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    It’s more than light,
    because it’s

    more than an aquarium

    Buy now

    Philips CoralCare LED fixture

     

    The unique features of CoralCare Gen2 are:
     

    • Wide spectral range - For excellent coral growth, and natural reef appearance.
    • Perfect light balance - Unique homogeneous light distribution and color mixing solution. Our innovative design features 68 carefully positioned LEDs to mimic the optical effect of sunlight.
    • Easy to control - Control your CoralCare easily and wirelessly, with control over two distinct lighting channels, and preprogrammed schedules.
    • Quality & reliability - The new, slimmer design is energy efficient, has passive cooling and a long lifespan.

    Quality & Reliability

     

    The CoralCare LED fixture Gen2 is based on an existing Philips fixture used in a large variety of general lighting applications. This fixture is being used in warehouses, public swimming pools and exposition halls and has proofed to be a very robust design. For use in marine aquaria, it has been redesigned to such an extent that it meets all marine aquarium requirements and thus withstands the conditions of this demanding environment.

     

    The CoralCare LED fixture is made of highly durable professional-grade materials which we have extensively validated. As the first CoralCare generation has proofed to be extremely suitable for marine aquarium applications, the choice to go for an equivalent design – made of the same materials - for the second generation was rapidly made.

     

    The coating of the metal housing has been validated in a salt spray environment and approved for use above marine aquaria. With proper maintenance the risk of corrosion is nil.

     

    By using approximately 7kg of metal, the luminaire has a large thermal cooling surface, allowing full passive cooling, which is beneficial for the lifetime and robustness of the luminaire. Active components (fans) are the most common cause of defects, are noisy and ultimately determine the lifetime of the product.

     

    The CoralCare glass cover helps reduce maintenance as the salt water particles can easily be removed. A further advantage is that it does not need to be disassembled for cleaning.

     

    In addition, the cover has an IP65 rating, which makes the fixture water-resistant. It can also be cleaned with a wet cloth. The same accounts for the CoralCare Controller. In other words, the complete CoralCare Gen2 system is very robust.

     

    By having a light formula with a large amount of short wavelength light we could be faced with the risk of rapid material degradation. Validated lifetime tests, however, have shown that the materials used withstand our light recipe and meet the lifetime specification.

    Levensduurtest van thermische opwarm/afkoel cycles

    Fig. 1: Power cycle lifetime test

    The CoralCare LEDs are placed on a so-called MetalCore PCB. Because of the high diversity of LEDs placed on this PCB, manufacturing and assembling such a large MC PCB is quite challenging and affects reliability and failure rate. PCB warpage, solder reliability and material degradation are such critical examples. For CoralCare, extensive testing such as thermal shock was carried out in order to guarantee lifetime reliability.

     

    LEDs from our key supplier Lumileds are used in the CoralCare fixture. These are very durable, high-quality, long-lasting and highly efficient LEDs. Moreover, in order to ensure color and performance consistency, a special process is carried out just after LED manufacturing. See also CoralCare LED spread analysis in Wide Spectral Range.

     

    From a thermal point of view the stress to the LEDs is limited.

     

    Via model analysis and reliability tests we can predict that the CoralCare fixture meets L80B10 (ambient temperature of 35°C and lifetime of 25K hours), which is a standard norm in general lighting. This means that after the lifetime of 25K hours (about 7 years), at its specified ambient temperature point of 35°C, 90% of all fixtures still give an output of more than 80% of their original lumen output. By comparison, with traditional T5 lighting this point occurs after 6 to 9 months. No light source has to be replaced during the entire lifetime of the luminaire.

     

    When changing the installation conditions (dimming, lower/higher ambient temperature), lifetime results are affected in a positive (dimming) or negative (higher ambient temperature) way.

     

    In addition, as safety of our products is our highest priority, all required regulations for the marine aquarium application such as CE, IEC and UL have been checked by Philips and validated by external agencies. These quality marks show that the design of the CoralCare fixture and controller is safe and is 100% fit for the application.

    Optische meetbol

    Fig. 4: The optical measurement sphere at Philips, used to determine the wall-plug efficiency of both light sources. Only the CoralCare Gen1 LED unit is shown here. During measurements the sphere is completely closed to measure all light emitted by the source.

    Low energy consumption


    Thanks to the use of highly efficient LEDs, the CoralCare fixture can save up to 30% or more energy compared with traditional T5 marine aquarium lighting, without any loss of light quality.

     

    We have proved, together with an independent marine biologist, Tim Wijgerde, that with the CoralCare LED fixture coral growth and appearance meet and at some points exceed standard traditional lighting in the marine aquarium market.

     

    With integrating sphere measurements CoralCare has a wall-plug efficiency of 29%. This means that 29% of the input power (about 170W) is being converted to optical power. As a reference, at its most efficient (= at initial lifetime cycle), T5 with the same color point only converts 24%.

     

    The CoralCare optical system was designed in such a way that it has very limited efficacy losses thanks to the highly reflective materials and smart design.