alright... save me!

Got my RKL in the mail today... and I cannot figure out how to get the stupid thing to work. Right now its a big darn paperweight.

How do I get it to do... well... anything?

You may think its funny, reading this.. I can't even get it to say that I HAVE PC4's on the system. There's no input or output modules... nothing. ARGH~!

I'm a dork-figured it out....

Stilllll


Gotta figure out the auto top off next. And to make sure the lights go on and off as they're supposed to...

And to make sure the heater goes on and off with the temp...

Best place to g ofor help is

http://www.forum.digitalaquatics.com/

...which didn't help at all.

I had to look up on RC what to do. I had the wrong program downloaded on my computer.


For future reference, for others, you want myreef 2

Now a new decision....


LED or not? I have the 150 watt MH over my tank.. which is nice. But we'd save $$ in the long run going with a led....


ARGH.

I don't know if the long term cost savings have been proven beyond theory. Sure if the light lasts as long as they say it will you'll have a good amount of savings. Unfortunately many products have seen early failures causing the cost effectiveness to not really be there...

Also many of the fixtures do not use the latest and greatest LEDs which would give you your best bang for your buck. The best way to get into LEDs at the moment is to build your own fixture. I have not done this yet but it doesn't look too hard with a general understanding of electronics.

Overall though the LED systems are getting better. I just don't know if they are fully where they need to be to call them cost effective. Sure they have the cool and new cutting edge stuff, but that comes at a price for sure...

Just my $.02...

heh, I'm not building crap. I'll tell you all how it is when it gets here


<---has the building skills of a mouse.


I still have to set up my auto-topoff. Soon. Later today even!

What light did you end up getting? You ordered me one as well right?

the panoramic thinggie ma bob. It looks impressive, simple to set up...

So??? How are you liking the Panorama so far? I'm pretty pleased with mine out of the box - my writeup on Reef Builders just ran today - http://reefbuilders.com/2011/02/10/panorama-led-review/

I LOVE the stunner for sun up/sunset.. things GLOW

I wish the stunners weren't 50 bucks a pop... I'd get the ultraviolet one they have for more glowing while all the lights were on

When the lights ARE on I get to see colors... they're not QUITE what I would see under a MH, but they're good enough for me.

My chalice came back from death under them, and expands fully (I'm honestly surprised it lived, and now seems to do wonderful)

So far my only wish would be to lessen the cost of the stunners, so that the lighting visually could be changed up more. Otherwise, I love it.

Oh... the sparkle is interesting. I don't mind it, but Nick mentioned it sorta looks like a strobe light...

sparkle?

So what exactly did you do here? You replaced a 150 MH with a Panorama fixture..which one? I know it comes with one Stunner (the blue). Indeed, they're not cheap, but, think about it this way - they have a 5 year rated life span at 12 hours running per day. That's at least 5X any T5 or any other bulb for that matter. In the end, you come out way ahead and use less energy as well (6 watts per strip???!)

Oh, its the same as yours, the 17.5 inch. And yes, yes I did replace the 150 mh with the panoramic. So if you know anyone that wants one cheap

Umm.. its hard to describe. Its just the way that, on the substrate, the lights each both stand out, and change. so there's blue dots in one spot, white in another, and then they're constantly changing with the water. I wonder if I can get my camera to film it... *tries*

Lets see if this works... it does, yay!

Anyhow, you can see the 'strobe light' effect really well in this video. I'm not sure why it does this, and I'm getting used to it. But it may be something that's irritating to others. I didn't see it until I had substrate.

That looks like the shimmer effect seen by halide users but just like you have many little halides over the tank...

Yeah, it's different glitter lines than the ones that a single point light source like a metal halide will give you. That IS different and yes, it did take a little getting used to. However, one of the big things like about the LED concept is that you don't have a single point light source...thus the light coming from one LED can fill in the shadows of another....possibly to the betterment of overall coral colony health. It's just a working theory, but the same premise is what drives light movers. Yes, the sun is a single point light source, but it's always changing position whereas the metal halide doesn't (unless it's on a mover). LED's come from all directions in these Panoramas...benefits of a light mover without actually needing any light mover

yup, it sure does. Its just odd how they are different color shimmers. Like I said, I'm getting used to it. And I have to say, I like it better than the MH shimmer.