Aquastyleonline.com LED questions.
- Thread starter RotaryGeek
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tankaddict
New member
I believe that the lower end maxspect are using these bridgelux LEDs. I went with 20RB, 8 10k, 4 violet, 4B, and 2red to get a good spectrum. Also i like my tank blue lol.
i have a 180g cube tank with the dim 42w x 42L x 22H i believe. how many leds do you think i need? do you guys think it best just to use the led on a channel or put it on the heat sink? try to get some info before i make my led fixture. I'm so confuse on the fixture part. i want to have sps, lps, all kind the corals in my tanks. any suggestion on the fixture would be appreciate it. Also where do i buy the materials to make a channel??? would lowes or home depots sale the material?
nemosworld
New member
I would get the new 120 led kit they have and go with heatsinks with the leds clustered like above in post 361 f this thread. or go with channels and keep them close, you want your leds in close clusters to increase the par, too much seperation and you reduce the par.
Happy building.
Happy building.
nemosworld
New member
honestly i have not touched the tank in a while, no new pics, and i decided i am going to add more leds. but i have too much going on right now.
i did buy a meanwell 1750ma driver, not sure if i want to get more bridgelux and run them in parallel or just some xml's and call it a day, the problem is the 72 leds lights the tank nicely, but with just 72 i don't get the par i want without losing coverage. I am also thinking of rewiring them, plus i am going to add 2 true violet, 2 red and to turquise, just to see what i get.
this is the most patient i have ever been with a setup. after valentines day i will hit it hard. and get some results up here.
thank you for the reply nemo. do think 120 led would be enough??? that would be about 24 leds per channel with 5 channel in a 36 inches x 36 inches square channel. i estimate the space between each channel would be 7 inches apart from each other. Is that too far apart.....i don't know how far is each channel should be. from the look most people picture, their channel are pretty close together. I think 9 channel would be perfect but that would be too much leds and too much work too much money 
. I saw some people space the channel apartment differently and some space the led apart differently. What is the least distance you can space between a c channel.
. I saw some people space the channel apartment differently and some space the led apart differently. What is the least distance you can space between a c channel.nemosworld
New member
thank you for the reply nemo. do think 120 led would be enough??? that would be about 24 leds per channel with 5 channel in a 36 inches x 36 inches square channel. i estimate the space between each channel would be 7 inches apart from each other. Is that too far apart.....i don't know how far is each channel should be. from the look most people picture, their channel are pretty close together. I think 9 channel would be perfect but that would be too much leds and too much work too much money
it's tuff to say, how high do you plan to hang the fixture?
i think you would get better results if you keep them closer together and maybe use less per channel adding a few more channels to the mix.
leds give better par when spaced together, remember that cree's do have higher output so they can make up for the spacing; where these are on the lower end, with no room to increase intensity, so they need to be grouped closer together to get good par, if you plan to keep sps dominated, then deff need clusters, if you are getting softies and lps then you can play with the spacing. also height of your tank matters, mine is 29 inches tall, so i have to consider that, someone with a 18-24 inch tall tank can deff play with spacing.
if anything do 18 per channel, use 60 degree optics on the outside and 80's in the middle.
my par meter can't accurately read my leds due to the fact that i have 2-1 blue to white on my system. had i went with a 1 to 1 setup, i bet i would golden. but i am adding cree's just for a high noon effect ( i know i keep repeating this), lol!
I think i might try 45 degree optics from their site before adding any more crees and then raise the fixturea little higher.
MADtanks
Stix Anyone?
I am pretty much done with the new rig, ended up going with 5 Channels at 24 per channel. Initially i wanted to go a T5 style all blue one channel, white another but since i dont have the the Meanwells i can only run 20 per driver. So i ended up using the same scheme that i had with the 16X7 heatsinks.
Spacing: went with 2.5X2.5 spacing between LED, or if i would have gone with heatsinks it would have been 20X12.5 heatsinks and i did not want to spend the dough for those lol.... Tomorrow I will test the temp on the channels to make sure it does not heat up too much. I'd like to ditch the fans! but I wont be holding my breath..... I will also attempt to get a PAR reading for comparison sake of the spacing change.
Spacing in hold heatinks: 16X7HS- 2X1.5 about 200 - 180 center mass of the heatsink at the sand bed. If I get 100@ the sandbed with more spacing but get more spread, I will be happy.... results to come...
Spacing: went with 2.5X2.5 spacing between LED, or if i would have gone with heatsinks it would have been 20X12.5 heatsinks and i did not want to spend the dough for those lol.... Tomorrow I will test the temp on the channels to make sure it does not heat up too much. I'd like to ditch the fans! but I wont be holding my breath..... I will also attempt to get a PAR reading for comparison sake of the spacing change.
Spacing in hold heatinks: 16X7HS- 2X1.5 about 200 - 180 center mass of the heatsink at the sand bed. If I get 100@ the sandbed with more spacing but get more spread, I will be happy.... results to come...
FrostyBallz
New member
I was up in the air between the aquastyle and Rapid kit, and i went with the 36LED kit from aquastyle. only ended up using 28 of them on my 24g aquapod. Have had them on for about 2 weeks now and no complaints, My tank is still new but got a few Zoa's in there and they are happy and the color is fine for me.
I will be upgrading my tank soon though to a 60g cube and will be using all 36LEDs with combo T5 as well
I will be upgrading my tank soon though to a 60g cube and will be using all 36LEDs with combo T5 as well
nemosworld
New member
yep, these kits really shine on small setups, and i really don't see why anyone would spend the extra cash on cree builds on small tanks, they both have to be turned down anyway, so save the money. larger reefs are a diff beast.
all all depends on what you plan to keep and the dimms of your tank.
I wish bridgelus had these in 750ma -8ooma's, that would be sweet.
platylover
Member
I received my LEDs last week and built my light array this past weekend. I'm running 72 LEDs total, 34 CW 10k, 34 RB, 2 Red, and 2 UV.
The pics were taken with LEDs fully dimmed down. Using my killawatt, I measured 72 LEDs running at 175watts at max power and 7.5watts fully dimmed. The LEDs are under driven a bit using the included Maxwellian 680mA drivers. Ray mentioned using 750mA drivers would drive at 3w but reduce life of LEDs.
The light is for a new build so I don't have a before to compare against. I won't have an full tank shot until I've setup the tank some more.
The red LEDs are visually very bright. The UV LEDs are not. I'm hoping the red and uv will provide some pop but I won't know until I am fully setup.
The pics were taken with LEDs fully dimmed down. Using my killawatt, I measured 72 LEDs running at 175watts at max power and 7.5watts fully dimmed. The LEDs are under driven a bit using the included Maxwellian 680mA drivers. Ray mentioned using 750mA drivers would drive at 3w but reduce life of LEDs.
The light is for a new build so I don't have a before to compare against. I won't have an full tank shot until I've setup the tank some more.
The red LEDs are visually very bright. The UV LEDs are not. I'm hoping the red and uv will provide some pop but I won't know until I am fully setup.
Attachments
Hurray! Take lots of pictures along the way please, for us visual learners, LOL. Can't wait to see the results.
well it'll be close to the same setup, I'm however going the more expensive route of utilizing an arduino mega. By the end of this, I want to have the 20L turtle tank, my 75g mixed reef, and 20L frag tank all on one controller and reporting back to my phone over the internet, so I'm going a bit crazier. I'll also have full datalogging and plc controls on the pc as well too.
Your standard lighting controls would only need an uno or duemilanove and a single spidigital pot, and an RTC. You should however have no problem using my code and changing the pin configuration slightly to fit your needs though
Your standard lighting controls would only need an uno or duemilanove and a single spidigital pot, and an RTC. You should however have no problem using my code and changing the pin configuration slightly to fit your needs though
And BTW, as far as pot values are concerned for this project, I'm thinking a 1k ohm digital pot.
Supply voltage = 1v (we tested .7, I'm just rounding up)
Resistance (max) = 1000 ohms
Resistance (min) = 0 ohms
sensing current (max resistance) = 1ma
sensing current (min resistance) = 1000ma (really this should be about 700ma with a .7 supply)
I think this weekend (or possibly tomorrow) I'll bring the meter home again and see current changes in regards to resistance values. I may be able to fine tune that pot selection a bit more, and if I can basically get the led's to go minimum current with just 400ohms resistance then there is a dual digital 400ohm serial pot. (ds1801 part number on mouser for those interested)
At the 1k ohm range, their only options of through hole digital pots are up/down control with 100 steps. It's still workable, but you would need 1 pot for every driver as well as 2 pin outputs to control each one.
I also haven't ruled out that ds1806. That's a 6 channel digital pot, which is also linear (even nicer as the other pot is for audio, meaning it's steps are in db's, not linear breaks in resistance). The problem is that this digital pot is only available in 10k, 50k, and 100k resistances. It's been awhile since I've tinkered with electronics, but if I do a fixed 1k ohm resistor parallel to the 10k digital pot, I should be able to reduce it's resistance down to 0-1k (0-900 ohms and change to be more precise) instead of 0-10k ohms.
The other nice thing with a fixed resistor value though (hell technically I could make that a mechanical trim pot and have even greater control) is that I can fine tune the resistance ranges of the pots to get the best resolution out of the 64 resistance steps. That's one of the only downsides, is that going to a 6 pot digital chip it has less steps for the wiper, but it will also require far less i/o pins on the controller so you can do other stuff like control relays and only have 1 power cord coming to a relay box, and all drivers driven off of 120 relays triggered by 12v supply or you can also get serial relays as well too, even less wiring.
All in all, you bastards are lucky, seems I'll be the one with sleepless nights making all this work lol. Who's sending me frags
Edit: I just realized how goofy the flow of this sounds, just know that as I'm typing things pop into my head, I switch to the second monitor and start researching, but have a habit of just typing my thought process, not so much just what is needed for the end result gotta deal with that if I'm the one spearheading this, it's how I work LOL
Supply voltage = 1v (we tested .7, I'm just rounding up)
Resistance (max) = 1000 ohms
Resistance (min) = 0 ohms
sensing current (max resistance) = 1ma
sensing current (min resistance) = 1000ma (really this should be about 700ma with a .7 supply)
I think this weekend (or possibly tomorrow) I'll bring the meter home again and see current changes in regards to resistance values. I may be able to fine tune that pot selection a bit more, and if I can basically get the led's to go minimum current with just 400ohms resistance then there is a dual digital 400ohm serial pot. (ds1801 part number on mouser for those interested)
At the 1k ohm range, their only options of through hole digital pots are up/down control with 100 steps. It's still workable, but you would need 1 pot for every driver as well as 2 pin outputs to control each one.
I also haven't ruled out that ds1806. That's a 6 channel digital pot, which is also linear (even nicer as the other pot is for audio, meaning it's steps are in db's, not linear breaks in resistance). The problem is that this digital pot is only available in 10k, 50k, and 100k resistances. It's been awhile since I've tinkered with electronics, but if I do a fixed 1k ohm resistor parallel to the 10k digital pot, I should be able to reduce it's resistance down to 0-1k (0-900 ohms and change to be more precise) instead of 0-10k ohms.
The other nice thing with a fixed resistor value though (hell technically I could make that a mechanical trim pot and have even greater control) is that I can fine tune the resistance ranges of the pots to get the best resolution out of the 64 resistance steps. That's one of the only downsides, is that going to a 6 pot digital chip it has less steps for the wiper, but it will also require far less i/o pins on the controller so you can do other stuff like control relays and only have 1 power cord coming to a relay box, and all drivers driven off of 120 relays triggered by 12v supply or you can also get serial relays as well too, even less wiring.
All in all, you bastards are lucky, seems I'll be the one with sleepless nights making all this work lol. Who's sending me frags
Edit: I just realized how goofy the flow of this sounds, just know that as I'm typing things pop into my head, I switch to the second monitor and start researching, but have a habit of just typing my thought process, not so much just what is needed for the end result
gotta deal with that if I'm the one spearheading this, it's how I work LOL
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And I had a brain fart... going with the ad5206 from digikey... that gives me 256 steps per pot (more resolution), it's in stock and not an 8 week lead time (yay), and I'm also ordering 6 1k ohm 1/2w trim pots as well too so that I can confirm that the combination works as planned. Last part of planning is figuring out what I'm going to use for an RTC on this setup and with just those parts I should have a working 24 hour lighting schedule and dimming capability on the arduino.
Yes, Yes, sadly we are. :lol: I'm still following along, just don't have much in the way of electronics advise to contribute this one......
Good Idea on the thread for the controller, you will likely get some good feedback from folks with more expertise on the subject.
