Ecoxotic Cannons
In a time when new LED products are being released seemingly every week, it is refreshing to see a company like Ecoxotic doing something different with the lights. More importantly it is nice to see an application for larger tanks that does not simply consist of multiple small-wattage LEDs.
When I opened the box, my first reactions were 1: this thing is heavy! and 2: there’s no plug on this thing! This is clearly a product geared toward commercial applications and professional installers, but there is no reason the average hobbyist can’t make use of this powerful new tool.
Out of the box, you get the Cannon with a bare-ended 10ft power cord and an adjustable hanging kit with carabineer clip. The carabineer is used to attach the hanging wire to a ring on top of the light. Beyond having an electrician attach a plug or wire the light into an automation system, all you have to do is turn it on.
Details
The Cannon is powered by an Edison Opto EdiStar 50watt emitter. This is a single chip about the size of a postage stamp, with a 7×7 grid of diodes on it. It is available in 12000K and 453nm versions. The secondary optic consists of a 100 degree reflector and a splash guard. This is all mounted to the bottom of the heat sink, while on top is the housing for the driver. The very top of the unit has the power cord and mounting ring.
PAR Testing
The graphs (in order) are taken in free air at 12” 24” and 36” from the light (all PAR readings are in umol/m2/s).
As you can see, these lights are quite bright. The highest reading taken was 6” directly underneath the light – 3400! (Full sunlight is only 2000.) On the second image (24” from the light) we can get a good idea of the overall usable spread, which comes to roughly 80 degrees.
The first tank we put the Cannon over was our 210gal display tank. The tank is normally lit by 3x250w 14K SE metal halides in Lumen Bright reflectors. We replaced the center halide with a Cannon.
You can see that the 12K rating on the Cannon is a bit generous, looking yellow in comparison to the halides. I should mention that without a bluer light to directly compare it to, I find that it doesn’t look overly yellow.
PAR over 74 gallon rimless
Two lights 26” above water, 22” apart.
Water surface
6” below water
Sandbed (13” below water)
Conclusions
Pros:
Possibly the best thing about the Cannon is its overall size. Aside from PAR38 lights (which are not as bright anyway), the Cannon is many times smaller than competing LED products and traditional lighting solutions. Even in multiples, their visual weight is quite small above the tank.
Thanks to a relatively wide reflector, these lights have excellent spread, easily covering tanks 24” wide or more. The spread is also fairly even, with not a great amount of PAR loss from center to edge at heights over 12”. This can lead to some excellent color blending as well. If you use a combination of 12k and 453nm Cannons, you won’t have to have them immediately next to each other to avoid spotting.
Cooling is handled entirely by the large heat sink: there are no fans. While many other products out there utilize quiet fans, there always seems to be some people who find them too loud. No worries here.
Cons:
The biggest knock on the Cannon is its efficiency. At roughly 80 lumens/watt, it is hard to compete with competing products that are 50% more efficient. This issue, however, is endemic to single chip solutions in comparison to large arrays of small LEDs.
Because the Cannon is a single chip solution, you also lose the ability to tweak the overall color output without adding additional lights. This is of particular concern with the Cannon because the slightly warmer color temperature will mean that some people will want to supplement the blue end in some fashion. Even so, there are very few commercial products that allow for this ability anyway.
This last criticism is minor, but I find the Cannon to be not as elegant as it could be. While those with in-wall aquariums and taller canopies won’t mind, those with open air or rimless aquariums may decide this is a deal-breaker aesthetically. For a product that has conceivably been in development for quite some time, it would have been nice to see a bit more care taken on the look of the light.
Overall I feel the Cannon is a successful product for many situations. It is not the end all be all of LED lighting, nor should we expect it to be. The Cannon occupies a niche where not many products currently exist. It is a compact fixture with low energy usage that has the ability to light a large area quite well. It performs best on deep tanks where a lot of light must be punched deep down, and on wide shallow tanks where you can take advantage of its even spread. On a standard 210gallon (72”x24”x30”) you can expect to use 3-6 Cannons, depending on the desired light level and method of blue supplementation (if desired). Because of its high power and small size, the Cannon also opens itself up to any number of unique applications. One I would love to see employed is an in-ceiling installation, where an aquarium could be lit with virtually no visible fixture and the focus placed solely on the tank itself.
If you have any questions regarding these lights feel free to call us, ask us in the store, or comment below so everyone can read the answers.
Further Reading: Ecoxotic
6:04 PM on August 13th, 2010
[...] Chicago Fish & Coral sent us a review of our Cannon LED pendants over their new Seagrass themed aquarium, citing”..one of the things though that really attracted me to these lights is the ability to get them higher up like that, to keep more of the attention on the tank itself.” They went as far as adding extensive PAR readings on the 12,000K pendant and snapping a few photos of the tank-in-progress. The review adds, “Overall I feel the Cannon is a successful product for many situations. It is not the end all be all of LED lighting, nor should we expect it to be. The Cannon occupies a niche where not many products currently exist.” Read their complete review here. [...]
7:23 PM on November 2nd, 2010
The PAR readings are interesting. How do these compare to HQI metal halide?
9:22 PM on November 16th, 2010
Each Cannon is actually fairly close to 250W. If I were to use just one fixture on the tank these lights are currently on however, just 1x250W in a good reflector would do, as it would more evenly light the tank than a single Cannon would. On our 210 gallon the Cannons were pretty much a direct replacement, with the PAR readings not much different than the metal halides.
Eric
9:45 PM on November 29th, 2010
[...] Ecoxotic Cannon Review [...]
7:29 PM on March 23rd, 2011
[...] [...]