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They are T5's and the temp is within a few degrees with the fans on or off as measured with an IR thermometer.The fans not working won’t cause the unit to melt? I’m sure you could find a small computer fan on amazon to replace the broken ones. I’d be worried about heat without cooling fans. LED’s will cook the motherboard without cooling fans
I have no data to back this up but EcoTech seems to be far & away the most popular lighting company on this board. If you’re already #1, and the highest priced option, why would you lower your price?I wonder if these high end led companies would make more if they priced them with a more affordable price point drawing in more people. They won't make as much per unit but if they say more units to more than cover the loss than I would think it would be worth the move.
I have no data to back this up but EcoTech seems to be far & away the most popular lighting company on this board. If you’re already #1, and the highest priced option, why would you lower your price?
I wonder if these high end led companies would make more if they priced them with a more affordable price point drawing in more people. They won't make as much per unit but if they say more units to more than cover the loss than I would think it would be worth the move.
The prices for LED lights have been steadily falling, and are expected to diminish further. PBOT said the cost of the specific make and model of LED fixture it has been installing (the Leotek ECobra) started at $500 per in 2000, but by 2018 it had dropped to $124 each.
I have no data to back this up but EcoTech seems to be far & away the most popular lighting company on this board. If you’re already #1, and the highest priced option, why would you lower your price?
Margins, for a company, is a big thing. It is a last resort as a for profit company to lower their margins for more sales. They would rather try anything else to move more units that keeps margins nice and fat. Like marketing, exclusivity, and etc...
Normally outside competition changes that.
A 1000 dollar t5 fixture is 5 feet long, holds 8 bulbs, and for a 1000 it will include enough left over for the bulbs almost. 5 feet of coverage compared to what? 24x24 for a 800 dollar led? You need at least 3 of those led setups... just saying.
But yea.. the old school ones are stupid simple. But that is a selling point to me. Less to break and I can actually repair my old school lights :-/
It’s not just as simple as lower the prices and get more sales. Ecotech is in the realm of advertising themselves as a premium (luxury) product like Neptune systems. If they lower their prices, they would no longer be the best thing since sliced bread because there would be more premium options. People would look at the more expensive options and go oooooooooooohhhhhhhh. Ecotech wants to be the brand people go oooooohhhhhh to. It’s a premium brand. I don’t hear anyone complaining about the price of a new Audi compared to the price of a new Volkswagen. It’s built by the same company with the same parts. But the Audi costs twice as much. What!?!? This is the same thing with out lights. Ecotech makes radions which is the “Audi” of lights while ecotech also makes AI, the “Volkswagen” of lights. Built by the same people using the same components. If you’re going to complain about the prices of premium products, step down and buy within your means.Well soo many ways to look at this..
First you have a small lot (yes it's not street light volumes) industry that is handicapped by small lot materials, r&d, sales reps, advertising, trade shows.. list goes on.
Second you have the fact that, contrary to Economics eggheads there is really no rhyme or reason to pricing things in Capitalism.
They pretend there is but it's all hit an miss really.
Third you have multiple markups in the supply chain each making up their own margins of profitability.
Then you have collusion where you fix pricing stifling competition on the same product sold by different vendors.
CREE XP-g Royal blue diode runs about $1 each in lots of 1000.. so it's certainly not the diodes.
That's .33/watt.
Which leads me to "my" idea of what a fixture should cost for say non-boutique type lights.
$2/watt...
Granted some diodes, even wholesale command larger prices..
Luxeon "UV" (415nm) diodes run $5.30 each in quantities of 2000.
Might add $32 per diode per fixture.. Now that said probably one of the most expensive "UV" diodes out there (sorry don't know all companies ) and as you note, nobody uses them for a commercial unit.
Now what really bothers me, way more so than light head pricing is add on costs.
At what I consider the top end prices, controllers should be included..
Yea designing and maintaining software is expensive (don't get me started on THAT rabbit hole) but it's just err wrong in my mind.
So personal opinion............ and as they say you decide with your pocket book.
Oddly few complain about $1000 T5 fixture which has practically zero "tech" and generally is nothing but aluminum (maybe a few microns of silver) , ballast, tombstones, a fan and a plug. Sometimes you don't even get bulbs..
Another product where cost of materials and even labor is not that high.
Main thing is volume..
Personally, it's probably Chinese black boxes..
As to why one would lower a price is to sell many more at less than an equiv cost of manuf.
30% lower margin but 2x the sales is a lot more cash..but ..again..small market.. no place to go.
$800? The new iPhone is $1,500 LOLLighTech 4ft 8 Bulb T5 Fluorescent Light (Grow Bulbs)
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$159.... w/ 8 6500k bulbs..Replacement bulbs would cost about $36 so fixture alone is "worth"....$123
POINT is they are ALL relatively expensive ..no matter the tech.
On that note who pays $800 for a phone?
Showing my age I guess.
It’s not just as simple as lower the prices and get more sales. Ecotech is in the realm of advertising themselves as a premium (luxury) product like Neptune systems.
Eventually the new hotness will come out and cause them to be more competitive. So you are correct. If they are hitting their internal goals as a company change won't happen internally. Outside influence will.
Kessil is starting to catch on. The new ap700 is a very interesting fixture. But at $800, there’s better options.I don't know how accurate this is for our hobby. At this point we're down to 3 major companies (2 of which are related) with Ecotech, AI and Kessil. But even Kessil is kind of like the Nintendo fanboys these days where we just keep buying them for the shimmer. The only time I can recall a price reduction is when AI drops their prices to clear inventory for the new product - these products are even always excluded from sales.
I don't like where we're headed for reef lighting options tbh. I've been meaning to make a thread to keep a tally of all the lighting Companies out there, just because I'd like for this hobby to get away from Ecotech & AI being the primary answer for everyone's lighting option.
How much is a Aduino?Chips
motherboards
Profits