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

[fatoldsun]

Here's where I am at this point.
2/1/13
White 40%
Blue 40%
Color 30%

2/7/13
White 45%
Blue 50%
Color 40%

...so I'm a little shy of 50%. Thought I'd go up 5% across the board this weekend. My cell's camera sucks and all the acro frags accept for about 40% of my blue-tipped staghorn and 25% blue mili are dead so pics of dead coral won't show much...
I'll try with the P&S when the lights are on tomorrow.

 

[fatoldsun]

Just to follow up,
Parameters
dkH 9.07
pH 8.26 (@11:00PM)
Temp 78 (Ranco)/74.5 (AC Jr) not sure which is right..
Phosphate 0.09
Nitrate 0.60
Salinity 1.025

Zoas and palys look good. RBTAs seem fine - unchanged and none have relocated. Shrooms look a little different and seem to have slowed their growth. I have a red cap that is showing new growth. Hammers still look good - unchanged. Other LPS haven't gotten worse but no improvement. I think that sums it up. The stuff that appear to have totally died I don't expect to recover but I've had stuff before come back to life before so you never know...

 

[fatoldsun]

I finally was able to get some work done on the cabinet door panels for the hood/canopy. The plan was to mimic the shaker style I used for the stand but I used (dimensionally) smaller lumber to keep weight down. The panels will not be attached "“ they'll just "˜hang" on the frame so it will be easier to take things down for access or maintenance.

Here are the rails "“ I had a little assembly-line rocking"¦.

A shot of the stile/rail joint "“ I probably shouldn't quit my day job

A rail sitting on the panel "“ fit's pretty good.

Everything laid out prior to assembly "“ this is one of the two front panels

Test fitting

Everything's pretty well lined up. Frankly, I was surprised by how well I pulled this off.

To hang the panels I found something at the hardware store that was an aluminum french cleat for hanging heavy pictures. They were 18" long and rated up to 200 lbs. One of these was more than enough for all 4 panels "“ I actually had a lot of extra. I cut them up "“ filed down the sharp edges - drilled some new holes for mounting and set up some quick jigs to make sure everything was lined up and level. Just easier than measuring for each set of pilot holes. Here's a shot of what I'm talking about.

 

[TropTrea]

I like your workmanship on the canopy. Wish I had that level of patience. When I start a project I'm always rushing to fast to get to see the final results.

I assume that lights on your tank at this time is with just the blues on?

 

[fatoldsun]

Thanks. And yes the pics are with just the moon lights on.

 

[Midwestmade]

Please post some pics of your tank when you get the new light over it! It would be cool to see side by sides vrs the pic you have posted now with the T5's.

Also I have a question for you guys. I have a 30" deep tank, thinking of building my on LED fixture. If the light was mounted about 6" off the top of my tank, what degree optics would you recommend for me?

 

[zachts]

Just to follow up,
Shrooms look a little different and seem to have slowed their growth. ..

more than likely, although other factors may effect them like flow and water quality. the shrooms are now getting more light and PAR than they did before! and are now shrinking up somewhat to protect themselves as they adjust to the higher light levels. Eventually you may need to move them to a partially shaded area as other softies, polyps, and LPS/SPS can adjust more quickely and handle much, much more light!

Props on the canopy, nicely done. I think I may just borrow your door haning idea for my canopy........someday......whenever I get around to finding time to rebuild it. :beer:

 

[TropTrea]

Please post some pics of your tank when you get the new light over it! It would be cool to see side by sides vrs the pic you have posted now with the T5's.

Also I have a question for you guys. I have a 30" deep tank, thinking of building my on LED fixture. If the light was mounted about 6" off the top of my tank, what degree optics would you recommend for me?

I do not think there is a hard simple answer to this. But it should be based on how many LED's you will have and how they are placed. On my st up I have 28" between my lights and the substrate. I started with 60 degree lenses that several people recomended but got that disco effect. So I removed my lenses and now I'm very happy.

The big thing is that you want the beam of at least 2 led's of the same color to be able to hit the same spot on your substrate. So if you running only 4 LED's of a single color you want the beam wide enough from each of them to cover almost 50% of the substrate. While if your running 24 LED's of another color you would be happy with a tighter beam on them where each LED only covered 15% of the substate area.

 

[fatoldsun]

Please post some pics of your tank when you get the new light over it! It would be cool to see side by sides vrs the pic you have posted now with the T5's.

Also I have a question for you guys. I have a 30" deep tank, thinking of building my on LED fixture. If the light was mounted about 6" off the top of my tank, what degree optics would you recommend for me?

If you check out post #44 I have some FTSs with the new lights at about 40%. I wasn't running T5s before. I had 2 HQI 150s and a single CF actinic. No shots of the old setup on this thread.

 

[adam82]

can you show the before and after pic on top of each other so its easier to see the difference?

 

[DougRoberts]

what is a good source for LED and Drivers for DIY

 

[zachts]

what is a good source for LED and Drivers for DIY

soooo, many choices. Steve's LED and Rapid LED as good places to start.

 

[fatoldsun]

can you show the before and after pic on top of each other so its easier to see the difference?

Here ya go
Early FTS – the tank was about a year old here

And this is from the test firing of the LEDs

I honestly don’t remember if I had played with the dimming yet or if this was just 100% - like I said this was a test firing. I’ll try and add a current

 

[Reef_loco]

Wow.. Good design. Great light output... Makes me wanna start on mine.

 

[TropTrea]

I honestly don't remember if I had played with the dimming yet or if this was just 100% - like I said this was a test firing. I'll try and add a current

Your pictures look good. But this is a lot to do with personal choice on the mixture and like you said the lights may not have been at full power.

I noiticed the older light being strong in the turquoise or Cyan on the yellow Tang, then compared to the red tint from your new lights. Also keep in mind photo never do justice to a color mix as every camera balances colors differently. This has me worried about my new system I just ordered parts for.

4 UV
4 True Blues
12 Neutral Whites
16 Royal Blues.
Note the RB and MW's will be running at 5 Watts each and the Blues and UV at 2 Watts each. So I get a total of 156 Watts. There will also be a pair of ATI Blue plus T-5's added into this mix. So the total watage of lighting will be 264 Watts as opposed to the old 432 watts.

The nice thing about LED's though is if you do not like the color you can always swap out 2 or 4 LED's and get slightly different look.

 

[fatoldsun]

Ok, this is for comparison
Lights are at White 60%, Blue 70%, Colors 50%

Seems balanced towards purple. I may turn the whites up to 70 and blues only 75% or leave the blues and put colors to 55 or 60

Here's the drawback to the colors

A little like a prism.

 

[fatoldsun]

Got the hood panels finished and up. Think this is finally wrapped up

 

[fatoldsun]

Just a progression of the month long acclimation/ramp up of the lights – I think I am missing pics from 1 week (2/7)

So here’s before the LEDs – as I said above, the tank was about a year old here and running the coralife twin 150W HQIs and a pair of CF actinics

test firing of the new LEDs – around Feb 1st - I think power was white 40%, blue 40% and mixed color 30% (this was also at night so everything’s asleep, guessing all ****ed off about the rude awakening…)

2/7 White 45%, Blue 50%, Colors 40%
Not sure I have pics for this week – maybe on another camera – but the numbers track the acclimation

2/15 White 50%, Blue 60%, Colors 40%

2/22 at White 60%, Blue 70%, Colors 50%

And now they are at White 70%, Blue 75%, Colors 60%

Still seems balanced towards purple. I’m not sure how much of that is the camera – it doesn’t look that purple in person but the pics are a good tool for comparison since it is consistent with the camera – the pictures help with balancing better

 

[overexposed]

Gorgeous!! An inspiration for my upcoming 90g sps build.

 

[fatoldsun]

Gorgeous!! An inspiration for my upcoming 90g sps build.

Thanks