DIY LED and Cooling system

[BluScrnOdeth]

I believe you have got a fun idea, as far as using water to pull heat away. But it really is going to be necessary to use a heat exchanger made out of titanium or something. I'm building my heat exchanger out of glass which is much less efficient at transferring heat, but then, I'm only cooling 5x 1-up LEDs for my little ATS system that's in the works.

Coating the aluminum with something is not a good idea. Who knows how long the coating would hold up with all the heat-cool cycles, and it is certainly going to interfere with transferring heat from the aluminum.

Also, per DWZM's advice, strongly recommend you do some more reading before making more purchases. Example: 3-ups don't make sense. They're more expensive for the same amount of light, and don't allow you to blend whites and blues as evenly. How much were the 3-up blues? Because you could be getting 1-up xpe royals from cutter for $3.50, or less if you're buying in large quantity.

where are the 3.50 ones? i see 4~+. which isnt much cheaper than the ones that i currently get. And i can have then within 3 days. Though a back each LED could be pretty costly over many. Plus he has free shipping on orders over 99 bucks i think which is nice.

 

[BluScrnOdeth]

I only payed $250 for my 700 watt LED. Completely a good deal and its brand new in the box.

What kind of LED's were it using. I'm assuming you know the difference in performance from a standard old flashlight LED to these high powered CREE LED's which are put in surefire flashlights.

 

[TheFishMan65]

jmc,
Was that a type 70 watts? Either that thing is super bright (on the level of 2500 watts of Metal halide) or you are wasting an awful lot of electricity. How about a link?

 

[jpccusa]

I believe the comparison in the waste of electricity was "good LED's vs. cheap LED's" and not "any LED's vs. MH"

I am not saying yours is cheap LED either, Jmc2009.

Do you happen to have the link so I don't have to go look for it and guess what you have purchased?

 

[jpccusa]

Regarding the OP, I personally think that liquid cooled LED systems would be an overkill given that heatsinks + fans combos do the job.

 

[TheFishMan65]

Assuming it is the E shine 700 watt there is somethings that don't make sense.
1) Can you measure the current draw? At 700 watts that should be close to 3 x250 MH. So yes it is cheaper than 3 MH, but not by much?
2) They claim 22,000 lumen. Is it dimmalbe how are you not burning your corals?
3) They say it is for 100 square meters. How high above the tank do you have that thing?Is this what you have?

[Edit]
Oops last two posts came in while I was typing.
700 watts of LEDs is going to run about the same as 750 MH for electricity - unless I am missing something.
I have Cree XR-E (bought before the XP-Gs were out)
I wouldn't agree. He is trying to save electricity not find a better cooling method.

 

[BluScrnOdeth]

Regarding the OP, I personally think that liquid cooled LED systems would be an overkill given that heatsinks + fans combos do the job.

Water cooling, heatsink, fan, maybe yes is overkill but there is a begger reason for the watercooling than just to supercool the LED's. Its to warm the water.

Like i mentioned before, i live ina colder climate than I'm guessing many of you so my heater works around the clock, not 100% but enough to raise my electric bill (including other electrical devices) by 80-100 bucks a month. I have 500watts of lighting, pump, 2 power heads, and a couple of other lights for the algae scrubber. So basically im looking to reduce that close to 1/2 as much as i can. Even if i save 20/mo, thats 20/mo more in fish i could buy, or do another project.

 

[TheFishMan65]

I agree and if you come up with a good plan I may use it in my fuge. You have 500 watts of LEDs or you want to replace X with LEDs.

 

[BluScrnOdeth]

i have a combination of T5 and T8 cfl's on top of my tank they currently consume 500watts and thats what im replacing with these LEDs. I'm thinking i'll need/want 48 1up LED's per unit (4 units total) equals 192 LED's for my 300 gallons. (or combination with the 3ups as i have been doing because the price is a couple bucks cheaper than buying the 1ups from LEDSupply)

 

[widmer]

In regard to using a water heat exchanger with LEDs-

I mentioned earlier that I will be setting up a water heat exchanger for my ATS light which is 5 XP-Gs.

My plan has been to mount my LEDs on thin aluminum square tubing (1" x 0.5" or so), cap off the ends, and use an aqualifter to circulate water between that and a heat exchanger which sits in a high flow area of the sump.

The heat exchanger in my case is going to be two sheets of somewhat thin hardware store glass, held together like a sandwich with a thick bead of silicone around the perimeter, and a simple bead of silicone on the inside to create a tortuous path for the water flowing through it. To make the secure connection on the glass side, I'll just be siliconing small glass tubing in place for the airline to hook onto.

I believe the aqualifter @ 2.5gph is plenty of flow for this application, as water can transport a tremendous amount of heat.

I previously looked into using a titanium heat exchanger. You can actually get these on ebay for like $36 if I remember correctly, which is just like a coil of airline size titanium tubing. But I thought the glass idea would be more fun, and like $10.

Just tossing this out there for inspiration. As far as properly operating the LEDs goes, I seriously want to reiterate that you've got a lot of reading to do.

 

[BluScrnOdeth]

i have been doing "a lot of reading" for a few months now. the only reason why i bought the 3ups is because of the site i ordred from they were cheaper than the 1ups (per led). It currently has 36 total LEDs on there so im thinking that should be plenty. I am going to build another prototype of just the 1up LEDs like you mentioned but im not going to order from cutter (from what i read it takes FOREVER to get them). when i go to make the other 2 units i might as im just testing out the things i have read from here and other sites.

As far as your water cooling method, its interesting, but how well do you think it will work? Glass is a poor insulator, but i have a question:

How far does it have to travel from the LED's to the transfer unit?

Having a small pump drive the water for ~10hrs a day while they are on, wouldnt that negate the energy savings from using the warm water by adding another pump?

I tested my PSU after 2 hrs of running, still the PSU never spiked over 12, seemed to rest pretty steady at 11.98-99 so maybe i got a good PSU lol. I'm just testing things out as i have the extra cash to do so.

With some of the DIY LED stuff i'm not really seeing where the savings is coming in with all the stuff people are buying and doing for their systems rather than buying a descent commercial setup, though i will be looking into making a pwm for all this once i'm satisfied with my setup.