Ecotech Marine’s Radion XR30w LED light is an aquarium fixture with a very unique design and feature set so naturally, we tore it apart to see what makes it work. The only predictable component inside the Radion XR30w is the EcoSmart wireless daughterboard also found in the Vortech EcoSmart controller, which is neatly paired up with an original driver made by Ecotech’s in-house electronic engineering team.
One of the first things we’d like to point out about the Radion XR30w is that the cooling system is completely isolated from the electronics. Many readers have commented on their disapproval of the Radion XR30w’s ventrally mounted cooling fan which we feel is a perfectly good place for it – either it’s mounted on top where it can collect a bunch of dust or it is mounted underneath where it risks taking in some salt spray – it’s six one way and half a dozen the other.
Some other interesting notes about the Radion XR30w is that the lens, reflector and LED modules are easily accessible and removable. The acrylic covering the Radion XR30w’s reflector and LEDs may look like a simple splashguard now but there’s no reason Ecotech Marine couldn’t develop a nice lens of cluster to play nice with the LED reflector, or optionally replace it. Same thing for the reflector, it too could be swapped out for different designs being seeing as the spread is already pretty broad, follow-up lenses or reflectors would be mostly for tightening the beam angle and gathering a few stray protons.
The Radion XR30w’s LED cluster is accessible and removable so it will be possible to switch em out for other models in the future, although it doesn’t afford the same kind of ultimate modularity as the Mazarra LED. A diminutive micro-USB port is neatly embedded into one edge of the housing so that the Radion XR30w can be pre-programmed with a windows computer once the controller software is released.
Another really neat feature of the Radion XR30w is the inclusion of a DC jack on the driver box which will allow one channel of LEDs to run in case of power outage emergency. Ideally this backup LED channel is intended for use with the Osram far red LEDs which neatly overlaps with the red portion of the absorption curve of Chlorophyll A, theoretically increasing oxygen levels inside coral tissues but this could also be used to light up a channel fo whites in case you jsut wanted to see what was going . We’re still a few weeks away from a launch of Ecotech Marine’s first LED light but in the meantime enjoy this close up look under the hood of the Radion XR30w.
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