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DIY LED lighting?

Ok managed to get one joint done, tinned the wire and held it on the plate with the iron. Have tries to do another one, but doesn't seem to matter how long ikeep the iron there for, it won't remelt the solder. Any one any idea why?

Cheers Gordon.
 
tin the solder plate first. Just a dab on top, then tin the wire, press and hey presto.

AC
 
I'm thinking of using three of these:

(http://www.rapidonline.com/producti...immable-16-LED-driver&moduleno=75705#techspec)

to have 3 banks of 16 1w LEDs, giving 48w total. This will replace the 2 x 39w T5HO's that are there presently. I'd like to keep the luminaire at a similar height to where it is now - about 40cm above the water. If can space the led centres at 4cm intervals then I can just about fit the 2 rows of 24 in the luminaire. Each row of 24 would be mounted on a 1m length of ali heatsink.

I'd be interested to hear what you think, and also for any recommendations on the choice of led. Do you think heat will be a problem ?

Cheers

Tony
 
Tonser said:
I'm thinking of using three of these:

(http://www.rapidonline.com/producti...immable-16-LED-driver&moduleno=75705#techspec)

to have 3 banks of 16 1w LEDs, giving 48w total. This will replace the 2 x 39w T5HO's that are there presently. I'd like to keep the luminaire at a similar height to where it is now - about 40cm above the water. If can space the led centres at 4cm intervals then I can just about fit the 2 rows of 24 in the luminaire. Each row of 24 would be mounted on a 1m length of ali heatsink.

I'd be interested to hear what you think, and also for any recommendations on the choice of led. Do you think heat will be a problem ?

Cheers

Tony
Click to expand...

Hi Tony, I have been looking into this as well lately. Don't know where Andy is, AWOL the last month or so, maybe he will pop back in soon and share his wisdom. Its a pity most of the links in this thread are expired/redundant.

I dont think the 1Watt LEDs will be any good, you need to go 3Watts for more intensity, popular 3watt LEDs are Cree and Luxeon Rebels. You need something like this, these are very popular. The Cree LEDs run cooler than most others as far as I know, heat is an issue with these High power type of LEDs.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2394

The tank I am trying to light is 60Wx45Dx36H cm, I am going to use about 20 x 3Watt LEDs, the luminaire will be raised above the tank, 20 LEDs may be a tad too much but somewhere around that level, I can always just suspend the Luminaire higher if needs be.

Here's the best place so far that I have found to try and work through the LED maze for our purposes, the lighting section of Nano-Reef.com, its still a bit complex for an electrical newb like me so more reading/research to do on this. Look in the 'Important Topics' section at the top of this page in the lighting section, loads of relevant information there lots of projects links etc. Read through the threads as well, you know the drill Im sure but I have found it really good.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?s=26717ed5498df81141f836d886d0a08b&showforum=25

Another thing you will quickly realise is that It works out more expensive than you think, an equivelant T5 setup could be cheaper. Personally though I am just going to treat it as a project so although cost is a factor its not the overiding one for me anyway.

Let us know what you learn mate, still trying to get my head around it myself.
 
Hi Peter

Thanks for your post, and all the information too 😀 I'm in a similar position to you regarding treating it as a project, and I'm sure the long term savings will out weigh the initial expense, especially compared to the 2 x 150w MH I have as an alternative !

I've had a quick flick through the nano-reef site, and there are some serious set-ups there ! I'll try and have a good read through them all this weekend.

Cheers

Tony
 
Is there some sort of guide for the number of LEDs required for a particular T5 HO lighting? like 4x 54w TO 4ft = 100 1W cree xr-e super bright LEDs.

thank you
 
where can I get the lenses? also why is a dimmer required?

thank you very much 🙂
 
Did we get as far as establishing a rule for the number of leds for a tank size? I'm looking at a making a fixture for a 30 gallon, would 20 leds be enough or would I need more? Overkill? Any technology updates I should be aware of?
 
Garuf said:
Did we get as far as establishing a rule for the number of leds for a tank size? I'm looking at a making a fixture for a 30 gallon, would 20 leds be enough or would I need more? Overkill? Any technology updates I should be aware of?
Click to expand...

Sorry missed this, I havent done anything on my own setup yet but will shortly.

From what I can gather reading around the web it is not really the wattage we should concentrate on but the PAR levels that the LEDs emit but for our purposes I think its easier to work on the wattages to give you a basic ballpark figure to work on.
I'm working on the basis that you need Half the amount of wattage from LEDs as you would from running HO T5s, not very scientific but it gives you a basic starting figure to work from, as I point out below the LED lighting rig when made up should be very versitile anyway and give you numerous lighting options, high light low light etc. Another thing you do need to consider though is the lighting coverage, use too few LEDs and you won't get the lighting coverage for the tank, thats why you may need to run a few more LEDs than nescessary when you run the math on the wattage figures.

I would say 20x3W LEDS would be about right for a 30 gallon, you should aim to run 2 or 3 strings of LEDS, so each string can run independently, hence you can lower the light if need be, you can also incorporate dimmers for each string giving you even more control so having too much light shouldnt really be a problem.

I should add in a disclaimer here as well, I'm far from an expert so do lots of your own research, that reef forum site linked above should pretty well cover everything we need for our purposes.
 
Thanks, Peter.
I've been discussing the project with a fellow member and we settled on the figure of 21 with 3 strings of 7 being the optimal number.

We never touched on dimmers though so that's something I'll have to look into, the other thing I neglected to look up was timing, I was under the assumption each driver would be going to one over all plug, a bit like those cable tidys you used to see, this mean I wouldn't be able to have a mid day burst or let the lights come on gradually to avoid startling the fish, is there any way of doing this does anyone know?

I've also got the impression that the led's can't be lit in Parallel? I was certain this wasn't the case but the more I read the more it reads like they have to be wired in series.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Shall do, with any luck I'll be putting through the order in the next week or so and I'll get my finalised lum plans up, also some schematics if I can remember all the symbols.
 
I am new to the DIY LED thing but I have been looking into it based in luminems. The ones I should be comming home to today are 3w 150 luminems. I go for 3000 luminems for my planted tank so I would try to work it out like that. I have a lux meter here so once I get some more brightness into my moonlight/daylight setup I will post the results here.

It would be interesting to see how much the lux dims off over distance, and aswell as the bring into consideration the overlap of the light.
 
I've been having a rummage around the 'net this morning and came across these:

http://www.ledrise.com/product_info...0--176---powersupply-included-for-15-30V.html

strips of 8 x Cree leds, giving 1440 lumens, Each strip is 27cm long, and a pair of them could be housed in one of these:

http://www.ledrise.com/product_info...-and-case-set-for-Extreme-Line-SMD--60cm.html

which gives you both the heatsink, and makes them splashproof. You need a power supply too, which I've emailed them about the best one to go for, and how many strips can be run off each supply.

So for a 60cm 'unit' with 16 leds, giving a total of 2880lumens, cost would be about €140 including a power supply.

For my 5ft x 2ft tank, I'm thinking you could mount them on an aluminium frame, something like the one in this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1587273

What do you guys think, any good ?

Tony
 
I'd noticed those but couldn't find a single review or reference point. The wide angle led's might be an issue but I wouldn't know. I'm aiming for 21 leds on my unit for a 60x45 foot print so for me it'd still work out very expensive. The biggest issue I'm finding is finding the most efficient cost wise power supply and drivers. I was hoping to stumble across a 50x25 cm heatsink but that's not happened the choice for heatsinks alone is baffling, if only the cost was more effective I really think they'd be a great altenative but I'd be nervous to part with my cash.
 
I reckon Im going to hold off doing a DIY model after seeing the Maxspect, its only a question of time before other Chinese manufacturers start knocking these out really cheap after the runaway success of the consistantly soldout Maxspect.

The Maxspect are aimed at reefers so you need to swop out some of the LEDs, the cheapest Maxspect model G1-60W (18x3W LEDs) is only about £150-£160 delivered this would be fine for a 60cm tank, you just need to swop out the 8 blue LEDs, the other 10 LEDs are 10k white which are fine, hard to beat on price considering it all comes complete ready to go pretty much.

http://www.fish-street.com/maxspect_programmable_led_aquarium_lighting?category_id=126

Others manufacturers will follow pretty soon I would imagine.
 
Cheers for the link Zig, that works out at about £30 more expensive than my proposed DIY. Have you contacted the seller to know about the waiting list times or anything like that?
Since you first posted them there's been no new news at all.
 
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