In the world of LED pods, power density (measured in Fluence - W/m2) is one of the most important factors in determining outcomes, so it has become one of the most debated and manipulated marketing points. One manufacturer has gone to great lengths to fabricate videos showing totally manipulated fluence values for their product.
Higher power machines cost more and deliver faster results than lower power machine, so almost every manufacturer claims "the most powerful pod" in order to sell their systems. Biophotonica really makes the most powerful pods and we can prove it.
So how does a consumer learn the truth?
Fluence is the measure of light density, The usits are W/M2 or mW/cm2. In PBM, we care a lot of about fluence because it determines dosage and dosage determined results.
Total dosage absorbed into the tissue = fluence X surface area X treatment time.
Since dosage is one the most critical factors in determining efficacy in PBM, it is important to understand the fluence of each Pod. Our measurements and analysis show that the Regen Q8 Pod provides significantly higher dosage than both competing options.
In any type of measurement, results can be either absolute or relative. In the US, absolute measurements must be based a NIST traceable primary calibration standard that is accurate, reliable, and used in almost identical to the test environment.
This makes our best option a relative measurement where we use the exact same device on multiple test Pods without recalibrating between systems. The produces numbers that allow users to see which system has the highest and lowest fluence. Because the calibration and sensitivity of each test device is different, we see different results for each test device but these relative numbers are perfect for comparing systems.
Light measurement devices are calibrated (usually at the min and max of the measurement range) against reference sources. Based on the quality of the reference sources, these systems can easily be recalibrated to either display an accurate or a fake output. This is why you want to buy a pre-calibrated device and not change the reference values.
This is how some company's cheat. If you perform a calibration in a dark room and tell the system that is pointing at the sun, every future measurement will show that the light source (like the LEDs in a Pod) are much brighter than sun. By monkeying with the calibration, we can make the meter show any value we want. This is how some companies make their systems appear more powerful than they really are.
As you move a test meter around a large light emitter, you naturally see undesirable variations in the output of the source. Most test equipment does internal averaging to avoid looking like a random number generator. This averaging is over a specified time and makes the output more stable and reliable. In our analysis, we use used the light meters to measure maximum values over a large part of the treatment surface where the skin would be during a therapy session. We also used one of the meters to measure the minimum value. By measuring the maximum and minimum values, we get an indication of missing, burned out or a poorly designed array. A better system will have less variation between max (bright) and min (dim) areas.
In our test compare the different Pods we used 3 separate light meters:
1. TENMARS-206 Solar Power Meter
2. TES-1333 Solar Power Meter
3. Sanwa LP10 Laser Power Meter
Note that while the solar power meters provide readings in Watts/Meter2 (W/M2 ), the Sanwa only provides reading in mW with no area specified, so these readings are not comparable in absolute terms, but again, there continues to value in relative measurements.
The following table shows the raw light meter readings and table after that shows the incremental difference between the ReGen Pod and the competing systems.
| Light Pod | Tenmars (W/M2)
Maximum | TES (W/M2)
Maximum | Sanwa (mW)
Maximum | Sanwa (mW)
Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NovaT | 524 | 453.1 | 19.53 | 9.05 *1
(46% of Max) |
| TL 360 | 132 | 119.2 | 4.25 | 4.03
(95% of Max} |
| Regen Q8 | 706 | 698.8 | 23.28 | 19.46
(84% of Max) |
*1 The variation between high-density areas and low-density areas is 54%. This is large variation and implies that dosage across the surface area will be inconsistent.
*2 This data is based on one of the original pods built to the Aspen spec that we developed. As far as we know, they have not made any changes to their design away from the original units for the number or power of diodes.
| Light Pod | Tenmars (%)
Maximum | TES (%)
Maximum | Sanwa (%)
Maximum | Average of
All Meters (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ReGen Q8 vs NT | 35% Increase | 54% Increase | 19% Increase | 36% Increase |
| ReGen Q8 vs TL360 | 535% Increase | 586% Increase | 548% Increase | 556% Increase |
