DIY LED Need Advice

[bcheriyan]

Fellow reefers,

I in the early phases of planning to replace my MH with LED's I have a 125G 72 x 18 x 21 SPS Tank .. There are lots of thread I have read but not sure how we determine these factors ...

1) What size heat sink to use ?
2) How many leds are required ?
3) Is 1:2 white is to blue is better ?

Looks like Cree is the one most used for my setup what type of leds are best ..

Can some one point me to a thread that explains all those choices..

Thx

 

[ghellin]

If you find "thefishman65" click on his profile to see a few LED summaries that will help you.

 

[TheFishMan65]

Did you call? I was getting here; apparently not fast enough.

 

[bcheriyan]

I found the LED summaries. thefishman65 Have a nice adjustable build .. nice LED build you have ..

To thefishman65 and all other led DIY's how do you determine the Heat sink size and How many LED needed for and SPS build for a 72(W) x 18 x 22(H) and the ratio of blue to white .. drilled vs not drilled ... etc ..

Please direct me to some link .. there are too many led builds all are good ..

Please advice ..

 

[martinmcnally]

Check out Modular LED. They have Cree XP-Es plug and play and its way easier than soldering. Same price too

 

[bcheriyan]

Modular LED looks good have any one used this for there LEB build's ..

 

[BigCity]

Man that modular LED does look pretty darn slick and of course I just blew my money on a rapid kit. Not that it won't work but the quick install ability of that kit assuming the LED's and output are the same would be huge.

 

[ghellin]

Check out Modular LED. They have Cree XP-Es plug and play and its way easier than soldering. Same price too

The XP-E cool whites only produce 107 lumens at 350 mA with a max of 1A, where the XP-Gs will produce 139 at the same current with a max of 1.5A. Would be nice if they would use more efficient whites.

 

[martinmcnally]

The XP-E cool whites only produce 107 lumens at 350 mA with a max of 1A, where the XP-Gs will produce 139 at the same current with a max of 1.5A. Would be nice if they would use more efficient whites.

XP-E is 122lm at 1A which is pretty close to XP-G and XP-E HEW is the same as XP-G

 

[ghellin]

Ah didnt see the r3 that the website says, even still the XP-G if driven to 1.5A will produce about 470 lumens compaired to the max of 274 the XP-E will produce at its max of 1A. So 200 lumens difference, most wont run the XP-Gs that high avg is 1A (about 347 lumens) not trying to put down the boards just would be nice to have more options.

 

[reefereef]

WHAT!!!! really why would you buy modular stuff. if you cant solder a wire onto a led star then dont DIY.... I would love to comment on the stuff i just saw on the site but that is not the intent of the post.

To the OP i run 120 leds on my tank, 96"x24" footprint. i run 50/50 or cw / rb and love the color. If i reduce the whites then i loose the reds and purples. i ran 4 30-led strips that were around 7' long, then space the leds about 2.5" apart and spaced the strips about 3" apart. I run a mix of 40,50,80* optics depending on the rock height beneath each led. I have perfect coverage for the tank and sps are growing like crazy. I run two drivers that are dimmable, bought it all from reefledlights.com i went with premium rb leds, and yes there is a noticeable difference from the standard to premium, have ran both side by side. For heatsinks i went to my local scrap yard and found some aluminum window frame material that resembled a heatsink and used it, cost 8$ for all the heatsinks and my leds run about 94*F. I would guess you could run 20-led strips and run 4 or 5 of them and be happy with it all. more leds per strip, like 4-8, if you will be running the leds really close to the tank, 6" or less. I have tested lux readings, with a meter, from various distances away from the led and varying angles, with the 40,50,80 and no optics, so i do have some reasoning why i choose what i did and why i suggest what i do to you.

Hope that helped some.

 

[ghellin]

what!!!! Really why would you buy modular stuff. If you cant solder a wire onto a led star then dont diy.... I would love to comment on the stuff i just saw on the site but that is not the intent of the post.

To the op i run 120 leds on my tank, 96"x24" footprint. I run 50/50 or cw / rb and love the color. If i reduce the whites then i loose the reds and purples. I ran 4 30-led strips that were around 7' long, then space the leds about 2.5" apart and spaced the strips about 3" apart. I run a mix of 40,50,80* optics depending on the rock height beneath each led. I have perfect coverage for the tank and sps are growing like crazy. I run two drivers that are dimmable, bought it all from reefledlights.com i went with premium rb leds, and yes there is a noticeable difference from the standard to premium, have ran both side by side. For heatsinks i went to my local scrap yard and found some aluminum window frame material that resembled a heatsink and used it, cost 8$ for all the heatsinks and my leds run about 94*f. I would guess you could run 20-led strips and run 4 or 5 of them and be happy with it all. More leds per strip, like 4-8, if you will be running the leds really close to the tank, 6" or less. I have tested lux readings, with a meter, from various distances away from the led and varying angles, with the 40,50,80 and no optics, so i do have some reasoning why i choose what i did and why i suggest what i do to you.

Hope that helped some.

+1

 

[martinmcnally]

You are right though XP-G is a higher output than the regular XP-E. I actually have my XP-Es dimmed down a little haha so I think XP-G might be a little much for my current tank.

However I am looking forward to seeing these new XP-E HEW on sale soon. They claim the same output as XP-G and they wholesale for 1/2 the price. Hopefully that will filter down to the end user

 

[ghellin]

Thats why LEDs are so great advances in the technology are made daily!

 

[bcheriyan]

WHAT!!!! really why would you buy modular stuff. if you cant solder a wire onto a led star then dont DIY.... I would love to comment on the stuff i just saw on the site but that is not the intent of the post.

To the OP i run 120 leds on my tank, 96"x24" footprint. i run 50/50 or cw / rb and love the color. If i reduce the whites then i loose the reds and purples. i ran 4 30-led strips that were around 7' long, then space the leds about 2.5" apart and spaced the strips about 3" apart. I run a mix of 40,50,80* optics depending on the rock height beneath each led. I have perfect coverage for the tank and sps are growing like crazy. I run two drivers that are dimmable, bought it all from reefledlights.com i went with premium rb leds, and yes there is a noticeable difference from the standard to premium, have ran both side by side. For heatsinks i went to my local scrap yard and found some aluminum window frame material that resembled a heatsink and used it, cost 8$ for all the heatsinks and my leds run about 94*F. I would guess you could run 20-led strips and run 4 or 5 of them and be happy with it all. more leds per strip, like 4-8, if you will be running the leds really close to the tank, 6" or less. I have tested lux readings, with a meter, from various distances away from the led and varying angles, with the 40,50,80 and no optics, so i do have some reasoning why i choose what i did and why i suggest what i do to you.

Hope that helped some.

Thanks for the Info .. Looks like Leds fixtures you may need to put it above 2 feet is that correct ?. So if we have diffrent optices we we can illuminate the Tank uniformaly ?

 

[DOGGIE750]

Keep them coming

Keep them coming

Hello Brothers,
Been unplugged for quite some time due to multiple additions in the family and several moves from land A to land B and then FINALLY to land C so I've decided to reLIVE and back in the game of REEF. B4 I had 0 kids now I have 4 kids so my brain has been out of business so any help would be appreciated and taken seriously. I had purchased a 400-450ish G plexi tank a while back so gotta DIY the LEDs to ease the bills. What's ur advice.

To REEFREEF, got some pix to share with us and lead us the way. I understand that u have used the Al frame for heat sinks, had them cut, peforated, slotted? Also, I am feeling u on the modular stuff. Pretty expensive if I go to that route. Kindly share where u bought ur materials, LEDs and other stuff.

Tank to be done: 8Ft X 32 Deep X 34ish High in Plexi
Sump: another DIY, my previous glass 120tank. Gotta figure out a way to cut a hole on this thing. It will be divided in 3 stages, Filtering, refugium, UV light (may be) then head up to overhead reservoir (another DIY project) for wave flush down effect.

Oh yeah, should I DIY the P skimmer or just buy one?

THANKS REEF BUDDIES.......

 

[bcheriyan]

WHAT!!!! really why would you buy modular stuff. if you cant solder a wire onto a led star then dont DIY.... I would love to comment on the stuff i just saw on the site but that is not the intent of the post.

To the OP i run 120 leds on my tank, 96"x24" footprint. i run 50/50 or cw / rb and love the color. If i reduce the whites then i loose the reds and purples. i ran 4 30-led strips that were around 7' long, then space the leds about 2.5" apart and spaced the strips about 3" apart. I run a mix of 40,50,80* optics depending on the rock height beneath each led. I have perfect coverage for the tank and sps are growing like crazy. I run two drivers that are dimmable, bought it all from reefledlights.com i went with premium rb leds, and yes there is a noticeable difference from the standard to premium, have ran both side by side. For heatsinks i went to my local scrap yard and found some aluminum window frame material that resembled a heatsink and used it, cost 8$ for all the heatsinks and my leds run about 94*F. I would guess you could run 20-led strips and run 4 or 5 of them and be happy with it all. more leds per strip, like 4-8, if you will be running the leds really close to the tank, 6" or less. I have tested lux readings, with a meter, from various distances away from the led and varying angles, with the 40,50,80 and no optics, so i do have some reasoning why i choose what i did and why i suggest what i do to you.

Hope that helped some.

So I would need around 72 Leds in for a 72 x 18 foot print . I will be going for dimmibale drivers how many would I need fro 72 Leds's ?
Also 3 Heat sink with each has 4 rows. 18 x 8.96 Heate sink .. Does drilled and tapped better. I don't mind soldring .. but this make it easy to remove and replace leds if needed ?

 

[reefereef]

bcheriyan - if i read what you are saying right then no, you dont need to place the fixture 2' above the tank. i have mine at 8".

DOGGIE750 - i picked up the heatsink material from a srap and salvage yard, i will get some pics of it tonight to show you, it nothing fancy but does the job. some of the fram mat. has 3 fins on it and some have 5. I picked up all the led stuff from reefledlights.com . i run 2 inventronics drivers and can drive 60 leds max and output 218vdc. i picked up all the optics, except the 80*, from rapid led. For your setup something like 3 of those inventronics drivers would do you good, can then run around 160 or so leds and use 40* optics maybe some 50* for the parts where the rocks are tall. if you have the room hang the leds about 12" or so from the tank, should give you great coverage.

bcheriyan- check out the inventronics drivers to see if they make one that will drive around 30-40 leds for ya. 72 should work fine, maybe a bit much. I would find material that is around 1.5" wide for you heatsinks, will be cheaper too. I used superglue and heatsink compound for attaching the stars.

Will post pics tonight of my setup

 

[DOGGIE750]

Gotcha

Gotcha

ReefeReef, thanks for the info. I gotta do some research on the reefLEDlights. Normally they jack up the price for the enthusiast like us so my usual step is to divert away from these suppliers. I tend to do direct my attention to the surplus stores like
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/products.asp?dept=1207

Also, can u give an estimate of the cost. Been diggin in Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Power-LED-Aquarium-corals-light/dp/B002N0MNR8/ref=pd_sim_ol_2. Wondering what's the best approach. Seen this on craiglist as well, it meant for grow lights (MJ growers). http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/2545142695.html. Got the red leds, not quite sure if this is applicable to us? Please advice.

Not quite sure about the provided limited technical specs equal to the reefLEDlights yet. Homework still in progress. CHEERS man. Will take pix in the process to share the love to all.

 

[ghellin]

OP use thermal adhesive if you do not want to drill and tap, the stars can easily be removed with a simple tap with a flat head screw driver on the side of the star.