Reflectors can be individual or "gull wing," which are actually individual reflectors that are then welded together to create a single reflector that's molded around each bulb. These are both high quality!!
PC vs T5HO
- Thread starter Tim Tang
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Sunlight Supplies Tek5 are made with individual reflectors that are welded together before the polishing. IMO, there among the top 3 T5Ho fixtures.
The teks that I have have individual reflectors, but they are older.
Tek does not list them as individually contoured reflectors either. Most of the reflectors that I have seen that list them as individually contoured do not weld good reflectors together, they use one flat sheet that is bent into a semblance of individual reflectors, much better than flat, but not even close to as good as the tek or other individual reflector setups.
Tek does not list them as individually contoured reflectors either. Most of the reflectors that I have seen that list them as individually contoured do not weld good reflectors together, they use one flat sheet that is bent into a semblance of individual reflectors, much better than flat, but not even close to as good as the tek or other individual reflector setups.
The way Sunlight Supply explained it to me, when I purchased my unit, about 2 years ago, is that the individual reflectors are welded together and then polished. Looking at it, it does look like a single piece of metal, no welds can be seen. However, that is how Sunlight Supply explained it, as did Greg at Reefgeek. It does look like a single sheet that is bent in a "gull wing" pattern around each bulb.
I have a hello lights fixture with the single reflector. It is not welded, you can tell from the size of the bend from one bulb to the next and it is not even close to as good as the reflectors in my older tek units, or the retro reflectors I have. The biggest drawback it has, is that it does not have the V right above the bulb, so you loose quite a bit of light out of the top of the bulb. I have also seen one of the I think current units with the bent reflector and it was junk in comparison. The reflector did not go all the way down over the bulb to put reflect all of the light down. It only went to about the middle of the bulb. I really like running t5 bulbs with good reflectors though. The tank with the hello lights setup, 8x54, I went from 2 400 watt halides with normal reflectors to the hello lights fixture, and my Par went up by 50% for the highs, and the lower areas went up by 200%. And this is with the dim TRU bulbs. And the best part only about 50% of the electricity.
Both of the tek lights I have are 4 plus years old, so they both have individual reflectors... so I wonder when they switched.
Both of the tek lights I have are 4 plus years old, so they both have individual reflectors... so I wonder when they switched.
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I don't know when they switched. I do know that I LOVE my 6 bulb Tek 5 unit. I only wish it had built in fans. If the ballast ever fails, I do believe I'll replace with an Icecap and overdrive them. At that point, I'll really want to do something about a fan.
Bosco83
Well-known member
What I really like about the light setup is that everything is built in timers, fans, and moonlights. If you look closley at it the reflectors seem to wrap around the bulbs pretty good. I wish I could see it in person.
The built in timers, fans and moonlights are definitely an added bonus!! The lack of fans is actually the only thing I dislike about Sunlight Supply's Tek5 fixtures.
gotfish
Well-known member
If you take a look over at reefcentral.com you'll see a t5 thread with about 30 pages of questions in it. The main guy who answers questions in that thread did tests on both the tek lights and the nova extreme pro. The Nova extreme pro did just as good as the Tek fixture even though it doesn't have true individual reflectors. His reasoning was because of the fans which helped keep the PAR levels up. The Tek fixture loses PAR because it gets hot. He added a fan to the Tek which obviously helped, but he said for the money difference, the Tek fixture wasn't really worth the little amount of performance difference.
You're referring to GrimReefer, I believe. I'd suggest reading the entire thread, though it's MANY more than 30 pages long. RC splits threads once they reach a certain number of pages or size. That particular thread has been split about 5 times. It's pages number in the hundreds. It's VERY informative!!
gotfish
Well-known member
You're correct. I'm just referencing it in it's current form now. It's called the t5 q&a thread. The first post of it has a link to the previous section which you're referring to. Anyway, just about anything and everything you'd want to know about t5 is in there. The only issue with it is it has a lot of people asking about bulb choice and placement so it's tough to find all of the good stuff in it.
Bosco83
Well-known member
I think I'll just stick with this setup I'll let everyone know how I like it. I put it on my birthday list for my g/f it's the only thing on there lol.
Brian
Brian
