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Ai sol or rapid kit

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Christianwaisath View Drop Down
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    Posted: February 08 2012 at 8:26pm
As the top said should I go for ai sol, or the rapid kit for my 29, let's hear it I'm on the fence
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Ahanix View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ahanix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 08 2012 at 9:03pm
Honestly just go with the AI sol, looksa lot better if you aren't going to do a retrofit, comes with a warranty, good support and the controller is awesome.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rufessor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 14 2012 at 3:36pm
Many good points in above post- But...

I love Rapid- every component I used except for heat sink, controller and wire, was from them.  They are very reliable, very helpful and they sell quality LEDs.  

The dimmer on the Rapid kit is actually pretty decent and has some nice functions- read about it and decide if its EVERYTHING you want and compare it to the AI functionality...  This may make the decision easy.

IF you think the dimmer controller is adequate on the Rapid kit, or better... then

consider if you want it to look like a commercial fixture, if so your looking at serious shop time and very careful work.  I mean hours that run well into the 40-80+ hour build time- its not a trivial project to make it really look good and have high end function.

IF your happy with the advertised function of the Rapid dimmer (which is not too bad really) and your putting it in a hood so no one is ever going to see the wires etc... the Rapid kit is nice/cheap and will be fast.  If your going to spend part of your day looking at the fixture and can see the LED's... well... see my above comments on build quality/time and then decide just how much of a project you want.

Also- consider that it is relatively easy (if you make a mistake that should not occur if you test your circuit before powering on) to fry all the LED's in a string... and Rapid will NOT replace LED's you fry by being careless.

A warranty is worth something, but in reality, if you power up a DIY fixture, and don't blow it up and don't pull off a wire or have a really sloppy solder joint fail, these don't really fail very often.  The only part really that would fail in any reasonable frequency would be the dimmer, and Rapid may warrant that and its pretty cheap any how.  LEDs once they have been shown to power up and run, don't have a super high fail rate- at least not the quality LEDs being used in these kits and the AI fixtures.  So I would actually say the warranty is nice but in the case of the DIY- not a big deal, and with the AI-nice to have since you didn't build it and cannot repair it.  A single LED failure in a DIY rig is like 3-7 dollars to fix.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler -A.E.
57 Gallon RImless build in progress check the thread before if becomes boring and just full of nice pictures of colorful coral!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 96slowbra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 14 2012 at 4:19pm
rapid now makes a plug and play kit for biocubes
105 rimless
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