Odyssea Lights

[braydonosu]

I know that in the past Odyssea light fixtures have gotten a pretty bad rap catching fire and all, but recently I've seen that they have switched to an electronic balast in their halides and I've also seen a few easy mods that will get the balasts to not underdrive the bulbs.
My question regards their T5 HO fixtures. I'm trying to decide between getting their Halide fixture and their T5's. I really prefer T5's over halides because of heat issues. Does anyone know if their T5 HO's are any good at all (assuming I replace the tubes with some higher end bulbs)? I know that I can find replacement balasts too if that is a concern (the wiring would be the hard part)

 

[eric b 125]

i have also been wondering about this companies fixtures/balasts, so i will be looking forward to any input.

 

[braydonosu]

I have not heard any horror stories as of late with their fixtures. There are a lot of people that will tell you 'you get what you pay for' but with a few simple mods the halides at least seem to work well for people. I'm sure a few of the nay sayers are just ticked that they spent double for their lights.

 

[scsinet]

The biggest thing is to make sure you get industry standard lights.
Lots of people buy those goofy T6 fixtures then find out the the lamps are nearly impossible to find. As long as the fixture uses industry standard T5 or halide lamps, they are probably okay.
As far as their reputation, they are cheaply made imports, bottom line. Safety wise, the issues that were serious fire hazards have been corrected as far as I can tell, and even when it was occuring, it was only with the halides.
Although one might tend to think that electronic ballasts are better, this is only to a degree. Electronic ballasts use semiconductors operating at high power levels and high frequencies. The kind of stress that the electronic components endure is significant when used in a electronic ballast application, and to this end, quality makes a big difference. This is opposed to magnetic ballasts, which are basically hunks of iron with wire wrapped around them. They are virtually bulletproof, with (in the case of the odyssea fixtures and related fire hazards) the exception of what can potentially be cheap capacitors that are failure prone. Capacitors however are easily replaced. If a component fails in an electronic ballast, you pretty much have to replace the whole thing.
So what I'm saying is that electronic ballasts can be a very bad thing if they are cheaply made. That doesn't mean in this particular case that it's a problem, but what makes me leery of odyssea fixtures is that they are so cheap it's suspicious... they have to cut corners someplace to sell them that cheap. Whether or not it amounts to anything that will result in a problem is unknown... it just is a risk.

 

[braydonosu]

Just to play devil's advocate here - is it possible that they are not cutting corners? There is just cheaper labor in China and they don't have to add on the necessary 'Name Brand price jack' of any 'name brand' product?
Back to the question - SCI, do you think that the T5's (They actually say T5, I know they used to sell T6's too) are any good? Will they allow you to keep any coral just like a Nova or TEK fixture would?

 

[scsinet]

If the specs of the fixture, namely lamp quantity, length, and whether or not it has individual reflectors match that of another fixture, the light output should be somewhat similar.
Is it possible they aren't cutting corners? Sure... but I doubt it. It's all a matter of where they are getting their components from and the quality of them. That's where we come full circle to what I was saying about electronic ballasts. While it sounds like that's a positive selling point, it may not be, because there are more ways to cut corners with them.
More importantly, there are other intangibles that are different from what actually comes in the box. For one thing, there is considerable R&D that manufacturers put into their systems to give them the best possible light output for every watt of energy you burn to them them. Other manufacturers may not be so concerned about that. Because they are unethical? No, because they know that their clientele is more interested in low cost than better performance.
Then there is service and support. I'll give you an example. I am an IT guy. I only buy HP Proliant servers. There are vendors that will sell me a server with identical specs for less than half the price. Why do I buy HP? Because I know that HP has tested a million times over their machines before they sell them, and if ANY part breaks on the server, I will have a new part on my loading dock the next morning, no questions asked, no shipping charges, no nothing. When I have users that require my systems to be online 24x7, that extra bit of money up front pays back 10 times over when a failure occurs.
What I'm saying is that when you look at these odyssea fixtures, you need to look at the reputation of the vendor selling them, the warranty support, etc. So what if they say they have a 1 year warranty? A pantload of good that does you when you have to ship your fixture into them to get it fixed, and be without a light for a couple weeks, and a chunk poorer once you pay shipping.
I just don't want to see you oversimplifying the issue by writing off critics of the fixture as just "jealous" because of what they paid for their fixtures. It's more complicated than that, most importantly, because when you are talking about corals, when you talk lighting, you are talking life support. Just like my job, you've got corals that need this equipment online.
So just make sure you cover all the angles is all.

 

[vorlx]

I had a couple of the 65w x4 bulbs PC setup. They worked but that's all I can really say about them. They are what they are, cheap lighting.
That being said they worked, and did an "OK" job. I recently replaced them with a TEK 6 bulb T5 setup, the difference is amazing. In this case I really believe that you get what you pay for. I looked into a 6/8 bulb T5 Odyssea before I made the decision to spend the cash and go with a TEK.
I read tons of reviews. The prices were good on them and the reviews were average but honestly at the end of the day I think spending a couple hundred bucks extra is the way to go. The reflectors and balasts just aren't as good and the workmanship is cheaper. If you need something that "works" then you go with them, just remember it's like buying a budget anything. You will wish you had the better version. You get what you pay for.

 

[naclfish]

If you add the costs you don't come out ahead. People say they are fine with the upgrades and you can use it while you up grade and blah blah blah. the fixture what bout 200 to 250 bucks. well a real bulb that grows coral and not algae is 60 to 80 bucks if you need 2x that's about 150. A new ballest will run 120 to 150. so all said and done best case you spend 380 worst 550 look around you can get a pretty nice set of lights for that cost. Ive been there and done that with the cheep equipment cause ya want it now.trust me you'll still end up buying tekks or icecap it will just take you longer to get em.