We introduced the new induction lamps by H.V. Innovation in early December. Soon after, we managed to acquire a sample to be tested.

As you can see, the ceiling light is very strange. It’s made with a T5 pipe and a Lumenarc reflector. The Lumenarc reminds us of the HQi, when it was the best reflector for its covering. In fact, the H.V. Innovation can be sold with or without the Lumenarc that you see in these pictures.

Technical characteristics of the H.V. Innovation Blue, 18,000°K and 80 watts

We don’t have many technical characteristics available; we know that this is the Blue lamp with color temperature about 18,000°K. The consumption is 80 watts.

It is currently not dimmable, but the producer assures us that the option will be available soon. It works only with a turn on-off button, easily connected to a timer. This lamp reaches and exceeds the limits of gas discharge neon technology. Where the T5 has a limited duration, around 2-3000 hours (realistically closer to 1800 hours) before having a noticeable decay, the H.V. Innovation, thanks to its peculiar induction system, can reach 30-50,000 hours.

If, as many people say, T5s are the best lamps for the growth of certain species of corals, having technology that preserves the light for 10-15 years is very interesting.

As you well know the T5 isn’t a point light; the light is produced by a photon discharge inside the bulb. But the H.V. Innovation doesn’t have the flickering effect that the T5 does. Considering this aspect, it behaves like an LED.

Taking a picture of the ceiling light with the flash, the emitted light is “burnt” and seems white while it isn’t

Technically speaking, the lamp can reach 45 degrees C (113F), but even at 15 cm of distance the temperature is naturally dissipated without additional fans. Another aspect not to be underestimated is that the lamps don’t need maintenance, they only have to be cleaned on the surface with a wet cloth.

Construction

The H.V. Innovation lamp that we see here has an original Lumenarc reflector. It’s the best option for a perfect covering of 80×80 cm.

H.V. Innovation 18,000°K 80 watt – our measurements

We were very curious about this particular ceiling light’s PAR values. Since we’re talking about a completely blue ceiling light, it will be difficult to put in the right light the values that we’re going to collect. But we know that soon we’ll have a white lamp to test.

The Apogee under the cone of the Lumenarc of the induction lamp H.V. Innovation for aquariums

We began measuring the PAR, expressed in PFFD (the photosynthetic photon flux density) in μmol m-2 s-1 through the best device on the market, the Quantum Meter MQ-510 di Apogee. This device is calibrated in order to work underwater, so if used in the air, the measured value has to be divided by 1.32.

We made just one measurement at the middle of the ceiling light. In uniformity with the measurements that we’ve done and that we’re going to do, we were 20 cm away from the ceiling light. We also measured the absorbed power.

As you can see from the reading of the device, we detected 593 par, and divided by 1.32, we obtained a result of 449 μmol m-2 s-1.

The total consumption of the ceiling light is 78.85 watts as you can see in the picture below.

The Cos(fi) reported an enviable value of 0.97.

Sum up of the values of the H.V. Innovation 18,000°K

In the following chart are the measured values. There is only one channel, so there’s only one line.

We remind you that we analyzed only the color blue, and that with the Lumenarc reflector, the covering is optimal until 60×60 cm, and acceptable up to 80 cm.

For comparison, the Orphek Atlantik V4, has a blue spectrum that gave 686 PAR with 85 watts of consumption with a smaller covering.

On what aquariums would this light work?

This ceiling light is only good for particular aquariums with LPS corals, or for corals that love this tonality.

A comparison with other ceiling lights on the market

As we have already said the ceiling light by H.V. Innovation 18,000°K emits only blue light; for this reason it is pretty complicated to compare it to other full spectrum ceiling lights.

Maintenance costs

The H.V. Innovation lamp of 18,000°K and 80 watts costs 499 euro ($560 USD) for the light itself, and 699 euro ($786 USD) with the Lumenarc reflector.

9 hours of functioning, with an energy costs of 0.27 euro/kwh it will have an annual consumption of 70 euro.

The absorbed power is 79 watts, so a relationship price/watt would be 8.9 euro per watt. If you want a comparison with the other ceiling lights, please refer to the chart below. But remember that the covering is extremely different for these H.V. Innovation ceiling lights.

The ceiling light proposed by H.V. Innovation is incredibly interesting, the covering is extremely wide and there are no adjustments available. The cost per watt is slightly high, even if is justified by the covering, but we can’t say much about the measured PAR due to the particular spectrum of the ceiling light. We’re waiting for a white version/white and blue version, maybe of 150 watt, for our future tests.

Question and comments, as always, are welcomed.

[Translated by Agnese Poggi]