KashAlp
New member
Ok first of all id like to apologize. Im not very good at these "build" threads, they turn out more just being pictures from time to time of the progress and even those are vague as i get so into the work that i forget "its time to take a pic" lol. Anyways ill give it another shot and do my best.
1. Right of the bat i got pretty lucky and scored a nice canopy to house my leds in. A friend of mine had the 6' Aqua Media AquaSpaceLite fixture that he had over his 180g with 3 250w MH and 4 pc's. About a $1500.00 setup. Turns out that his lights totally blew and they have discontinued this fixture so he was just going to throw it out (also because we went to LED's also). So I grabbed it up for my future project and been holding it for a while. After gutting it and shedding about 100lbs in ballasts and other components I had a nice aluminum shell that also would double as a heat sink for me LEDS.
2. Time to order the parts and draw up a VERY ROUGH schematic of how i was going to lay everything out. After seeing other builds i really liked the "linear" approach and how it would be very easy to expand or subtract the light strips in the future if need be. Also since we just bought and moved into a brand new home, i wanted to keep the cost down a bit so i am doing my built to 2 parts. I decided to go with 48 LEDs to start and will be adding an additional 48 within the next couple weeks.
Heres my parts list:
20 Cool White Cree XP-G R5 LEDs (6.60$ x 20= 132$)
28 Royal Blue Cree XP-E LEDs (6.50$ X 28=182$)
4 Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable drivers (45x4=180)
Sekisui 5760 thermal tape (free)
Correct size wire for soldering between leds ( 10$)
9.5V regulated walwart adapter (12$)
2 X 10K linear Potentiometer (4$ X 2= 8)
2 X 70" aluminum 1"x1" "C" channel ($15 )
Total: $544.00 ordered locally so i didnt pay any taxes, duty, or shipping charges.
The ELN-60-48D drivers can handle upto 12 LEDs and because i went with a 60/40 (28 blue / 20 white) ratio blue/white i had to include 4 blues into the white strips. As you can see by the drawing below i spaced them out evenly so that when just white leds are on (not that that ever happens) the 4 blue are blended in nicely and dont make one side of the tank unevenly lit.
** IMPORTANT ** White and Blue leds operate at different mA. The blues are rated for 1000mA while the whites are rated for 1500mA. I did however turn them back just to be safe and extend longevity to blue 800mA and white 1000mA. However if you choose to run them at their full values be sure never to put blue in series with white run at whites rated mA as you will over power it and burn it out. You can although run whites in series with blues operating at blues rated mA. You do this by opening the meanwell drivers and adjusting the internal pot.
Everything laid out, arranged, and tidy to start (lol that didnt last long)
3. Next begins the tedious job of cutting and attaching all the thermal tape to the back of the leds and placing them on the heat sink c channel. I also went with thermal tape instead of the glue for future maintenance incase i needed to replace some leds. After that i cut and stripped all my wires and tinned them all along with the leds. That was the longest part of the build by far! It was recommended to me to solder the wires to the leds before attaching them to the heat sink but I found with them attached it was alot easier to work with as they didnt move around on me. As long as i get the iron hot enough it wasnt really a problem, but i do think it took a bit longer then usual to solder because the heat sink did its job really well and stole alot of the heat as soon as you made contact.
4. Finally! all the soldering done. Was now time to start working on the dimmable control box. I picked up a black plastic project box from the Source in molson park to fit all the wiring in and keep everything nice and tidy.
The electrical tape was only temporary for testing and setting the meanwell drivers. Before i closed the box permanently I soldered and heat shrinked all connections.
Work area not so tidy anymore
Once finished adjusting and setting the correct mA for every driver and making sure all connections were good. Time to close up the box and VOILA! A nice and neat controller for my leds. Top potentiometer controls blue and bottom white. I can now adjust each color individually and set the tank lighting K to whatever i feel like.
* continued on next post (only allowed 10 images per post)...........
1. Right of the bat i got pretty lucky and scored a nice canopy to house my leds in. A friend of mine had the 6' Aqua Media AquaSpaceLite fixture that he had over his 180g with 3 250w MH and 4 pc's. About a $1500.00 setup. Turns out that his lights totally blew and they have discontinued this fixture so he was just going to throw it out (also because we went to LED's also). So I grabbed it up for my future project and been holding it for a while. After gutting it and shedding about 100lbs in ballasts and other components I had a nice aluminum shell that also would double as a heat sink for me LEDS.
2. Time to order the parts and draw up a VERY ROUGH schematic of how i was going to lay everything out. After seeing other builds i really liked the "linear" approach and how it would be very easy to expand or subtract the light strips in the future if need be. Also since we just bought and moved into a brand new home, i wanted to keep the cost down a bit so i am doing my built to 2 parts. I decided to go with 48 LEDs to start and will be adding an additional 48 within the next couple weeks.
Heres my parts list:
20 Cool White Cree XP-G R5 LEDs (6.60$ x 20= 132$)
28 Royal Blue Cree XP-E LEDs (6.50$ X 28=182$)
4 Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable drivers (45x4=180)
Sekisui 5760 thermal tape (free)
Correct size wire for soldering between leds ( 10$)
9.5V regulated walwart adapter (12$)
2 X 10K linear Potentiometer (4$ X 2= 8)
2 X 70" aluminum 1"x1" "C" channel ($15 )
Total: $544.00 ordered locally so i didnt pay any taxes, duty, or shipping charges.
The ELN-60-48D drivers can handle upto 12 LEDs and because i went with a 60/40 (28 blue / 20 white) ratio blue/white i had to include 4 blues into the white strips. As you can see by the drawing below i spaced them out evenly so that when just white leds are on (not that that ever happens) the 4 blue are blended in nicely and dont make one side of the tank unevenly lit.
** IMPORTANT ** White and Blue leds operate at different mA. The blues are rated for 1000mA while the whites are rated for 1500mA. I did however turn them back just to be safe and extend longevity to blue 800mA and white 1000mA. However if you choose to run them at their full values be sure never to put blue in series with white run at whites rated mA as you will over power it and burn it out. You can although run whites in series with blues operating at blues rated mA. You do this by opening the meanwell drivers and adjusting the internal pot.
Everything laid out, arranged, and tidy to start (lol that didnt last long)
3. Next begins the tedious job of cutting and attaching all the thermal tape to the back of the leds and placing them on the heat sink c channel. I also went with thermal tape instead of the glue for future maintenance incase i needed to replace some leds. After that i cut and stripped all my wires and tinned them all along with the leds. That was the longest part of the build by far! It was recommended to me to solder the wires to the leds before attaching them to the heat sink but I found with them attached it was alot easier to work with as they didnt move around on me. As long as i get the iron hot enough it wasnt really a problem, but i do think it took a bit longer then usual to solder because the heat sink did its job really well and stole alot of the heat as soon as you made contact.
4. Finally! all the soldering done. Was now time to start working on the dimmable control box. I picked up a black plastic project box from the Source in molson park to fit all the wiring in and keep everything nice and tidy.
The electrical tape was only temporary for testing and setting the meanwell drivers. Before i closed the box permanently I soldered and heat shrinked all connections.
Work area not so tidy anymore
Once finished adjusting and setting the correct mA for every driver and making sure all connections were good. Time to close up the box and VOILA! A nice and neat controller for my leds. Top potentiometer controls blue and bottom white. I can now adjust each color individually and set the tank lighting K to whatever i feel like.
* continued on next post (only allowed 10 images per post)...........
