable AI Hydra 26 alternative... People on Reef2Reef seem to like them but I've not seen anyone do a real review who has experience to compare them to AI and Radion alternatives?
No i havent, I tend to steer clear of newer off-brand LEDs as SO MANY of them come and go every year, I want lights, product and software support that lasts as long as my reef tanks. Someone should definitely plug one in and see how much power it actually has
Ive seen them in action unless you have a pico tank stay away they suck ass and are rather dim considering the price and advertising...id pass on them
The aquaknight led is trash as well i own one of them the pos would work on a 10g but nothing else...but hey everyone has a different opinion but thats my unbiased 2 cents
@@freemansaquatics5326 The aquaknight is a nano light though, 27 watts and for £40 or whatever it cost me it does fine on my QT tank!
If a youtuber like u exposes this, its great for every consumer
Hi Jake, I'm going to be really direct please don't take this personnaly, love your work for the reefing community and your have obviously a pretty expansive knowledge in the matter but it just turns out you showed with this video that you have little technical knowledge in lighting, power management and electrical systems in general. As such your report on the issue you think you have found is at best incomplete and in all cases completely inconclusive.
You are mixing light output, power consumption, and efficiency at both a local and system-wide level. Watt rating can't be use to directly measure the performance of a fixture, and yes it's falsely used by manufacturers (which should be the primary issue, not the false issue you think you're unveiling) to define light output, but that doesn't mean you should use this as a comparison in your videos.
A light fixture can outout x ammount of light while consuming 55 watts of electricity, and another fixture can output MORE light while consuming the same 55 watt because they have more efficient LEDs, higher quality lenses, or more transparent protection glass. That being the case, the industry is so hell bent on using watts (electrical consumption) as a measure of the light output that the more efficient systems have to be sold with a higher advertised watt value to show that they are superior even if the value itself is a lie.
It is very important to differentiate power consumption from light output and your video fails in that regard. If you want to make a proper comparison you have to use a light meter and properly measure the light output (standard units are Lx, cd, lumens and PAR as a more reefing-related unit) and compare this to the power consumption.
I really don't want to go into more details in this TH-cam comment but if you need help or advice on that regard or of you just want to discuss more about these ligjting issues I'd be glad to discuss this via email, just make your interest known in the comments here and we can get in touch. BTW I work in a high tech startup active in novel light generations methods so while I don't have an all-encompassing knowledge in these matters I do have direct professional experience in these things as well as access to people and dedicated measurement hardware.
No offense taken - THIS is the kind of constructive criticism that is most welcome in the comments. I do prefer to make the ornamental videos that are instructional about reef aquarium care.
Nicely argued.
Mr Jake, do you can please do a second part of this video based on the John hue comment?
Think this is a good idea and the way to go... Good video by the way...
Efficiency cannot be more than 100% Lol
Watts are Watts if it consumes 55 watts it cannot have an output of 84 watts, more likely is deploying 50watts with a 90% efficiency, PAR is not a measure for watts so if you put a 30° lens will you say is a 1,000 watts light? This guy is nonsense
This is par for the course in the aquarium industry. Flow rates and wattage are almost always higher than you get in the real world.
Why isn’t here more info out there
Power from the wall is almost meaningless. You could have a smp with 80% then a buck driver at 90%.
Also plug in power meters can be a little dodgy with sone power supplies.
They should atleast have something stating that they have it dialed back for longevity of the light or something kinda upsetting to say the least
These lights are a very similar price to the AIs minus the controlability factor, in fact they're a bit more expensive. You'd be silly to go for them in my view especially knowing thus info . Sadly this sort of thing goes on a lot across all sorts of markets.
you are right.. they lie.. by the way the Ai Prime 16HD Reef is the better choice.. in future updates they will enable the wifi so it will be perfect..
Lol well because the NEC ( National Electrical Code) requires the output be listed at 120% of max rating of the wattage so the electrical load will not be more than 80% of the the true load this is required by law and not the optical wattage you are getting !
Test a kessil on a kill a watt.... you might be surprised
Cetus has a nicer look and shimmer at the start of the video...if your into that
Their explanation was still not reassuring. Regardless how they spin this, the usable watts are not there. So they are misleading and making false claims.
This is hilarious your just now figuring this out
I have them lights 😢
Never buy from thhis company: Shenzhen Golden Ocean Lighting Co., Ltd.
They stole my $5000 did not send anything at all
Time to contact FTC
Boils down to if it has 100 x 3w LEDs and it runs at 200w its still a 300w LED this is a shame . But all LEDs are rated by max power it takes to fry them. RUN any LED at full power u lose efficency and life of the diodes themselves
Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) are rated at max watts but you never "Drive" them to max because they burn up. Put a full 5w to a 5w LED chip it burns-up in a week (or less if you cannot keep it cool enough - red hot). Take this from an Electrician who has built his own LED light fixtures - sucessfully.. My 300 watt fixtures are driven at about 85-90% by THE LED Drivers and manually adjusted further (each color) lower by an APEX VDM (they sre about 275w each with VDM running 100%.. All manufactures advertise AT MAX diode capability. Over rating is even worse in the "Grow Industry" as they try to compair 600W of LED against 1000W of HID (HPS, Metal Halide) and claim 1000W.. So yes they try to bs for advertising.. NO THIS IS NOT FIRST CASE OF LED bs ratings, they all do!! Read fine print on box or fixture for actual watts comsumed ("Name Plate"/sticker) with UL rating.. They seem to mix-up lumen and actual wattage saying their equal therefore they confuse for advertising purposes.. Again read fine print on box, fixture, on in paperwork as "actuall watts" are usually listed... BTW Jake, I've had pretty good luck with all my tinkering as you put it..
If you was to place blame, it would be Diode manufacturers not necessarily the light fixture manufacturer... Like buying light bulbs at Home D, says 40watts worth of light but only consumes 34w (T12 4' fluorescent tube), same with LED's.. etc. etc. They have been BS'n us all longer than you've been alive - like that T12 watt saver tube i mentioned, you were still in diapers;)
I hear what you're saying but an educated shopper can see on the general lighting products it *usually* says XYZ watt equivalent, with an actual power consumption in smaller print, but not completely absent.
anperage x voltage = watts.. Less a few watts for cooling fan and driver/ballast. You basicily have a 60w chip in that light, and 6watts for cooling fan and ballast.. It is what it is no matter what is said or advertized - do the math is all I can tell you or any educated shopper;) Can't be more than the numbers add up to... Again they are trying to compair it to convential 90w worth of light.. Most of the time it takes a Professional in that feild to decifer their bs sales propaganda.. PS. It takes about 50lb worth of heatsink and mutiple fans to cool a single 275w fixture so the chips don't burn-up, if you even want to run chips near 90% of max rated wattage for any duration over 5 minutes... So they drive a 90w chip at 60w.. It's like buying a high preformance engine, claimed hp at flywheel as compaired to actual dyno at rear wheels (drivetrain, rotating mass, eats hp;) So your 1000hp motor only puts down 800-850hp to pavement, best way i can explain it... Keep up the killer vids and sorry for your disappointment in sales advertizing;) Even Kessil BS's a little...
PSS. Do you give tours of your reef warehouse/tinkering hideout" in-person as i live less that 20mi from Golden CO??
Good investigation Jake. Sounds Like you caught them.
Marketing lies!
This may cause a lot of issues with English Customers Is The biggest supplier In the country And relationships with TMC This light has been tried and proven in many High end reef shops in the UK
To be honest, this "rabbit hole" is not that shocking to me. Calculate for example how much potassium iodide is in a random bottle of I+, that misleading to me if you see how much you pay for a bottle of water with a breadcrumb of powder.
Looks like a sponsored video to me ... It would be fair if you put all lights on your tanks on the watt meter and share the results with us ..
A sponsored video would NOT mention any other product.
You know power consumption doesn’t equal the light output 😂
You should see the scam of Chinese grow lights... "30 watts" when sometimes it's half that, and of course half of the remaining wattage goes into heat, leaving just 7 real watts for light. And then of course is the danger of these cheap lights... LEDsafety.org
and all these leds are so overprized its a joke. im looking for a led setup for my 90g mixed reef
I think the replies you got are appalling and a flat out admission that their packaging is untruthful. Well done exposing this 👍
LED grow lights have the same issue. It's hard to know how many watts you are getting when you are buying. I think it's a China/led wide spread issue
Just said this same thing, assume all of them lie, because literally all the non brand name ones do.
Discovered lol us in the grow industry knew about this . LEDS are judged by diodes so 100x 3w diodes is a 300w light even tho they only run at half to 2/3 rating of diode . LED diodes Chips ect are rated for how many watts it takes to burn the diode up . So a 3w diode will burn up at 3w its impossible to run any chip at its rating . Yes it will burn will it make it past a 180 days without burning up 9/10 No it wont . Just say this as im in both hobbies and build LEDs for myself/friends
Ecotech Marine Radion XR30 are massively mislabeled as well. $1,150 per unit gtf outta here lol.