Re: Pool Lights

Originally Posted by
Jinx32
Not so fast... You have made a good agrument in favor of the ColorLogics and I agree. I was interested in the Jazz lights because of the brightness issue. Which you have so amusingly made fun of. I just wanted the pool to light up with color. If the LEDs can do that then "I'm all in". Dont back track on me now

Hope this additional info doesn't confuse you but here goes
Jazz lights use Metal Halide bulbs....they are probably the brightest light source you will be able to find. They do use a color wheel so you do have mechanical parts. Fiberstars says the light is equvalent to a 400w or greater conventional bulb.
FX lights by Fiberstars and SAM lights by Pentair are halogen. Not as bright as Metal Halide but pretty close. Once again there are colorwheels. Fiberstars says the light is eqivalent to a 300w or greater conventional bulb and Pentair says that theirs is equvalent to a 300w conventional light.
LED lights (there are several brands out there now) have no moving parts but from everything I have been able to read about them do not produce as much light output at the two types above. Some of the newer ones claim to come close or equal conventional lighting, however. They can produced many more colors than color wheel based lights. Hayward (nor the other manufacturers I looked at) gives a light output comparison to conventional pool lighting that I have been able to find so far. It would seem to be an easy thing to use a meter to measure the lumems of light output. If you are looking for bright lighting I personally would question this. If you are installing multiple lights it might not be an issue. However, that can add to your costs.
Fiber optics lighting usually will be the least light output. It depends a lot on the type of illuminator used, the number of fibers used, the length of the run, etc. There are a lot of variables with fiber optics. Some people are very happy, others are not. I think much of the success depends on the person designing and installing the system. I have fiber optics as accessory lighting in my water features and it is more than satisfactory for that purpose. I have halogen lighing (SAM and SAL) in my pool and spa and in my installation it produces more than adequite light levels even on the darkest color (blue). Your milage may vary!
Bottom line is this, no matter which light you choose you will probably be happy with it since you won't know what a different light will look like in YOUR pool unless you have that one installed also. (Or unless you have a pool builder that installs the wrong light and has to reinstall the correct one, like my PB did! I was supposed to have all Fiberstars FX halogen lighting but had the Pentair SAM and SAl installed with the Fiberstars illuminator. I chose to switch the illuminator to the Pentair one that works with the SAM and SAL because I personally liked the slower color wheel rotation and the softer colors of the Pentair units better than the vibrant colors and faster color wheel of the Fiberstars FX units instead of replacing the SAM and SAL with the FX units! It actually turned out to be a lucky mistake for me.)
Hope this helps you make an informed decision!
Last edited by waterbear; 09-08-2006 at 02:57 PM.
Reason: wanted to add additonal info.
Retired pool store and commercial pool maintenance guy.
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