ReefKoi EVO200 Review

Review of Reefkoi EVO200 LED



Overview:

Reefkoi is well known for their Evolution series LED lights. The Evolutions were Chinese built, affordable LEDs, utilizing large arrays of 1W Bridgelux LEDs. While built in China, they were backed by a 2-year warranty from ReefKoi, a Colorado based company. Largely due to the US support, they gained a bit of a cult following among budget LED shoppers. This year, ReefKoi released their new series of EVO LED lights at MACNA 2011. The new EVO lights utilize 2W Bridgelux LEDs, are now dimmable via manual dials and of course, still have a standard 2-year warranty from ReefKoi. Unfortunately, unlike the Evolution LEDs, so far, Reefkoi does not offer any optics options for the Evolution LEDs. The only optics available are 120 degree, So, they may only be ideal for relatively shallow tanks at the moment.


Initial Impressions:

The EVO200 is a sleek, sexy looking light. It is priced at $499, which works out to about $2.50 per watt; significantly less than most LED units on the market, other than DIY kits. Not all LEDs will have exactly the same efficiency, however, it is safe to assume that there are not orders of magnitude difference with regards to total 400-700nm light per watt. So, for a rough comparison, lets looks price per watt of other LED units:

(Note estimates do not include accessories, which may be required or desirable)

AI SOL: $399 75W = $5.32 per watt
BoostLED PAR 30: $74.99 10W = $7.50 per watt
BoostLED Mu 135: 399.99 120W = 3.33 per watt
Rapid LED PAR38: $89.00 17W = $5.24 per watt
Ecotech Radion: $749 118W = $6.35 per watt
OCReef XP-E 60W CREE LED: $299 60W = $4.98 per watt
Orphek PR156: $899.99 120W = $7.49 per watt
RapidLED 48 LED DIY Kit: $384 144W* = $2.67* per watt


There are 100 LEDs packed into the EVO200; 30-460nm blue, 20-450nm blue, 50-14000K White. I found the mix of lights produces excellent color rendering. I have not compared the color extensively to CREEs, however, it seems to be roughly equivalent to a similar mix of CREE LEDs. The Bridglux LEDs of the EVO perhaps have a slightly cooler color temperature than similar CREE based LED units, due to the 14000K white LEDs. Although, personally, I would say that the white Bridgelux LEDs are more like 10000K than 14000K, but certainly not quite as yellow as the various CREE white LED offerings.



The EVO 200 is 8" wide, by 24" long. There are two dimmer knobs, one for the blue LEDs and one for the white. From the bottom of the unit, to the top of the dimming knobs is 3.25". A nice hanging kit is standard. It is not controllable with any controllers unfortunately; you can at least use the dials to adjust the intensity or color-balance a bit though. However, the color-balance via adjustment is mostly subtle; I've found that in order to see a substantial difference in color-balance, one color would have to be dimmed a significant amount.




Some potential build issue with the EVO LED lights is the reliance on large fans and proximately of the ballasts to the LEDs. This was a common concern with the Evolution LEDs and does not appear to have changed with the EVOs. Looking into the housing, I cannot see any heatsink. It appears that the housing itself is the heatsink, or perhaps there is a very small heatsink within the housing. I can see that the ballasts are in the casing, only a fraction of an inch above the LEDs. The unit relies on four large, somewhat loud fans for cooling. Heat is the #1 enemy of LEDs, so, this is certainly something to consider. The fans draw air into the unit to keep the LEDs cool and it is likely that if they are not kept clean and working properly, the life span of the unit will suffer. Unfortunately, I do not have a means of measuring the temperature at the moment however.






Performance:



To measure the performance, I taped off a 36"x36" grid on the back of a piece of wallboard I had lying around. There are 9 squares and each of the 9 squares is therefore 12"x12". The measurements were taken in the center of each square, so, the total coverage area measured is 24"x24". Measurements were taken with the light 6", 12", 18" and 24" above the sensor.











Conclusion:

The EVO200 is a powerful LED light, for those who are on a budget and not interested in building a DIY LED system. The long-term quality remains to be seen, however, for the price, my initial impression is that it appears to be better than expected for the price. It is not an Ecotech or AquaIllumination. However, it produces solid PAR numbers, over a relatively wide area, suitable for shallow SPS tanks, or possibly slightly deeper soft-coral/LPS systems.

The manufacture claims that 1 unit will cover a tank up to 48"x24"x32" tall. I think this is extremely optimistic even for a soft-coral/LPS tank. For SPS, for good color and growth, I generally want PAR numbers around 300, although there can be significant variation for any given coral. However, most corals will do well under such intensity. Also, the Apogee PAR meter tends to underestimate blue light, around 450nm, by around 20%. So, the numbers may be a bit low as half of the LEDs are around 450nm. Given this consideration, I would recommend the light for tanks no longer than 36", less than 18" tall and not much wider than 20". It would really be about perfect for an SPS dominated 40 Breeder setup, for example. You could probably add up to 6", or so, to each dimension if it were to be used for soft-corals/LPS. Also, due to the wide 120 degree optics, I would not recommend hanging the light much more than 6" from the surface.

One consideration is that even though the PAR may support low-light demanding corals at slightly deeper depths, LEDs loose output over time. Odds are in a few years it may not. This may be more likely due to the somewhat less than optimal cooling methods used. Overall though, for the price, it definitely packs a lot of "punch" for the buck and it appears to be a great match for my 48"x24"x12" frag system ;D

 

Great write up. thanks! got any pics of the tank?

 

Nice write up. These were popular here locally and then ReefKoi got into it. If you like his light, you should see his frag system. I got all my stuff from him.

Can't add much to the review, but ReefKoi is a good guy with a good operation. Cheap he isn't. Hope you like them.

 

I've been wanting to see someone's take on these since they first came out. Good write up, and thank you for posting.

 

Thanks, nedim. I don't yet. The tank is pretty much empty though. At the moment. Hopefully once I get some things in it, I can get some growth shots, and update this thread.

Thanks and yeah, definitely they have some really crazy corals. I saw the video he posted on line; the system is massive! They seem to be pretty good lights for the money. I was hesitant, but they have a pretty solid cult following and based on the numbers, it looked like a perfect match for the tank. Chris seems to be a stand-up guy. And yeah it doesn't appear to be a "cheap" light by any means, definitely pretty nice actually, but your not going to get a 200W AI for $500. So, far so good anyways.

Thanks Mike. I looked and couldn't find anything, so decided to be the guinea pig I guess. Based on the Evolution reviews, price and the 2-year warranty it seemed like it was worth a go.

 

Ya I got some stuff off him before he dove in and went all out. Next time I went... well, it's impressive. I guess not flashy, but you don't expect that in a guys garage. He has a huge Koi pond in the front yard to go with it... not a common sight in Colorado. His whole garage is the pond filter and the frag room. Good guy and it was great having that to go shop at. I never bought coral from the LFS... they could not compete with what he had. Started looking into LEDs and this is where he is at. Glad it's working out.

 

Wow, I don't realize that the frag system was in his garage. Must be a massive garage


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'll stop hijacking your fine write up... but just a regular garage. He built the room cause it had to be insulated and climate controled. It's the full length and a bit over half the width. There is a walk way in betwen that and the pond filter.

My point wasn't to say "I know him", just that these web retailers and guys people read about are real folks. And even I am always leary of who I do business with over the web. Just wanted to add some side info to ReefKoi and what kind of guy he is. I enjoyed doing business with him.

Hijack off...

 

I dont typically comment on threads about Evolution led's I rather like to let everyone freely comment or discuss and take the comments good or bad as they are

I thought this was a great writeup, I had no idea it was here, I simply was surfing the web and came across the article and registered a screen name here

I think the author is very open and un biased, the review seems pretty accurate with all the info and comparisons. I would like to add one thing about the heat issue. I was just at the factory in China last week, I discussed the heat issue with the engineers because I have heard some speculation that without a big fat heat sick they wont last. They showed me several of my lights in the testing room that have been lit for a month or so and showed me the temp sensor placed as close to the led chip as possible and we hooked up a temp meter and 56 degrees celcius was the hottest we found.

The engineer said the chip we use is rated at 80 celcius or lower as max temp so I think we are well below that and as long as the user makes sure fans are operational with a quick look once or twice a year everything should be fine with them.

I also asked about lifespan and the engineer said in a salwater environment we can expect 5-7 years for pretty much any unit regardless of brand, thats his opinion anyway.

Also a number I liked was the degradation % they said my lights should drop 5%-7% over the first 2 years roughly and then stabilize, thats a number I liked, I had always assumed about 20% or so.

Well thats all, I'll bookmark this and try to check in to respond if any of you have any questions

you can always email me as I tend to forget to check pm's haha

sales@reefkoi.com

Chris