Just purchased the 14" Aquatic Life Xpert Series light from John7429 and he told me that another SCR user was interested in knowing my thoughts on it... figured I'd share with everyone..
After spending a week trying to find a clean-looking, cost-effective way to mount the light without hanging it from my ceiling (wifey's request), I ended up finding a floating shelf designed for holding up a microwave on Ebay. Turned out NOT to be what I originally had in mind, but it works...
I just mounted it and got it programmed yesterday. The light is awesome, however it isn't the most user friendly. Coming from a software developer, that says a lot... I originally tried using my work laptop since it had the newest/latest/greatest "stuff" in it... but, it was locked down by our company so that was a big fail... Then I tried my wife's 3yr old netbook.. even though my netbook connected to it fine- the software wasn't written to be displayed on its smaller screen and it couldn't be resized so some critical buttons were off the screen... LONG STORY SHORT, 3 computers later, I was finally able to find a computer that had the drivers necessary to recognize the light via its USB port.
Once I got it all connected, loading the lighting programs from their website wasn't the easiest either. It isn't intuitive and the instructions don't clearly state how to do it. I want to say it almost has TOO many options for lighting. I would probably like 3 or more preloaded programs to be honest, instead of the ability to fine tune the exact color and intensity... the good thing is, you can download these programs and import them to the fixture, but even this process isn't the most intuitive. I had to watch the video on their website to see how to do this....
setup aside, the light performs well. I dont have any metrics like PAR or anything (im sure you can find the manufacturer's metrics), but it is sitting about 8 inches from the top of my tank and my acan on the bottom of my 20" deep tank is already responding positively to it- getting nice and puffy...I'll have to see how everything else responds in a few weeks... I also only have NOOB corals at the moment, but hope to be adding some goodies soon... Overall I'm happy with it, just was a pain in the a$$ to get setup... I guess that's why its not called "beginner series"...
a couple cellphone pics:
After spending a week trying to find a clean-looking, cost-effective way to mount the light without hanging it from my ceiling (wifey's request), I ended up finding a floating shelf designed for holding up a microwave on Ebay. Turned out NOT to be what I originally had in mind, but it works...
I just mounted it and got it programmed yesterday. The light is awesome, however it isn't the most user friendly. Coming from a software developer, that says a lot... I originally tried using my work laptop since it had the newest/latest/greatest "stuff" in it... but, it was locked down by our company so that was a big fail... Then I tried my wife's 3yr old netbook.. even though my netbook connected to it fine- the software wasn't written to be displayed on its smaller screen and it couldn't be resized so some critical buttons were off the screen... LONG STORY SHORT, 3 computers later, I was finally able to find a computer that had the drivers necessary to recognize the light via its USB port.
Once I got it all connected, loading the lighting programs from their website wasn't the easiest either. It isn't intuitive and the instructions don't clearly state how to do it. I want to say it almost has TOO many options for lighting. I would probably like 3 or more preloaded programs to be honest, instead of the ability to fine tune the exact color and intensity... the good thing is, you can download these programs and import them to the fixture, but even this process isn't the most intuitive. I had to watch the video on their website to see how to do this....
setup aside, the light performs well. I dont have any metrics like PAR or anything (im sure you can find the manufacturer's metrics), but it is sitting about 8 inches from the top of my tank and my acan on the bottom of my 20" deep tank is already responding positively to it- getting nice and puffy...I'll have to see how everything else responds in a few weeks... I also only have NOOB corals at the moment, but hope to be adding some goodies soon... Overall I'm happy with it, just was a pain in the a$$ to get setup... I guess that's why its not called "beginner series"...
a couple cellphone pics:
