Luc Vogels Interview, Part 1: Reef News Network Quizzes CoralCare Creator About Philips New Reef Light (FULL AUDIO + TRANSCRIPT)

Reef News Network - Philips Coral Care
Loading... 313 view(s)
Luc Vogels Interview, Part 1: Reef News Network Quizzes CoralCare Creator About Philips New Reef Light (FULL AUDIO + TRANSCRIPT)
Peter:
Alright everybody, we are super excited. You've heard us talking about it. We've kind of been amping it up and leading up to this. So Philips as you know, Philips Lighting is bringing their lights to the US market for the first time. These guys have been around for a long time in the UK market or in the EU market, across Europe, and have been a huge piece that people have wanted, people have imported them and everything else just to get their hands on them. So we are super excited to have Luc Vogels who is the scientist of electronics working for Signify, which was previously known as Philips Lighting. And he'll maybe get into why the name has changed and what's happened there. But we have him today on the podcast to talk about the brand new Gen2 Lights that are coming into the US that'll be available to you guys very shortly. And couldn't be happier to have him on the show. Luc, welcome to the show.

Luc:
Good morning. Thanks for having me. Hi.

Peter:
It's a pleasure to have you on. I'm super excited to have you on. You are one of the guys that is hands on with the development of these lights. So I want to get right into it. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself. If you have a background in the hobby at all. And then what your job is at Signify, previously Phillips. And let's just get into what your credentials are.

Luc:
Yeah, of course. So welcome everybody and thanks for listening. So my name is Luc Vogels and I work as an electronic engineer, design engineer within Signify. Next to that I'm also a very fanatic hobbyist. I think I have had an aquarium for over 15 years maybe already.

Peter:
Wow.

Luc:
And set that with freshwater, just a small tank of 60 liters. And currently I have over 2000 liters of marine water.

Peter:
Oh, wow. That's a lot.

Luc:
Exactly, indeed. So I saw that in the company that's now called Signify. That’s a bit of a story, but Philip split the lighting section and the medical section in two parts. And the lighting section is now called Signify. So I have to say I work for Signify for over 10 years already, and mainly in the research and development departments and am responsible for the pre development of electronic circuits intended for lighting, for LED lighting specifically. I think some examples are very popular. Philips use segments where I worked a lot of my time on, so most new luminaires are the building blocks that I worked on. Yeah, but next to that, of course, we also have the coral care topic. And maybe before that, I will quickly explain a bit about my hobby, at least my experience in the hobby.

Peter:
Yeah, sure, please do.


Luc:
Yeah, like I mentioned, I started a long time ago, and I think I have a Marina aquaria for 10 years now. I started with one of the first very small nano tanks at a certain moment. Yeah, they were really. I wanted more. I think I then ended up with a tank of one meter 40 and currently I have a tank of over two meters. Yeah, dominated SPS reef with a lot of corals. Some of the corals are already more than 10 years old.

Peter:
Wow.

Luc:
If you actually look in most of the images that are on use on the Philips Coral Care pages are actually images for my own aquarium.

Peter:
Oh really?

Luc:
It was a bit fun. Awesome. Yeah. So it's some brochures we just took random photos for my own collection. Enjoying the hobby a lot. I really like the hobby still, I spend a lot of my time on the weekends still to get the maximum quality in there and to say level for that aquarium. Yeah, I'm using quite traditional technology. So standard level King skimmer, LED lighting, at least for signal Phillips of course. What more? I’m still one of the guys who changes water every two weeks.

Peter:
I think people are coming back around to it. I know everybody got into ultra-low maintenance but I think people are coming back around to doing water changes again. So I know I am. I was one. I think people are coming back around to doing auto water change systems and I think that's becoming more common. So I think water changes are back in trend now.

Luc:
Yeah, I can imagine indeed it's just due to my opinion it is a fairly safe route to do.

Peter:
Yes.

Luc:
So you cannot do anything wrong with just resetting your water levels

Peter:
Exactly. So you've been in the hobby long enough to have been through the transition of metal halide, T5, LEDs, what other lighting? Where did you start the hobby? Have you always been an LED guy? Or have you gone through the different kinds of lighting that the industry has had to offer with your tanks?


Luc:
No, I really started with the T5 lighting and on the bigger tank, I had metal halide plus T5. And actually at that moment I worked for I think two or three years already within the company and then I thought, okay, can we do something for this hobby because I know we have so much experience in the field of lighting and LED lighting, but in this hobby, we are still using T5 lights. The benefits of course, it was a proven technology, it was quite efficient. But on the other hand, the heat distribution, and let's see the generation of heat, but also the switching lights every nine to 12 months. It's quite a hassle. And the controllability was very limited. So yeah, there actually we started the project in 2013 already. So it's, maybe we go into that this may be interesting to explain.

Peter:
Yeah, well, so did you actually have, were you one of the people that kind of brought this idea up and said, Hey, Phillips, why don't we look at this? Are you one of the key people for Philips having an aquarium lighting segment?

Luc:
Yeah, exactly. So Coral Care has really been my baby since 2012.

Peter:
Wow, that's amazing! I can't imagine there's many people in this industry. As everybody knows, Philips is a huge company. I've used Philip products for I don't know how long now. Probably since Gen One. Since they came out with Smart Lighting. And in the US, Philips is a common name across the board for everything but aquarium lighting. So, for somebody to be able to actually say, I was responsible for introducing this product at this huge, huge company, that's really wild. There's so few people that probably have that opportunity. And for Philips to actually kind of listen and respond to that and follow up with it. That's a really amazing story-wise. So let's get into a little bit about that. So I know you started and I cut you off. So go ahead, give us the history of that.

Luc:
No problem. Of course, it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Let's start with that.

Peter:
Okay.

Luc:
So it started in 2012. So within our department, we have the option they call this the Friday afternoon activity. So next to your standard work you have about one day a week to just explore, do something extraordinary. Just try to do something new. That doesn't have to give any profit, it just needs to be something new. So it’s sort of what we are all doing. It's not specifically on Friday of course but can be any day of the week. But everybody has a side project. And my side project from the beginning was already Coral Care. okay. So, I started actually with the problem. We have existing conventional lighting and there's also some negative aspects. We have of course within the departments, we work closely together as me as an electronic engineer, we have optical engineers, mechanical thermal engineers, and we sit close to each other, and we see each other in the hallway and coffee corner and just talk about lighting in general. Yeah, and that story, I thought, okay, maybe could we think of something unique for the marine aquaria lighting? And then we started to think about the basics, the spectrum and the light distribution. Those are the first things we try to look for, and see, okay, what is actually, trying to understand what does the coral require? How is it different from general lighting and what would be required for this application? We worked closely too with a lot of universities, specifically one of the universities in Wageningen that specialized actual studies in corals. And with them in the course of about one or two years, we developed our first spectral and light distribution formula. Let's call it that. And from that, actually, that's really still research. It's just written on a piece of paper and it's still not a product, of course. And then the next phase was actually starting in between 2014 and 2016, and is actually trying to translate that formula into a product. And yeah, that, of course, took a lot of time. But eventually, we managed to form that into the product that was launched in the European market in 2016. Yeah, and it also means that as a lot, sometimes I get the questions, I mean, Philips has a lot of R&D resources and we can, of course, spend a lot of money to design a new product. But this is actually starting as a sort of, they call this a Wageningen structure, which means that you are a small business, in your own business. It means that you also cannot spend a drastic amount of money and you just have to also earn for yourself a way to also make profits and also to start an investment. You cannot start from day one with a huge investment. When the markets, the marine market is, of course, not very big compared to the general lighting segment.

Peter:
Yeah.

Luc:
So, we had a lot of bumps. And then eventually, we ended up designing and also releasing a product in 2016 in Europe. And yeah, that went actually very well. It was very well accepted and also seen with respect to light distribution and spectrum its really one of the leading products and it sold in those years very well. And we were very happy with the progress.

Peter:
Yeah.

Luc:
Go ahead.

Peter:
Yeah, it's interesting that you took a problem. And I guess it was the time frame. And it’s really interesting to hear the timeframe that this happened over because most people don't realize how long it takes to do something. And I'm sure that's exasperated by the fact that it was kind of a side project and your own profit center, kind of with a big company, but that's not uncommon for somebody to take a technical product like this and take years to come to market with it. It's interesting that your perspective was identifying a problem with T5 lighting and going forward. Instead of comparing to another LED light and saying how can we make it better? Do you think that kind of gave you an advantage to not have a preconceived notion of what LED lights for aquarium hobby should be? And then you took it from a fresh approach and just said, This is what led lights should be, period, because you built it based off of T5? Do you think that kind of gave you some edge to be a little more innovative in the spectrums and the way you looked at things as opposed to companies that have just solely made LED lights? Always for companies that make an LED light based off of somebody else?

Luc:
Yeah, of course it really helps that we start with it with the basics. Start with the proven technology and trying to see first. Those first years we were trying to fill that gap between the performance of T5 lighting and LED lighting in general. I think, now we are at the moment that we say that, okay, LED lighting is everybody believes that LED lighting is just as good as conventional lighting. But it took years to get to that level. And there was a lot of skepticism. That's it wasn't good enough, because people had so much experience with conventional technology. But they’re always wondering, and with my background and my own knowledge, I knew there is no fundamental difference between the technologies out there. If you design the product correctly, there is no difference between the technologies used, and that if designed correctly, that's the chance of course.

Peter:
Yeah, and I mean, we'll get into the specs at a length. Because you guys do do some stuff very differently than a lot of the companies that we have access to lights here in the US. As far as your spectrum of stuff goes, so we'll get into that. But I know you guys did, I think it was a six month study where you split a tank with a divider and did one of your lights on the one side and then a T5 on the other and did a six month study of growth and colorization. And the end result I believe was you were able to grow just as effectively and colorized as the T5 but with I don't know, was it with 20 30% reduction in power consumption or something? Can you tell us a little bit about that study you guys did, comparing that?

Luc:
Yeah, indeed. That's an interesting point. So the study actually took almost a year, which means the study itself, there were some problems there. And we documented about six to seven months of the results. It was very interesting, also very time consuming to do this study. What we did is actually in a controlled environment,in an existing tank, we split the area into two sides. We had I think that stood out of my head, but I think I have 30 different pieces of coral. On both sides and four or five different species. And they were turned, weighed and photographed on a weekly basis.

Peter:
Oh, wow.

Luc:
And yeah, that's fairly time consuming. And what we did is we started actually measuring our own lighting system and a T5 lighting system and tried to match the spectrum as good as possible. Then we also matched the bar readings of both were, as good as possible. To prove actually, the statement I just made before is that when a fixed LED fixture is well designed, there was no fundamental difference between conventional lighting, the quality of conventional lighting and the quality of LED lighting. And actually, indeed, we proved indeed, that there was no significant difference in growth or colonization of the corals. While, of course, there was a benefit in energy consumption, which that LED fixture consumes about 20% less power compared to the T5 lighting.

Peter:
Wow. But it's really interesting. Do you feel one of the popular things now in the hobby? I don't know if it is over in the EU where you are, but here, hybrid fixtures people are now starting to add these hybrid fixtures to add some T5 with their LEDs. Do you feel there's really any need for that? Or do you feel with the proper LED lighting, you can get that? That there's no benefit to adding those T5s. Where's your opinion on that trend that's currently happening?

Luc:
Yeah, it really depends on the sort of tank you have, but also the sort of main light LED lighting you have. If you really have point sources as your main LED source, then it is a benefit of having an additional roll, fairly homogeneous, the distributed light next to those point sources.

Peter:
Okay.

Luc:
So then it could make sense indeed. In Europe, the trend is also, I think a year two or three years ago, it was a bit more popular, but you now see that it is also fading away. We are, most of the tanks are moving to full LED at this moment. So T5 is really dying out in Europe.

Peter:
Wow.

Luc:
And that's a bit different. But on the other hand, I also see actually in the US, LED bars next to existing fixtures. So not only T5 lighting, but also just LED boxes.

Peter:
People tend to use lumen bars and stuff for additional colorization and everything. Alright, so before we get into the light specs, I got another. Because you're a hobbyist. And this is a unique perspective to have, you know somebody. Because I talk with a lot of people in this industry that are engineers or in some capacity, they're building some product, but they're not hobbyists. So they have a very different take. As a hobbyist, how useful do you think for the average hobbyist, now you've been in the hobby a long time, but think back to when you were kind of more new, or friends that you may have helped get into the hobby? How useful do you think knowing PAR readings and stuff is for the average hobbyist? Is there any real value of somebody having a PAR meter or trying to base certain areas? Or do you think it's just too much data for the average user to know enough about it, to do anything with that data?

Luc:
That's a question I sometimes also give a presentation, and I always warn about.

Peter:
Oh really?

Luc:
about the PAR reading and how much you can really use that value to steer or to set up your lights properly. It's still a bit of a problem. I think it's better than that. Let’s be fair. It's better than nothing. I mean, a PAR reading is good. If you have two tanks with exactly the same spectrum. And let's say you and your buddy both have the same tank, the same lighting system and you want to set up a similar irradiance, then the PAR reading is very handy. But if one of you has a completely different spectrum, then comparing PAR values with each other is very difficult. It's not difficult. It's also a bit dangerous. Because it's not like it's not like a one-dimensional figure there. There's quite a bit of info behind it, which is integrated and all packed into one number, which is called the PAR reading. Depending on the spectrum, I think we are abusing it. It's not the best value, but it's the only one we have in the hobby.

Peter:
Right!

Luc:
And that's, and I do believe that is better than checking it and trying to steer towards it. But having in the back of your mind that it's not the ultimate tool.


Peter:
Okay. All right. Good. Good to know. All right. So with my questions out of the way, let's get into the real content here. Let's start talking about the light specs, your spectrum, that you guys are using, what makes you guys different? Let's start getting down to the nitty-gritty about the lights themselves. So why don't you take us through the specs of the new Gen2 lights and then let's break down. You know what you guys are doing differently than the average lights that you're seeing on the market today and then where you guys are kind of aligned to. So why don't we just start with some lighting specs on the new Gen2s.

Luc:
Okay, just a second. So they also have not saying anything differently than it's suggested on the brochure. That's always important.

Peter:
Okay!

Luc:
So, just for your reference, I just opened the brochure of the luminaire. It's just publicly available on the Philips web page. And this one shows actually quite some detailed technical information about the luminaire. So I will just explain a few parts of this one.

Peter:
Okay.

Luc:
So the LED fixture, it's seven kilograms. I don't know what that's in there.

Peter:
People can do the math on their own. So, I'm bad at that game too.

Luc:
Okay, it's one on 170 watts. It's very important to state that this is an IP rated luminaire. So IP-65 which means it is more than splashes shot jet water proof.

Peter:
Wow.

Luc:
So it will be dimmable , two channel dimmable system. I think it's to boot it outputs about 50 optical watts of power and about seven and a half thousand to 8000 lumens. So you can achieve a call upon between something close to six and a half thousand all the way down to a fully saturated blue collar point.

Peter:
Okay.

Luc:
We use 68 LEDs, all from a band Lumilats which we work very closely with.

Peter:
Are they in LEDs or are you doing small pot clusters?

Luc:
We clustered those 68 LEDs in six clusters.

Peter:
Okay.

Luc:
There are individual LEDs like there. Yeah.

Peter:
Okay. Got it.

Luc:
Okay. Okay. So do you want me to go through the different entities we use or?

Peter:
Yeah, yes, I mean we certainly have people that are ‘techno aquatic geeks’ as I like to call it. So yeah sure, let’s spell it all out.

Luc:
Okay, so we use 12 Luxeon blue LEDs which are wavelength of about 470 nanometer. These helped really pop out to orange or red colors in the let's say, the fluorescent colors in the coral. We have 22 Luxeon royal blue LEDs, were really yeah for driving the coral growth we have four PCM LEDs to really work on the, let's, sorry. Man, I got to find my words here to really enhance the way we perceive colors.

Peter:
Okay? All right.

CoralCare Gen 2 Spectrum

CoralCare Gen 2 - White Channel

CoralCare Gen 2 - Blue Channel

Related posts
Comments

Please login to comment.

Don't have an account?

Sign Up for free