DIY 72 LED. need help.

[ocpondpoacher]

I have a 5'x3'x1' frag tank that I am going to set up and I need to get light for. I have and old fixture that was a 2x150w HQI with 4 compact florescent. I got the fixture a few years ago from the LFS for free because it had no HQI ballast and the CF didn't work. Once I got it home I found out the the CF did work and I don't really want to totally gut the fixture, so now I am planning on leaving the CF in and adding 72 leds to replace the 2x150w HQI.

here is the led kit that I plan on getting
http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/72--LEDs--DIY-Dimmable-Kit.html

here is the fixture (I don't off hand remember what brand it is)
I am also going to put leds in the very middle of the light where the night light was

I will be putting the leds on a heat sink with at least 2 fan inside the fixture.
I have a few problems
1. Will the heat from the compact florescent bulbs be to much for the leds
2. In totally I will have 6 power cords coming out or the fixture( not including the fans) 4 for the ( 2 white, 2 royal blue) and 2 for the CF.

I am good at DIY stuff but I am not good at electrical. I need some help in figuring out how to make the led drivers work off 2 power cords and I also need to hard wire the fans with the leds so that they are always on when the lights are on and I don't have to use a separate power cord. For the drivers, I should have plenty of room to house the drives inside the fixture along the outside edges. Last the light has a really nice piece of glass that is going to cover everything and hide the ballast and drivers.

any feed back helps and let me know if you see any potential problems.

thanks

 

[Gorgok]

If you can use dimming to turn off the lights you could have a single power cord for all the LEDs. The drivers don't care if it's a outlet or power strip or a single cord. And a single computer cable style cord won't care about the measly ~200W running through it. As for the fans, with a single cord you can't just wire a wall wart to it or they will run all the time (unless you turn off the cord power after both lights have dimmed). But you could also wire them to the CF cord since you can't dim those off.

 

[TheFishMan65]

Make sure you are real careful. I don't like driver that go over 50 volts, much better chance of hurting your self.

IMHO 72 LEDs in the center will be too many, spread them out over the whole area.

Heat won't be a problem if you have good fans.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

If you can use dimming to turn off the lights you could have a single power cord for all the LEDs. The drivers don't care if it's a outlet or power strip or a single cord. And a single computer cable style cord won't care about the measly ~200W running through it. As for the fans, with a single cord you can't just wire a wall wart to it or they will run all the time (unless you turn off the cord power after both lights have dimmed). But you could also wire them to the CF cord since you can't dim those off.

Thanks for the input, I think I have a better idea of how I am going to do the wiring.
1 power cord going to the 2 white drivers
1 power cord going to the 2 royal blue drivers

I am going to cut of the the plug for the fan and wire it on right behind the on off switch for the CF.

I think I am going to get a little driver to wire up some 3 uv and 3 blue leds to be the moon.

Does this setup sound a little better?

 

[ocpondpoacher]

Make sure you are real careful. I don't like driver that go over 50 volts, much better chance of hurting your self.

IMHO 72 LEDs in the center will be too many, spread them out over the whole area.

Heat won't be a problem if you have good fans.

I am going to spread the leds as much as i can but i still want to keep in the CF. the glass that finishes the light off goes opec white in the areas where the ballast are. If I was to keep that piece of glass then I have a limited area to put the leds.

If I did it my way right now, the 72 leds would be spread on 3 heat sinks.
2 measuring about 14"x6" and one in the center of the light measuring about 5"x5". all the heat sinks will be as thick as it takes to still fit the light fixture.

 

[Gorgok]

I am going to cut of the the plug for the fan and wire it on right behind the on off switch for the CF.

Not entirely clear on what you mean here. You need a wall wart of sorts for the fans, as they need ~12V DC. What i meant previously is if you take a wall wart and either wire the pins of it to any of the plugs (be sure to insulate the pins if you do it this way), or open it up and wire the board to the plugs, then it will work fine. Another option would be to wire a very short extension cord or separate female plug end to any of the wires and just plug the wall wart into that. Wiring the fan straight to 120V AC will not end well.

 

[TheFishMan65]

I must have misunderstood. However, I still think it sounds like a lot of light.

 

[nemosworld]

I must have misunderstood. However, I still think it sounds like a lot of light.

i'm with you, 72 leds in the fixture will be to much light and you won't be able to use the optics.

i have this kit on my 225 60x30x29 and they are spaced out, i get 200 par on the bottom of the tank with the leds sitting right at the rim of the tank.
tank is still empty so i don't know how water will effect that.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

Not entirely clear on what you mean here. You need a wall wart of sorts for the fans, as they need ~12V DC. What i meant previously is if you take a wall wart and either wire the pins of it to any of the plugs (be sure to insulate the pins if you do it this way), or open it up and wire the board to the plugs, then it will work fine. Another option would be to wire a very short extension cord or separate female plug end to any of the wires and just plug the wall wart into that. Wiring the fan straight to 120V AC will not end well.

what i wrote didn't really come out right. This is the fan that I will be getting
http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/8cm-Fan-Kit.html
will it work to cut off the cord and wire the ac/dc adapter to the power cord for the CF?

i'm with you, 72 leds in the fixture will be to much light and you won't be able to use the optics.

i have this kit on my 225 60x30x29 and they are spaced out, i get 200 par on the bottom of the tank with the leds sitting right at the rim of the tank.
tank is still empty so i don't know how water will effect that.

well I will be really happy if that is going to be to much light because it will cost me less money and be less work. I am going to have mostly sps and lps frags. what do you think would be the right amount of leds to add to my CF on this light. I haven't decided if I will go actinic or 50/50 with the CF. It really depends on the lighting color(look) and the spread. the tank is only 12 deep so I wanted to use 80 degree optics.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

when are you going to put water in that tank. the setup looks awesome.

 

[Gorgok]

what i wrote didn't really come out right. This is the fan that I will be getting
http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/8cm-Fan-Kit.html
will it work to cut off the cord and wire the ac/dc adapter to the power cord for the CF?

Yeah that will work fine. Its much better than opening or using the prongs of a wall-brick style adapter too. If you just get the 72 DIY light kit i think they always include a fan without you even adding one. My kit came with one, which i totally forgot about until this last post, and its a 120mm fan not a 80mm one. Same wall wart on cord deal too. But as i am building 2 independent units and wanted reliable quiet fans i had ordered computer fans from Newegg beforehand. Not saying this one wouldn't be, as nearly all 120mm fans are quiet, but i didn't even know i was getting one with the kit =D.

I actually got the 72 kit mainly so i can play with color balance with changing out bulbs before final tweaks with dimming, i only plan to use maybe 60 of them for the units. Once i know what ratio i like (be it 5:7, 2:3 1:2 whatever) i can get a few more bulbs of the 'missing' colors and put another unit on the sump or a frag tank or something.

 

[Lemeshianos]

How is the PAR on these LEDs compared to Cree's?

And would the 36 led kit be sufficient for a 48 x 25 inches tank(75 gallons)?

 

[TheFishMan65]

I just read back and saw this tank is three by five feet. You need to spread those 72 LEDs out way more than the fixture will allow IMHO. But actually for that size tank 72 might be low - sorry for the contradiction. But if you don't spread them out I think you will have problems.

 

[TheFishMan65]

Lemeshianos, I would recommend 48. 36 might be enough, but it depends on the corals you want to keep.

 

[nemosworld]

when are you going to put water in that tank. the setup looks awesome.

Not sure, still buying and building stuff for it.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

I just read back and saw this tank is three by five feet. You need to spread those 72 LEDs out way more than the fixture will allow IMHO. But actually for that size tank 72 might be low - sorry for the contradiction. But if you don't spread them out I think you will have problems.

Ill be getting the 90 led kit if i decide to rip out the compacts but if not then ill go with the 72. the light already has 4x 36w power compacts so that ill help with the spread. I will probably not use optics now. I am not really worried about covering the whole tank with light because its not a show tank. its going to be sitting in my garage. Ill make use of the different amounts of little with the locations that I place coral. the light is 48"x 12". With 72x3w leds and 4x36w cp and the light raise up high enough I should be able to cover the 60" length but I will struggle covering 36" front to back.

I would get another fixture but I dont want to spend any more money on this build. Around 200 for the leds will be enough.

 

[TheFishMan65]

Maybe you should build this as a second fixture with the plan of upgrading it and removing the CFL later. Run them side by side for a while and then add some LEDs and take out the CFLs. Just a thought I don't know if you considered.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

Maybe you should build this as a second fixture with the plan of upgrading it and removing the CFL later. Run them side by side for a while and then add some LEDs and take out the CFLs. Just a thought I don't know if you considered.

the problem is that the current fixture is not working. I got it for free because the HQI hookup was missing and it had no HQI ballast. I have no plan in getting the HQI working because it would probably cost more then the DIY led kit.

 

[ocpondpoacher]

I havent been updating this but I am finally done. I went with a 250 HQI and 72 LED combo. here it is finally

I am going to lowes right now to get some hardware to mount it. I am worried that the HQI might get to hot so I am thinking about adding another fan.

 

[ocpondpoacher]