LED DIY

[lazybones51]

@mow said 🙂 Thank you.. It makes sense.. Just was wondering..



I absolutely agree, my last build was from the SMD 8520 Dual chip.. After using this a few years i don't think i ever need anything else.. They are extremely durable, stay rather warm than hot in comparison. Are absolutely strong enough with 65 lumen per chip it's also enough for a high tech setup up to 40 cm tall tank. Awfully simple to drive and control with a 12 volt constant voltage and PWM. Already come from factory on a rigid aluminium PCB.
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/50cm...108.1000016.1.109511f8AOoVUg&isOrigTitle=true

Must say afetr using 4 metre of this strip vor 3 years above an open top tank. I feel like done searching for beter.. It doesn't need to be.. But that's a mater of personal perception and preference.

SIngle led PCB version is 72 chips p/m ot so long ago i saw the 120 chip p/m double row on 1 PCB version.
Yet not sure if the Double row comes in dual chip, not yet seen it.
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/Kore...108.1000016.1.400e1b965pmsi9&isOrigTitle=true

And also this is already 3 years old, i wouldn't be surpised if there already is a beter performing SMD. 🙂

I used a roll of "warm white 5630 led strip lighting" when adding under cabinet lighting in my kitchen. I tried using the left over as an aquarium light but was disappointed with the colour, the "warm white" made the aquarium look yellow. I imagine a "cool white" would look a lot better. According to the specs it was around 1500 lumen a meter.

 

[zozo]

I used a roll of "warm white 5630 led strip lighting" when adding under cabinet lighting in my kitchen. I tried using the left over as an aquarium light but was disappointed with the colour, the "warm white" made the aquarium look yellow. I imagine a "cool white" would look a lot better. According to the specs it was around 1500 lumen a meter.

These are the ones i used to build a light.
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/5pcs...108.1000016.1.6a3c1372P7U5IP&isOrigTitle=true

They also come in warm white, but than you need to ask, they have them. I gave the fixture away to a freind, because i'm stripping down the tank i builded it for. But it contains 5 x 50 cm strip, 2 natural white 6500k, 2 cold white 10000K and 1 warm white 2700k. Since it hangs over an open top i only used the aluminium profile to mount withuot the cover. The aluminium pcb slides snuggly into the profile.. With a little thermal grease between the aluminium PSB and profile it has a very good heatsink, encreasing it's durability. That's the main issue with those flex strips, the LED mounted to it burns to hot and burns out sooner slowly decreasing in performance from the heat. You need to glue them to a surface that never holds very long.

In my case use the 3 different white colors i can slightly change the color pallet. Since the strips are very affordable in price it also aint a big deal to change the setup and put one more warm white strip in and take out a cool white. Or what ever is prefered.

Regarding lumen, i'm still in the dark how that is determined with setups with multiple single leds.. Factory data gives lumen per single chip.. Does that mean i need to add each single led to the sum to get to a total. I don't know i never checked.. I gues vendors also just add the sum to give you a number. Anyway the SMD 8520 is pretty strong at 65 lumen per chip and 72 chips per meter. Pretty strong and bright, but i can't give other numbers than 72x65 lumen = 4680? And that was the strongest SMD i could find at the time. If i check on the SMD 6530 i end up with about 45/50 Lumen per chip. I wonder how your vendor came up with 1500 lumen per meter? Had it 30 leds? Or did he had a par/flux meter?

 

[mow said]

No problem @zozo as we are learning from one another

You have to spread the heat across rememebr you have 130 watts per channel and those are 10w led chips. If you run them 100% you will run into trouble i can gurantee you. Also they wont last long with the aluminiumn heat sinks you have, by this i mean if they have a life span of 50000 hours and they are running hot all the time they will only last 10000 hours and they will give up. And yes i would love to have a par meter too but they are not cheap devices. What i do is calculate lumens per litre and its worked for me.

My 1w leds are 100-110 lumens .
72w is my fixure that i am using
100(lumens)x72w= 7200
7200 lumens devided by 160litre which is my tank volume = 45 lumens per litre.View attachment 115317
This is from tropica and it worked for me.

Lumens if you check on the thread i explained about it 😉

 

[lazybones51]

These are the ones i used to build a light.
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/5pcs...108.1000016.1.6a3c1372P7U5IP&isOrigTitle=true

They also come in warm white, but than you need to ask, they have them. I gave the fixture away to a freind, because i'm stripping down the tank i builded it for. But it contains 5 x 50 cm strip, 2 natural white 6500k, 2 cold white 10000K and 1 warm white 2700k. Since it hangs over an open top i only used the aluminium profile to mount withuot the cover. The aluminium pcb slides snuggly into the profile.. With a little thermal grease between the aluminium PSB and profile it has a very good heatsink, encreasing it's durability. That's the main issue with those flex strips, the LED mounted to it burns to hot and burns out sooner slowly decreasing in performance from the heat. You need to glue them to a surface that never holds very long.

In my case use the 3 different white colors i can slightly change the color pallet. Since the strips are very affordable in price it also aint a big deal to change the setup and put one more warm white strip in and take out a cool white. Or what ever is prefered.

Regarding lumen, i'm still in the dark how that is determined with setups with multiple single leds.. Factory data gives lumen per single chip.. Does that mean i need to add each single led to the sum to get to a total. I don't know i never checked.. I gues vendors also just add the sum to give you a number. Anyway the SMD 8520 is pretty strong at 65 lumen per chip and 72 chips per meter. Pretty strong and bright, but i can't give other numbers than 72x65 lumen = 4680? And that was the strongest SMD i could find at the time. If i check on the SMD 6530 i end up with about 45/50 Lumen per chip. I wonder how your vendor came up with 1500 lumen per meter? Had it 30 leds? Or did he had a par/flux meter?

According to the supplier it's 60 LED a metre at 25-30 lumen per LED. 5630 SMD LED's

 

[mow said]

So its 60 x 25 = 1500 lumens

Anyways this is what i would like to make in the future


Its called lupyled in my opinion this is the best money can buy led unit. Check it out on youtube. They use smd leds as you can see from the PCB a build like that will need a allot of equipments such as SMD soldering machine , laser cutter and PCB manufacturer in china to make you one similar to this.

 

[zozo]

So its 60 x 25 = 1500 lumens

That is what i doubt so much if that is accurate or just say something?? I guess the later, because the outcome of such a sum can be rediculously high and people still claim it is less as what their T5 produces with a lower number. And as said than i would have had almost 25000 lumen from my led light if that sum is correct. That would almost equal to profesional 200 watt discharge grow light.. And it isn't by far, because i've seen them burn those lights, it wasn't nearly compairable. If i would hang such a 200 watt light above the same tank, i would blow the crap out of it..

I can not realy find any valid data on that formula and factory data is always per single led.. But anyway, since lumens doesn't do much for us and actauly we need PAR value. We need a rather expensive device to get close to the real value.

 

[mow said]

You can have allot of lumens but if the light is not penetrating deep enough on you tank then it wont grow anything. For example 60w of led strip vs 60w 1 w leds which will penetrate all the way down to your tank. Ofcorse the 1w will ,that is were par comes into play. But for us that do not have a par meter we can guess and calculate the lumens which are given to us by the manufacturer. Ofcorse some are over stated by the lumens the manufacturer provides us with. Another example a normal 60w 1w leds fixure that has no lenses vs the one that has lenses ofcorse the one with lenses will give you more par value. When choosing leds go for strong leds and calculate the lumens per litre as we do not have the par meter this is the way foward i understand its not correct but tropica are not stupid to provide such information, also make sure you spread the led chips to have equal distribution.

 

[lazybones51]

So its 60 x 25 = 1500 lumens

Anyways this is what i would like to make in the future
View attachment 117187 View attachment 117185 View attachment 117186

Its called lupyled in my opinion this is the best money can buy led unit. Check it out on youtube. They use smd leds as you can see from the PCB a build like that will need a allot of equipments such as SMD soldering machine , laser cutter and PCB manufacturer in china to make you one similar to this.

Wow that's an impressive piece of kit! I wonder why they opted for stainless steel over anodised aluminium? The anodised aluminium still has great corrosion resistance, without the extra weight of stainless steel. It would be very impressive to see somebody DIY build a unit like that. Although it seem unnecessarily complex and a bit OTT.

 

[rebel]

@mow said , Rather than bothering with SMD soldering etc, why not just use the 4W RGB power leds with lenses (if need be) and control each channel as required. Surely, you don't need individual cluster control etc.

 

[mow said]

Wow that's an impressive piece of kit! I wonder why they opted for stainless steel over anodised aluminium? The anodised aluminium still has great corrosion resistance, without the extra weight of stainless steel. It would be very impressive to see somebody DIY build a unit like that. Although it seem unnecessarily complex and a bit OTT.

I just checked and i dont know either but maybe they are using 316 stainless steel but inside the unit they are using aluminium pcb board and the leds are SMD so they dont produce much heat. Im sure they are fans in the unit to cool down the fixutre too.

 

[mow said]

@mow said , Rather than bothering with SMD soldering etc, why not just use the 4W RGB power leds with lenses (if need be) and control each channel as required. Surely, you don't need individual cluster control etc.

You can but SMD is better and 4w RGB leds are not good as you dont know how many watts you will be using in them which will make the build complicated. im assuming you talking about the 4w - 12w rgb?

 

[rebel]

You can but SMD is better and 4w RGB leds are not good as you dont know how many watts you will be using in them which will make the build complicated. im assuming you talking about the 4w - 12w rgb?

I meant 1W x4 (RGBW). I see your point though. Lensing is easier with a bigger leds. Can the SMDs be lensed effectively? I want to hang my light higher.

 

[mow said]

Yes they can you can buy lenses from china for smd . And 3w leds will be good with 60 degree lenses on all leds if you are planing to hand the unit high. Check my thread again page number 2 there is a unit with 3w leds and its using the heatsink i linked on your thread,its a 120w simple fixture and you will be able to run it 100%. And controlled by TC420 but if you are good with rasbery stuff @lazybones51 linked a page for that.

 

[rebel]

Has anybody looked at encasing the electronics in some form of resin for water protection?

Yes, I use conformal coating on my racing drones so I can just solder through the coating for repairs.

Something similar and you can buy cheaper than this. For example.
https://au.rs-online.com/web/c/faci...aners-protective-coatings/conformal-coatings/

 

[rebel]

And as you can see not much diffence with the ones you linked as they are aluminium . The ceramic cobs are good but expensive.
( 10pcs Cree XLamp CXA1507 15W Ceramics COB LED Array Light EasyWhite 5000K Warm White 3000K with or without Holder
http://s.aliexpress.com/fEZrQjQr?fromSns=Copy to Clipboard )

Beware that they do sell FAKE Cree LEDs on these sites. Do not pay extra for these unless you know how to check.

 

[rebel]

Yes they can you can buy lenses from china for smd . And 3w leds will be good with 60 degree lenses on all leds if you are planing to hand the unit high. Check my thread again page number 2 there is a unit with 3w leds and its using the heatsink i linked on your thread,its a 120w simple fixture and you will be able to run it 100%. And controlled by TC420 but if you are good with rasbery stuff @lazybones51 linked a page for that.

Thanks my good sir. I am looking into the whole lot. When I start my project, I will start a new thread or link through this one.

 

[zozo]

With using lenses you need to watch out for Prisma effect.. Red a few threads of people complaining about this and it was caused by the used lenses.
Led angle versus Lense angle and the water surface created those colored prisma beams in the aqaurium.

I would say, first try a single lens and see before you buy a lot. 🙂

 

[rebel]

Hi @mow said , I found these SMD boards online. Perhaps they may be useful for your project.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2Pcs-Al...885842&hash=item4641470581:g:G~AAAOSwDkVaSlYT

SMD soldering looks to be finicky though.

I 'may' attempt to convert my Chihiros clone light into a RGB just for kicks and giggles....

 

[mow said]

Thanks @rebel but i have source's in china that i can get pcb soldered and all sorts. And yes soldering your self will be hard as you need a machine for this also smd leds needs smd resistors too. Plus the lupyled board has more things in it that i have never seen before. Unless some chinese manufacturer buys one and clones it . It wont be posible to make the same board. I hope your project goes well once its done please share it 🙂

 

[lazybones51]

I'm now setting up a 30cm cube and thought it made sense to build another light. I've got plenty of left over components from the previous one, all I've bought so far is a nice little 130mm square heatsink.