New Dawn LED UVI Flood
LED LIGHT SOURCE WITH UVI.
- 320° rotational angle, with a 120° beam
- 60 LEDs, including UVA, UVB and 6500k
- Energy efficient 13w bulb
- 5 year lifespan
- UVB transmitting quartz glass cover
Brand new innovative technology that brings a combination of LEDs to provide optimum plant growth as well as UV for your reptiles, making it ideal for forest set ups.
This compact New Dawn bulb provides 60 LEDs, 16 of which are providing UVB, 10 with UVA and 34 6500k LEDs, giving the perfect wavelength of high plant growth. The unique new way that this bulb is produced means that it can operate for up to 5 years before needing replacing, still offering UVB through this time.
The UVI of this bulb depends on the distance it is being used, as with all UV bulbs, and is suitable for use between 20 - 80cm, offering a spectrum for species from all Ferguson Zones, from 1 to 4! It features the New Dawn rotational twist, meaning you can angle this 320° to get the perfect placement in your enclosure.
The bulb itself is only 13w, making it super energy efficient, and has very little impact on temperatures within the set up, meaning you can use on even the smallest nano set up without causing variations. The 60 LEDs are in rows that provide a 120° beam
Useable UVB LEDs have always been seen of as an impossible dream, with little hope of this being achieved in our lifetime. With the rapid emergence of new, affordable technologies Reptile Systems is excited to be with the small group at the forefront of this new lighting revolution.
Although Reptile Systems is as a relatively new company its roots date back to within its mother company, Aquarium Systems all the way to 1964. Aquarium Systems have been working with aquatic lighting for growing since the mid 1990’s venturing into LEDs as soon as they a credible solution. The Series 6 LED unit for example has seven different coloured LEDs over six channels and is App controlled so LEDs are something we, as a company are familiar with.
After working on a plethora of prototypes, chips, layouts and testing we finally decided to release our New Dawn LED UVI Flood.
The current specification for this is 60 LED in total made up of 10 x UVA LED, 16 x UVB LED and 34 x 6500K LED. The lamp is a hybrid and contains as many New Dawn 6500K chips as possible for plant growth, but it should not be used as a sole source of lighting for reptiles.
The UVI Flood also supplies a very good source of UVB, which is invisible to reptile (and people) and therefore we strongly recommend that this is used in conjunction with other heating and lighting to help with typical photo and thermo regulatory behaviour. This natural mechanism stops basking reptiles in the wild receiving excessive radiation through over exposure. The Sunbeam Method which provides a sectioned basking zone with a gradient all the way down to shade area with no UV at all would work well. Amongst the suggestions for this would be a Eco Halogen lamp and strong LED lighting, such as the New Dawn LED spot 25watt.
If you wish to use the Shade Method you could pair the UVI Flood with a good quality fluorescent lamp and provide heat via a ceramic heat lamp, Eco Halogen or even a Gold Infrared Red depending on the size and species you’re keeping.
We are using the latest tech in a field that is advancing, and LEDs are improving in spectral range and intensity. Improvements in this emerging arena will be coming but testing and fine tuning takes time.
Does this mean we will stop improving our current range of tubes and lamps? No, upgrades will continue, for example we have recently changed some of the component parts in our Mercury Vapour lamps to improve lifespan and reliability. All current lamps also have their place in the hobby T5 and T8 cover large areas, compacts work well in some smaller mesh topped enclosures that are very popular, whilst mercury vapour and HID are hood for high energy localised basking areas
We are aware that all lamps containing mercury will phase out at some stage and its very important that we as keepers have a low energy alternative to this before our beloved mercury vapour and fluorescent lamps become obsolete. This will not happen anytime soon and although things like Bioluminescent are the potential future of domestic lighting, but the current viable UV lighting replacements are LEDs. Reptile Systems and the companies we work with be part of this ongoing development as diodes get closer to the profile of natural sunlight.
If you are interested in the future of reptile lighting or the continued progression of animal husbandry technology, why not join Reptile Systems journey. Follow us on our social media, Facebook, Instagram and You tube for the latest news views and what’s happening in the world of Reptile Systems and ASF (Aquarium Systems Federation)
Some more information of New Dawn LEDs
LEDs have come a very long way since their original concept in the early 1900s. They have been used for every type of lighting application from standby lights on electrical appliances to high-tech headlights for cars and every other conceivable use in between.
The commercial application for growing crops and plants indoors, or in hostile environments using LEDs, is great although on a large scale would require some investment. Large greenhouses can grow crops all year round using tailored lighting outputs to promote growth, budding and flowering, adding a predictability to crop harvest times and yields. Plant growing using LEDs is still, relatively, in its early days and is very exciting in terms of development; indoor crops have been grown using LED lights even in Arctic locations. It can bring a low energy way of taking farming to remote locations, even off planet, in the form of aquaponic and hydroponic farming, as a way of sustainably feeding people and livestock while providing a clean breathable atmosphere. As we can scale this down into our own indoor planted set ups, we can create a beautiful environment for our animals, enrich our sense of well-being, whilst cleaning the air in our house.
The hobby has been blessed with an upsurge of people wanting to keep plants, either on their own or as part of an enclosure for animals. Paludaria, terraria, carnivorous plant and bio active are, to name but a few, ways in which plants are being used creatively to make eye pleasing terrascapes for domestic environment. Effectively, lighting for optimal plant growth, while making them pleasing to the human eye, is the goal.
It is worth noting that a trade-off must be made, as plants have different light absorption peaks than people. Photosynthetic light is in the red and blue spectra while human eyesight peaks more in the yellow and green colour range. Most plants still require limited amounts of light from other parts of the spectrum for other processes. This should always be taken into consideration as PAR (photosynthetic available radiation) is not the same as lumen or lux, which are more a measure of brightness to the human eye. So basically, just because an LED is very bright, by human standards, it does not necessarily mean it is the best lamp for plant growth. We should be aiming for a colour of around 6500 Kelvin, which is considered best to cover all bases. We have designed the Reptile Systems New Dawn range to satisfy all these criteria and have an on-going development process to improve as we discover more, and affordable technology becomes available.
We get asked two general questions about New Dawn:
Why do you make so many different types of plant lights?
All the New Dawn range include 141 or 151 lumen output chips and have a colour temperature of around 6500k. As this is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution, we have come up with a comprehensive range of lighting to fulfil all your needs. This is why we have New Dawn compacts, spots, T5 and Proten LED bars. They each serve a lighting solution for different situations. For example, a 10w spot will spread light in a very different way than a 10w T5. We have the 10w spot to punch down the light further as LEDs have a weird physical law that governs their output over distance. This is called the inverse square law, as you move further away the output is reduced by a squared factor. Therefore, if you take a reading at 1m and another at 2m it is not halved it is quartered, at 3m it is reduced by a factor of nine and at 4m by sixteen and so on, e.g. 100 at 2m is 100 ÷ 4 (2²) = 25. The use for different lamps will be explained in further episodes.
Why use the name New Dawn?
Quite simply really, each day starts with a new dawn as the sun’s powerful life-giving light bestows its gift upon the world, also we like the lyrics to the Nina Simone hit song as it gives an organic feeling of happiness.
