68 CREE LED 3 mean well 60-48p driver parallel build

[fatoldsun]

what are the dimensions of your tank? particuallry how deep is it? also how is the rock work arranged?

It's a standard 90 so 24" deep. (48"L x 18"W). My hood is set to put the lights 12" off the surface. My rock work is a center pile. The large flat "shelf" rock is drilled for frag plugs for some SPS. Here's a FTS

what are you using the resistors for? i thought that the driver takes care of that? so then there are 2 resistors back to back on each leg?

edit*- maybe what im seeing is a grey resistor followed by a green fuse?

You are correct. The gray is the resistor. I followed JP's DIY build take a look there for a thorough explanation

 

[zachts]

12" off the water is maybe pushing it a bit without optics, but enclosed inside the canopy you'll get good reflections back into the tank so it may be fine. You could paint the inside of the hood with a white reflective paint.

If you wanted to do optics I'd say nothing tigher than 80 degree. If you were going to space out all 4 modules I'd probalby recomed doing the optics but with them paired together you might have some dark spots in the corners, esspecially near the top of the thank. it's really just up to you, the optics might cut down on glare when the tank hood is open, but you could also just tack some black plastic along the top front edge to serve as a glare sheild when the hool is open.

I'd still probalby lean toward no optics since if you find that you end up whith them cranked all the way to 100% and SPS just arent growing as well as they should then don't forget you can add additional drivers to get more output from the royal blue and white strings later on down the road.

were you planning on fans on the heatsinks? It would probably be a good Idea with them enclosed in the hood since I see you measured 115 degrees out laying on the table. they'll get much hotter enclosed in the canopy where there isn't as much air flow.

 

[fatoldsun]

Ok. Well I can hang them a bit lower. I do have 4 fans for each heatsink (although I thought I might just use 2 - 1 straddling each pair since they're riveted together. The hood is open on the top and back for additional airflow. I may add something on top if the reflection is annoying but for now it's staying open. For now I'll start without the optics. I can always add them.
Thanks again for the advice

 

[chriscobb]

yep, that's how it works, you just need to move .09 volts from one string to the other so if you swaped 8a for 3b that would only be one swap if my mathematical skills are working this time

no laughing here, I would hazard a guess that if you measured again you'd get slightly different results still. Just make a swap based on this, fire it up and see if further fiddleing is required. often times it seems people need to do a couple "swap, measure and repeat", to get things ballanced. (I cheat and build current mirrors because I'm lazy and would rather solder an extra few compontents once and forget about it........)

Could you explain current mirrors please......

 

[fatoldsun]

Finally, the lights are basically DONE!! All that’s left are fans and I have to decide about lenses – I’m leaning towards no lens/optics based on advice I got here. I have a bunch of different optics but most of what I have are 60*. I picked up most of my stuff for this build buying on various forums from others who abandons builds so in a lot of cases I got stuff that didn’t or wouldn’t work for me. As I’ve learned what I could, I realized that for a 24” deep tank I’m not sure that I needed 60* optics. I have some 80*s but I guess even that would be tighter than I’d need. At this point I have a hood in the works. These lights are way too bright to hang from the ceiling and not have them closed into something. I think it would be blinding without either lenses on every LED or a housing if there’s any distance between the water and the suspended lights

I’m getting stuff done on the hood/housing. I ***HOPE*** it’s done by next weekend. I ***WISH*** my wife, kids and job would stop distracting me with all this other nonsense so I could just finish. It’s painful being this close and having to stop and start and stop over and over. I just want to get the frame done so I can put the lights up. The finishing stuff like the panels that will look like doors can wait. Of course the goals remain that it is as light as possible with the greatest amount of accessibility to the tank. Inside will be pained gloss white. More to come….

 

[zachts]

One fan per pair should suffice with an open top hood. If you can raise the fan an inch or so above the heatsink fins that will give beter airflow, but it probalby isn't needed.

I feel your pain, that last little bit takes the longest it seems.......
Why can't life revolve around our hobbies

 

[fatoldsun]

My wife's in bed sick so the good news, after I made dinner for the kids and got them to bed I had some time to myself. Out to the garage I went. I made a little progress. The frame is basically done.
Last part of the assembly - I need a bigger "shop"

And some test fits

I think it's probably hard to imagine what I'm trying for but you can see how I should have lots of access. The sides and 2 front panels will come off and all that will be left is this frame plus the lights which will be on hinged frames so they can be independently raised out of the way. I'm still thinking about how to engineer the front panel mounts. I found some aluminum French cleats but they'll require the light frames to extend all the way to the front edge.

Final point - I finally figured out the PWM controller I got (you can see it pictured) and well it's FAR less functional than I'd hoped. It has 3 channels and 3 programs do I foolishly thought I had one program sequence for each channel. And now I know why everyone chooses Meanwell "D"s over the "P"s. I'm not leaning towards changing drivers right now so I may have to retire the AC Jr

 

[zachts]

you could run a typon controller with the P type drivers. if you need more controll than that Rapid controller gives.

 

[fatoldsun]

you could run a typon controller with the P type drivers. if you need more controll than that Rapid controller gives.

I could if someone **achem** was offering to babysit me through the process. In all seriousness, I think the reef angel is outside my comfort zone. I'm not even sure I was totally comfortable with programming my AC Jr so I will have to get something different in the near future but for now I need to get this thing up and running. I keep getting bogged down by design and plan changes. I can literally count the surviving SPS polyps on the handful of frags I have - any chance that anything recovers will require getting the light mounted in the next few days.
Meantime, let the research on typhoon and arduino commence

 

[TropTrea]

What were you using for lights before you started this build? I would have kept them going till your new build is complete.

So far I like a lot of your build. Your LED's might be close to an over kill point but with dimming capabilities that should not be an issue. I'm looking forward to the final pictures when your hood is all completed. You took a much different aproach than I did on the hood but there are many ways to do it and usualy none are much better than others.

 

[TropTrea]

As for expansion with only my little 90g I though 64 LEDs were enough (4 are moon lights). Now if I can ever get the ways and means committee (i.e., my wife) to approve an upgrade I hope I've set it up to be expandable. By that time the technology will probably be obsolete.

The big key to if you have enough light is how much blue you have. For a 90 Gallon tank running your lights at 900 ma will give you very close to 3 watts each. running about 6 square inches of surface area per blue LED you sould be in the range of 48 blue LED's. This is including the Royal Blues, True Blues and your Near UV LED's. Now the amopunnt of whites and other colored LED's you use is up to personal preference. I would go with roughly simply 16 Neutral Whites. But some others like a whiter look and would go with as many as 24 or even 30 whites to brighten up there tanks. On my 40 gallon now I'm running only 4 neutral whites, 8 True Blues, and 12 Royal Blues.

Remember the end ciolor balance is what you personaly like. Everyone has there own personal taste in color so as long as you have enough blues to keep the corals happy and a little white then it all for your personal taste.

 

[fatoldsun]

I still have my old light - I took it off for the test fit. It is a "starter light" - a coralife twin 150W HQI fixture with 2 actinics and a few moon light LEDs. It served the purpose but the bulbs HAVE to be replaced every 6 months. I started my build collecting pieces slowly as to not alert the watchful eye of my loving wife - if I got everything at once I would have been schooled on how we have 2 kids and can't afford to spend $100s for a light for my silly hobby. So to keep things under the radar I didn't buy bulbs - I thought I could finish collecting and building in 9 months and the bulbs would only be 3 months overdue. I am at 13 months on the HQIs now and I only have 1 of the CFL actinics, so.... I still have a light but it's woefully inadequate.
I hope the hood works the way I want. I KEEP changing my plans as I go and that's great when you are making a prototype because you learn from your mistakes but reefing (or the expense and commitment) doesn’t really allow for that. Example, I wish I went bigger than 90 for the DT but I am committed to that for a while and I continue to invest time and money to support the 90. Some of it is scalable (like the overkill leds) and can grow in the future but part of it will only work for a system of this size. Anyway the hood is a changing concept. I'm trying to use 2 separate small frames to hang the LEDs. Each frame will be independently able to go up hinged on the back piece you see in the pics. I'm still working on how I'll hang the front (face) panels. I have some aluminum French cleats I picked up – sold to hang heavy pictures. I may cut them up and use small pieces on the sides and middle. Other option is to extend the frames for the lights top come all the way to the front. I don't want the cleat to go across the front b/c it will impede access to the tank and the highest priority for this design right behind something that works to house my LEDs, is accessibility to the tank. Other less notable attributes; cooling/ventilation (why it’s open on top and in back), weight (substituting aluminum for wood where I can) etc...

 

[fatoldsun]

So far I like a lot of your build. Your LED's might be close to an over kill point but with dimming capabilities that should not be an issue.

For a 90 Gallon tank running your lights at 900 ma will give you very close to 3 watts each. running about 6 square inches of surface area per blue LED you sould be in the range of 48 blue LED's. This is including the Royal Blues, True Blues and your Near UV LED's.

Thanks for the input Dennis. I'm not sure I'm ready to - or happy about changing this now - in the interest of time and getting some time for the coral to start to recover (if possible) but I am interested in your opinion and if all of this leaves me inadequate for the blue end I'd need to consider addressing that NOW. The build has 24 royal blues, 6 regular blues and 6 UVs (which are considerably weaker than the blues) That puts me at 36, so 75% of what you are recommending. I really thought I was pushing the edge of overkill. Am I really 25% light on my blues for a 90g 48"x18" display? I have room on my blue driver, spots on the heatsink, etc to add if I need to but like i said I want to focus on the hood and get this thing up. Do you think I'll have adequate coverage with 36 vs 48 "blue"?

 

[zachts]

I could if someone **achem** was offering to babysit me through the process. Meantime, let the research on typhoon and arduino commence

working on the build my on part myself, but BoostLED sells an older version pre assembled and ready to go out of the box for under $60 last I looked. build your own probably comes in around 35 to 40 after shiping and finding all the parts to just build one. I've seen mention that they come in around $25 if you build a lot of them at once and sell them off to friends or local club members, etc. FWIW your Rapid dimmer should suffice to get things up and running, it at least allows for some color controll and over all intensity control even though the preset dawn dusk is kind of lowsy

Thanks for the input Dennis. I'm not sure I'm ready to - or happy about changing this now - in the interest of time and getting some time for the coral to start to recover (if possible) but I am interested in your opinion and if all of this leaves me inadequate for the blue end I'd need to consider addressing that NOW. The build has 24 royal blues, 6 regular blues and 6 UVs (which are considerably weaker than the blues) That puts me at 36, so 75% of what you are recommending. I really thought I was pushing the edge of overkill. Am I really 25% light on my blues for a 90g 48"x18" display? I have room on my blue driver, spots on the heatsink, etc to add if I need to but like i said I want to focus on the hood and get this thing up. Do you think I'll have adequate coverage with 36 vs 48 "blue"?

from my experience I think you ok to start out. you should have plenty of blue to get corals and sps growing just fine. as I mentioned earlier you can always do some upgrading to get more blue output either thru adding a driver or more leds later on down the road, giving you time to sneak the purchases in under the radar.

just for some peasce of mind, on my 55 gallon frag tank I have a fixture with 14 leds that iluminates not quit one half 18 x 12" by 20" deep (the end 6" is used for return pumps and equipment). It is adequate to grow SPS near the top and LPS and softies do fine near the bottom about 6" off on the lowest rack. I really need to double this fixture to get exceptional growth but with two they would not need on full power (680mA) like they are now. this light consits of, no optics, all luxeon chips except the violets:
2-royal blue
2-blue
2-2700k warm white
2-5000k neutral white
6-Violet (assorted makes and models)

given the results I am observing with one module I would be confident that 4 of them would be enough for a tank of your size so that would be a total of:
8 royal blues
8-blues
8-warm white
8-neutral white
24-violet

since you have 24 royal blue and and additional 6 blue and 6 violet I am confident that you will be able to grow sps in your tank as long as you maintain good flow and water parameters. worst case you observe excess encrusting growth instead of branching, but since royal blues are very powerful (more than twice as powerful) you should have nothing to worry about.

Fire up those lights and start geting your tank on the road to recovory

 

[fatoldsun]

I actually have another driver and a bunch more stars - enough to make a fuge light that I was going to use to double as a frag tank - of I could set up a small frag tank with my QT set-up. anyway, if more light is necessary I could probably do that now but I'm really just anxious to get the lights up - i really hope it happens this weekend. As for the controller - -I stumbled on the boostLED thing yesterday – it’s $54 and all I need is a usb cable and a project box. Then again a reef angel would only be about 200 more and I could sell my AC Jr so that would make up about 100 of the cost. Hmmmmm….

 

[TropTrea]

Yes I'm very aware of budgeting issues. This is why my switching over to an all LED system is going slow and in steps. I have 4- 40 Gallon breeder tanks 2 on LED's and one still on T-5's. Then my 120 Dispaly tank which is on a combination of LED's and T-5's which I'm slowly switching over to LED's. I also have multiple fresh water tanks which are also a combination of T-5s and LED's. My LED switch over started about 2 years ago initialy as an effort to save electricity as I became unemployed then decided to talke my retirement and being on a fixed income of roughly 1/2 what I was used to. Right now I'm working on a LED lighting set up for a friend that also has a 90 gallon.

If you want to do it in Phases like I am then here is my suggestion. You plan for 4, 2" X 1" aliumnium channels that run the lenght of your tank. If you want to run lenses they can be mounted to the top of your open canopy. or without lenes on a 18" channels that hold them just over the surface.

Start with what will later be your Dawn to Dusk lights. For this circuirt you would run all Cree XT-E Royal Blue LED's. Run an HLN-80H-54 series driver on these LED's that will loow you to drive safely drive 14 of them at the full 1.5 Amps. These drivers are available with an A (none dimmable) or B for dimming. I would stick with the A on this circuit. Divide up the two 14 LED's 8 on the second from the front rail and 6 on the far back rail. You can also run your CF fisture between these two rails untill you add the other circuits. This gives you roughly 70 watts of Blue light

Circuit 2 gets added when cash allows and will consist of 4 XP-E Blues, 4 XP-E Royal Blues, and 4 Violet LED's. These you want to run on a HLN-40H-54 driver that you adjust the current to about 650 ma. This will give you roughly an added 25 Watts of Blue light. Split these LED's up between the front and back rail and run them as predawn to post dusk.

Then your final circuit will be circuit 3 or your mid day lighting. Here again we go with the 5 watt LED's and another

Circuit 3 is will be your mid day lighting. Again go with a HLN-80N-54 driver. Now personal preference in color is the big factor. I personaly would run with 6 XT-R whites and 8 more XT-E Royal Blues. But your main thing is you want at least 4 more XT-E Royal Blues 4 More XT-E Neutral Whites to brighten up your tank. thiis allows your space for 6 more ET-E to either add more white or more Royal Blue. Remember a little Neutral White does go a very long way in brightening a tank up.

So this would give you 115 to 145 watts of Blue lighting, with 20 to 60 Watts of Neutral White Lighting. basicly your color ratio will be between 1.9 to 7.5 dependent on your selections.

 

[fatoldsun]

That sounds like a great plan for scalability but I'm already done that part of my build and scraping it now would be too big of a set-back. That's a good plan if I upgrade to a larger tank in the future but for now I need to make this setup work at least for a few years...

 

[zachts]

I still maintain that you have more than adequate scalability for future upgrade, also plenty of output to grow most any coral, you have 12 (i think) slots left on your rig so without doing anything special you have the potential to add at minimum another 36 leds someday (using 3-ups). in the short term you'll be able to nearly double you light output by simply adding two additional drivers (no wiring or LED changes needed) but I don't think you will need to do that very soon, unless you plan to keep SPS near the bottom of the tank (but they may acutally grow there with the set up you have now)

I strongly recomentd getting them up and running as is so that you can see, especially aesthetically, if you feel something is missing. save those extra slots for future upgrade and color tweaking if it turns out you need it.

 

[TropTrea]

If your using LED lights for a refugium that lighting is considerably different than what you need for your corals. In a refugium you are lighting to keep macro algea alive rather than corals. Macro Algea do not need as much blue lighting as they need light in the other longer wave lenghts. Many people simply use Whites LED's for there refugiums. My refugium is roughly 50 gallons and for light I simply have two 17 watt Compact florescent bulbs. Going with LED's that is the equivelent of roughly 6 Neutral or Cool Whites running at 700 ma. Your being much smaller could probably get away with just 2 or three at the most.

 

[fatoldsun]

If your using LED lights for a refugium that lighting is considerably different than what you need for your corals. In a refugium you are lighting to keep macro algea alive rather than corals. Macro Algea do not need as much blue lighting as they need light in the other longer wave lenghts. Many people simply use Whites LED's for there refugiums. My refugium is roughly 50 gallons and for light I simply have two 17 watt Compact florescent bulbs. Going with LED's that is the equivelent of roughly 6 Neutral or Cool Whites running at 700 ma. Your being much smaller could probably get away with just 2 or three at the most.

Thanks - I will try that - I may try to add a couple blue b/c I a perc living down there that I rescued (I have a GSMC that is the queen of the tank and she refused to let the perc stay. My RBTA splits about once a year so I thought instead of giving them all away I would move one down and maybe add a friend for him/her. I need something to keep the RBTA alive and the CF I have down there won't support anything photosynthetic... But that's not happeneing until this project is complete