(Another) DIY LED Build - Linear Design

[TropTrea]

its 47.6W x 18D x 25.2H bowfront and the light is 2-3 inches from the water

First off with the way I'm running LED's I would get 3 48" long U Channels that are 2" wide and 1 inch tall for mounting the LED's. I would moint then on two pieces of 1 " X 1" I channel That are slightly wider than your tank. The 2" Uchannels should be spaced 1" apart, for max air circulation.

Youy would then have mounting space for up to 16 LED's on each channel got a total of 48 LED's. I like to space mine 3" apart for heat distribution reasons.

For optics I would definatly go with lens on the front row to limit the loss of light onto the floor in front of the tank. With the bow Front you could use 55 or 60 degree lenses on the outside LED's and use 80 degree Lenses on the ones closer to the center. With the lights only 3" above the water level I would not worry about Lenses on the back rows.

If after some time you decide that 48 LED's is not enough light which I doubt you can add a 4th Channel . As far as the selection of LED's go this varies depending on which whites you will be using. With Cool whites I would go with almst a 1 to 1 ration. With the Warm Whites I'd only go with 12 warm white LEDs spaced on the second and third rows. For the other 36 LED's I would go with 6 Near IR's, 6 Cyans, 14 Royal Blues, and 10 Blues.

Remember though everyone does have there personal color preference. Some like a tank bluer looking than others.

 

[katchupoy]

I see two basic problems with the calculator.

1. it does not account for the different wattages people are running LED's at. Dependent upon your driver yopu could be running anywhere from 350 ma to 1050 ma. In reality at 350 ma you running at around around 1 Watt, at 700 ma it is closer to 2.5 Watts, and at 1050ma your even pushing over 3.5 Watts. Then you have new LED's comming out that do run at 5 Watts.
This will create a big difference in your actual lighting. Can the calculator be converted to watts rather than number of LED's.

2. There is no consideration for how tall the tank is. Even with 60 degree lenses as you double the distance from the LED to the place in the tank that the light hits you are reducing the light hitting one spot drasticly. With your formula even running my LED's at 700 ma over my 30 gallon breeder tanks with 48 LED's I'd be frying my corals.

1) The calculator was created for those people who are going to follow this build. Meaning that they will also use the same high power cree leds used on this build, using dimmable drivers that can be ramp down and up the intensity of the lights for proper acclimatization .

2) yes, there is no consideration for height. It is what it is, a grain of salt. Bottom line, it will just be a design tool that will point you to correct direction. Then you will research and research and then research more so you will be more educated in you decision on how many you will need.

Like I keep saying throughout this thread that the factoring values used in that calculator is just guidelines and not set in stone. And to my taste, its a little on the high side. Thats why I did an educated guess that I will use one down.

You wattage formula is good and i think it will work better than mine, but I did not based my build on wattage but number of specific LEDs which is cree.

I apologize, I did not put a fine print on that calculator stating that that only should be used for cree's that was used on this build.

 

[katchupoy]

Thanks for calculator... looks like 72 . you use 36 on a 48"X 18"? Seems like a big jump for another 12" of length.

I believe we have the same length and width? But..

1) you have the bow.
2) your tank is very deep.
3) i used factor of 25 since i only keep softies.
4) and i use optics for more powerful punch and focus light to the tank.
5) you cant use optics because your 3" off water, unless you can find 90deg ones.

if you are doing linear.

1) start slow, maybe 48 or 60. assuming you are going to use the same ones i used.
2) put a splash guard. you really dont want those water on your leds.
3) dimmable drivers would be nice.
4) more research...

my 2 cents.

 

[flyfisher2]

I'm a little confused... it seems you have combined Jeff Prince's info on his bow front with mine.

I have a rectangular glass 60X18X25H aquarium. I do want to use your build with the Cree bulbs. And I agree, dimmable would really be nice. I haven't determined my distance from the water so optics will help me?

I played with the calculator and see how you arrived at 36 based on softies only.

Would you say that anything other than softies would suffer in your system at this point?

I'm on research overload...
lol

 

[katchupoy]

Flyfisher, you are correct. I have it mixed up.

And yes you are correct again, it looks like you will need 72. But start 1 step down, which is 60? then if you think you need more then add another 12.

Optics. the lower it gets to the water, the wider the optics. The higher it from the water, the tighter optics.

Softies are all doing fine, Ihave 3 sps but they are on a rack 1/3rd height from the top. If thats what you are asking.

 

[TheFishMan65]

IMHO wattage is not correct either. I think you would need a lumen output of white and a mW value for royal blue. Then based on the efficiency of the LED you would get the number of LED needed. Maybe then you could use a formula to get loss (or gain) froma lens.

 

[TropTrea]

I just got through my second partial build yesterday. Pushing another 40 gallon tank. I did something considerably different this time and will be doing some drastic mods. The original plan was.
4 to 6 Nuetral Whites
2 Near IR's
2 Cyan's
6 to 8 Blues
8 Royal Blues.

Do to back orders I ened up with
2 Nuetral Whites
2 Near IR's
2 Cyan's
12 Royal Blues (added some of them from my spare box)

Im very unhappy with the build at this point. The Whites and Near IR combination realy washed out all of the Blue and actualy kicked the total color look to pink. For total brightness this 18 LED system is definatly pushing more light than old 6 39 watt HO T-5's even comparing to now I'm at 65 watts total and the T-5's were at 234 Watts.

When I get my Blues in I'll be doing some drastic changes with moving both my Whites and near IR's to the rar of the tank. I will only run 2 Nuetral Whites with 12 Royal Blues and 6 Blues. Then I'll decrease all the LED's to about 2.5 Watts each or less.

Also note that even some of the "non-dimmable" drivers can be adjusted. It is an interanl pot adjustment and you can tune your lights that way as long as you do not intend to repeatedly retune them. I adjusted one of my my 700 ma drivers to push out 1,100 ma's and I'm pulling about 3.7 volts on most of my LED's now so they are realy running at about over 4 Watts. I think the only difference between the 1050 and 700 ma driver is the factory preset current.

 

[katchupoy]

Trop,

1) what is Near IR?
2) non-dimmable drivers. what brand are you referring to that you were able to adjust the internal pot?

thanks.

 

[TropTrea]

Trop,

1) what is Near IR?
2) non-dimmable drivers. what brand are you referring to that you were able to adjust the internal pot?

thanks.

1. Sorry about that I ment near UV. These are suposed to produce light in the 390 nm to 420 nm range. UVA lighing is starts at 380 nm so I call them near UV rather than UV as they are often marketed.

2. I have a LPC-35-700 and a LPC 35-1050 by meanwell. I am fairly convinced that the only difference between these two drivers is an internal pot setting. Interestly I saw another thread that recommends you check the factory setting on these and how to readjust them. I was able to take my 35-1050 and run it down to 220 ma and up to 1.3 Amps with a 30 Ohm and 1 ohm Resistor in series. I wish they made a LPC-48- series as then I would feel safer driving 14 LED's on it.

 

[katchupoy]

thanks Troptea, where to get near UV.

 

[TropTrea]

thanks Troptea, where to get near UV.

Rapid LED sells them as UV LED's.
I would not use them again unless I was doing a big mult LED build. Just two of them out of 18 kicks the color of the tank to pink. Perhaps after moving them to the back of my tank I'll feel differently but right now I'm not very happy with them.

My thoughts on them was that royal blues peak at 454 nm and seem to produce near nothing at 420 nm. There are a lot of florescent chemicals that are activated in the 380nm to 420 nm range. So adding a LED in that range I thought would be great. Theoreticly it should be very dim since that is the edge of the visible ability of the human eye. But these turned out to be very bright especialy against the white sand that is now pink.

As I think back to my old optic class the eye does have what is called Visual Purple that allows us to see in low lighting situations. The Visual Purple is very sensative to UV light and is probably why it is so overwhelming to the total tank colour. The secet must be to balance that UV light so it is not excessive to the naked eye.

 

[SWF]

Hi Ceasar, Fishman65,

I am sorry was away due to work.... so here is what i have decided for my 46Wx24Hx30D
tank

1) 36 CW XP-G R5 / 36 RB XP-E
2)6 - ELN-60-48P drivers
3) DDC-01 PWM Controller w/ remote control
4) 60 degree lenses for about 1.5 feet.

I will be picking the 36 LED dimmable DIY kits from rapidled.

Please let me know i will need anything in addition than this.

Thanks again for all your inputs,

Regards,
Ravi

 

[TropTrea]

Hi Ceasar, Fishman65,

I am sorry was away due to work.... so here is what i have decided for my 46Wx24Hx30D
tank

1) 36 CW XP-G R5 / 36 RB XP-E
2)6 - ELN-60-48P drivers
3) DDC-01 PWM Controller w/ remote control
4) 60 degree lenses for about 1.5 feet.

I will be picking the 36 LED dimmable DIY kits from rapidled.

Please let me know i will need anything in addition than this.

Thanks again for all your inputs,

Regards,
Ravi

Don't forget heat sinks 1 OHM resistors, heat transfer compound, terminal blocks, and heart sinks.

On a personal preference I like the Buetral Whites over the Cool Whites. With a ration of Blues being closer to 1 White per 3 Blues. But that is personal preference. With your dimmer you can probably drop the White LED's down to about 300 ma to get that effect.

 

[nreefer]

Just read the entire thread as I am now going to redo the lighting on my 180 gal, FOWLR and some LPS/softies. Last year I built a setup for my 400gal reef using 256 LED's to replace 4 x 250watt DE MH and T5 actinics. It will have a similar look to this one. See thread here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1976062

My 180 gal tank measures 48L x 24W x 36H
Currently I am using a Nova Extreme with 6 x 54watt T5's and things are good.
My thought was to build a linear LED setup with 6 U-channels consisting of:
Channel 1 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 2 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
Channel 3 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 4 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
Channel 5 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 6 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
All on dimmable MW drivers with 40deg. optics on the first 3 channels to penetrate into the tank and 65 deg optics for last 3 channels as the rockwork reduces depth.
LED's will be spaced at 3 inch centers.

Questions are:
Is 75 LED's overkill for this setup?
Will the linear setup I have give me good colour blending?

Thanks in advance!

 

[katchupoy]

Is your tank 72x24? Its should be 72 LEDs on a factor 25 which is softies?

1) Per channel/driver you should have not more than 12? Because of voltage headroom on drivers? So 10-4 combinations might not work or might be pushing it.

2) How high from the water surface?

3) If you are worried about cost, then you can go down to 60 LEDs, even 48 is plenty. If not, then 72 is good, you can always dim it back, specially if you later decided to put more corals in there. You will be amazed what 72 LEDs can do specially you mentioned you have rock work that goes up at the back.

4) Color blending is hard to answer since this is purely by preference. I dont like my CW, so replaced them with WW (more yellow) and added red in there. Now im beginning to think to near UV's (pink) in there just because i like the T5 fiji pink.

my 2 cents.

 

[nreefer]

Thanks! My tank is 48x24. I was looking at the rapid led site and it shows you can run 14 XP-E RB on one Meanwell ELN-60-48

I was going to hang the fixture 12 to 18 inches above the water.

 

[katchupoy]

Oops, sorry i missed that info... my bad.

XP-E? or is it XR-E or XP-G??? if... (my bad again, i guess there is an XP-E)

XP-E = 3.4v to 3.5v (x14) = 49 volts...
XR-E = 3.5v to 3.7v (x14) = 49 volts...
XP-G = 3.2v to 3.3v (x14) = 45 volts...

Maybe you are right that 14 XP-G can run on ELN 48 drivers, but not XR-E and XP-E ones.


But you did this type of project on your previous build (which I think is awesome) so I believe that you already know what youre doing....?
.

 

[nreefer]

No problem, my other build was a parallel build so slightly different.
Maybe I'll reduce to 13 RB. They are XP-E.
The ELN drivers go up to 52volts

 

[TropTrea]

Oops, sorry i missed that info... my bad.

XP-E? or is it XR-E or XP-G??? if... (my bad again, i guess there is an XP-E)

XP-E = 3.4v to 3.5v (x14) = 49 volts...
XR-E = 3.5v to 3.7v (x14) = 49 volts...
XP-G = 3.2v to 3.3v (x14) = 45 volts...

Maybe you are right that 14 XP-G can run on ELN 48 drivers, but not XR-E and XP-E ones.


But you did this type of project on your previous build (which I think is awesome) so I believe that you already know what youre doing....?
.

little issue with the math first
XP-E = 3.4 to 3.5 X 14 = 47.6 to 49
XR-E = 3.5 to 3.7 X 14 = 49 to 51.8
XP-G = 3.2 to 3.3 X 14 = 44.8 to 46.2

second is if the current needs for more voltage than the driver will produce it will just produce its maximium voltage. The end current could actualy end up less than what is desired but in these cases the difference would not be that extreme if the voltage cut off is at an actual 48 volts. In the worst case with the XR-E it might want 51.8 Volts but is only getting 48 so they will be running at roughly 93% of what you were hoping for. If it is an adjustable drive it can simply be set slightly below max and you no longer have any issue.

 

[TropTrea]

Just read the entire thread as I am now going to redo the lighting on my 180 gal, FOWLR and some LPS/softies. Last year I built a setup for my 400gal reef using 256 LED's to replace 4 x 250watt DE MH and T5 actinics. It will have a similar look to this one. See thread here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1976062

My 180 gal tank measures 48L x 24W x 36H
Currently I am using a Nova Extreme with 6 x 54watt T5's and things are good.
My thought was to build a linear LED setup with 6 U-channels consisting of:
Channel 1 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 2 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
Channel 3 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 4 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
Channel 5 "“ 10 RB XP-E and 4 B XP-E
Channel 6 "“ 8 CW XP-G and 3 NW XP-G
All on dimmable MW drivers with 40deg. optics on the first 3 channels to penetrate into the tank and 65 deg optics for last 3 channels as the rockwork reduces depth.
LED's will be spaced at 3 inch centers.

Questions are:
Is 75 LED's overkill for this setup?
Will the linear setup I have give me good colour blending?

Thanks in advance!

Just a quick summary and comments.

Overall your looking at
30 RB, 12 B, 24 CW, 9 NW. overall 42 (blues) to 33 (Whites)

I havve tried CW, NW, and WW and will agree strongly with somes recomendation that the NW are much better. You also need less of them to brighten up the tank compared to the CW.

A lot oof this is personal color taste I would switch from 24 CW to 24 Warm Whites then replace to 9 NW with 9 more Blues.

The other thing is to get the most out of the LED's Id only run 12 or 13 on each driver if it a 48 volt driver With 12 per string you still can run 72 LED's on the 6 drivers which will very close to the total of 75 leds you listed. I would reduce 3 whites on personal taste.

You can push 14 LED's on the drivers but I would not do it unless I realy had to. Your possibly hitting the limit on the driver even though they can go slightly over there rating. Right now I'm running 14 on a 35-700 which is rated to max of 48 volts but running smoothly @ 47.2 Volts at 640ma for a total of 30.2 Watts just under its max rating. But each LED is running at about 2.15 Watts instead of the full rating of 3 Watts each.