SkiFletch
New member
Well, I started a DIY LED project when I finally plunked down the dough in February of this past year and purchased the LEDs themselves during a group buy orchestrated by someone in Albany I think. These are not exceptionally high-powered latest bells and whistles Cree LED lamps, but are a few generations older. However the price at less than $2 per couldn't be beat, so I pulled the trigger and bought some. I figured I'd made more expensive mistakes in this hobby, so why not.
I basically had 5 goals to start out with when doing this. First, less heat. This was almost REQUIRED as the tank is in a 2nd floor room in north buffalo with big bay windows facing west and no good awning covering it, the room just BAKES. Even with some window mount air conditioning it's still warm WITHOUT twin metal halide lighting. I knew the tank wouldn't make it through it's first summer there without less heat. Second goal was the same or more light than the twin 175w halides I had. 3rd goal was better color. 4th was that it had to be a single installation that fit my existing hood. And last, it had to come in cheaper than off-the-shelf options. Oh yeah, and silence (cully hears me)
Given those goals, especially the last one my next task was to source a heatsink that didn't break the bank. Good luck with that :worried: Luckily I managed to find a cadre of enormous heatsinks attached to huge SCRs that were being scrapped at work when we were re-vamping our centrifuge control systems. These heatsinks are GIGANTIC. Here's a shot taken down the side of them. For reference, one of the fins are at least 3" tall
So with free heatsinks sorted out I went to the scrap metal bin at work and found some nice small aluminum channel to use as a frame for the heatsinks which were already pre-set with bolt mounts. Bought some SS hardware and set them all up in a perfect single piece that just screwed into my hood. Awesome. Next was drilling and tapping the mount holes. With 72 LEDs that was 144 holes drilled and #4-40 tapped. Thank GOD I have access to a mill and tapmatic at work, made that only take 2 hours. Wired them all up and tested each string of LED's with a current-limiting power supply and they all worked, yey. Furthermore when I wired them all in parallel and fired them all up, the heatsinks barely got over 50C and the LED's are happy all the way up to 100+, so no need for fans, silent, yey
So last, the controller. Huge plug to DZWM's thread on his DIY controllers, I ultimately copied his CAT4101 design. I wish I took a pic before I sealed it in it's box, but there's not much to see. It's just a few CAT 4101 chips, a through-hole breadboard and a few resistors/capacitors. The controller is heat-sunk directly to the main heatsink and all sealed up from the seawater environment. There was a little soldering trickery I had to do in figuring out a cheap/easy power supply for it to convert the 24v supplies I had to 5V for the controller, but once I had that down, all was well. Right now the controller is just on/off, no sunlight/sunset, but it's just two wires I have to change for that to happen, and that's another project entirely. Anyways here's a pic looking down the end of the fixture.
Notice the mixture of optics. Tighter ones on the sides where the tank is deeper and wider ones around the middle where it's shallower. I brought it over to ARC to test the PAR and it's hard to measure exactly since it's such a point-light type source. Near the surface under the area with wider optics the PAR is VERY high, around 300-600 depending on where you are in the "grid". Once you go deeper it gets less spotty and more blended. The middle of the tank is around 180 PAR and the bottom is about 120 which is just a bit more light than I used to have and the color is PHENOMENAL!. It's exactly the mix of blue that makes the colors pop and bright enough to not look blue/dull. Soooo cool. My point-and-shoot doesn't do it justice, but this overhead shot of one of my brains does, so check it
All in all I'm absolutely thrilled with the way it turned out. The energy usage is a JOKE compared to the halides, as is the heat. Before my halides used 500 watts on my meter, now the LED's use 180. And I never had a problem with heat all summer. Sure the cooling fans kicked on but the tank never got over 81F that I noticed. It's now been 4 months since I've had the LED's and coral growth and health has been very similar to my old halide setup. All told I spent about $350 on the project which I figure will pay for itself in bulbs and electricity in a year or so. And now when I reach my hand in the tank, I don't have to worry about burning my forearm off.
I basically had 5 goals to start out with when doing this. First, less heat. This was almost REQUIRED as the tank is in a 2nd floor room in north buffalo with big bay windows facing west and no good awning covering it, the room just BAKES. Even with some window mount air conditioning it's still warm WITHOUT twin metal halide lighting. I knew the tank wouldn't make it through it's first summer there without less heat. Second goal was the same or more light than the twin 175w halides I had. 3rd goal was better color. 4th was that it had to be a single installation that fit my existing hood. And last, it had to come in cheaper than off-the-shelf options. Oh yeah, and silence (cully hears me)
Given those goals, especially the last one my next task was to source a heatsink that didn't break the bank. Good luck with that :worried: Luckily I managed to find a cadre of enormous heatsinks attached to huge SCRs that were being scrapped at work when we were re-vamping our centrifuge control systems. These heatsinks are GIGANTIC. Here's a shot taken down the side of them. For reference, one of the fins are at least 3" tall
So with free heatsinks sorted out I went to the scrap metal bin at work and found some nice small aluminum channel to use as a frame for the heatsinks which were already pre-set with bolt mounts. Bought some SS hardware and set them all up in a perfect single piece that just screwed into my hood. Awesome. Next was drilling and tapping the mount holes. With 72 LEDs that was 144 holes drilled and #4-40 tapped. Thank GOD I have access to a mill and tapmatic at work, made that only take 2 hours. Wired them all up and tested each string of LED's with a current-limiting power supply and they all worked, yey. Furthermore when I wired them all in parallel and fired them all up, the heatsinks barely got over 50C and the LED's are happy all the way up to 100+, so no need for fans, silent, yey
So last, the controller. Huge plug to DZWM's thread on his DIY controllers, I ultimately copied his CAT4101 design. I wish I took a pic before I sealed it in it's box, but there's not much to see. It's just a few CAT 4101 chips, a through-hole breadboard and a few resistors/capacitors. The controller is heat-sunk directly to the main heatsink and all sealed up from the seawater environment. There was a little soldering trickery I had to do in figuring out a cheap/easy power supply for it to convert the 24v supplies I had to 5V for the controller, but once I had that down, all was well. Right now the controller is just on/off, no sunlight/sunset, but it's just two wires I have to change for that to happen, and that's another project entirely
. Anyways here's a pic looking down the end of the fixture.
Notice the mixture of optics. Tighter ones on the sides where the tank is deeper and wider ones around the middle where it's shallower. I brought it over to ARC to test the PAR and it's hard to measure exactly since it's such a point-light type source. Near the surface under the area with wider optics the PAR is VERY high, around 300-600 depending on where you are in the "grid". Once you go deeper it gets less spotty and more blended. The middle of the tank is around 180 PAR and the bottom is about 120 which is just a bit more light than I used to have and the color is PHENOMENAL!. It's exactly the mix of blue that makes the colors pop and bright enough to not look blue/dull. Soooo cool. My point-and-shoot doesn't do it justice, but this overhead shot of one of my brains does, so check it
All in all I'm absolutely thrilled with the way it turned out. The energy usage is a JOKE compared to the halides, as is the heat. Before my halides used 500 watts on my meter, now the LED's use 180. And I never had a problem with heat all summer. Sure the cooling fans kicked on but the tank never got over 81F that I noticed. It's now been 4 months since I've had the LED's and coral growth and health has been very similar to my old halide setup. All told I spent about $350 on the project which I figure will pay for itself in bulbs and electricity in a year or so. And now when I reach my hand in the tank, I don't have to worry about burning my forearm off
.
