Diy led

my tank is a ******* tank and the hood is only about 6 inches deep. i emailed them about a light suggestion and they said leds. i will try it with out the optics at first because it is so close but i ordered them just in case. i hope i dont end up with two spot lights.
 
gannmann9876 said:
i got the sealant from led supply.com its called led seal. the site that sold the kits i was looking at reccomended it. i ordered dimmable drivers i read something that they need a steady current of 10v each or they will burn up. is that what the power supply blocks are for.
Click to expand...

I checked out he LED Seal stuff... that looks quite freakin' awesome, to be honest. I'll probably give that a shot on my fixture, too.

I don't follow what you mean on the steady 10v. Could you elaborate?

Brandon
 
when looking into the meanwell 60 48d driver i read something about 10v power supply and thought it need to be reduced to 10v. it has to have 10v coming out to what ever dims the leds. i ordered some 2 ohm resistors and 10v potentiometers to dim the leds but decieded to go with the non dimmable drivers. i didnt want to open the driver up and adjust current. my controller is a rkl and it will not dim the leds.
 
Yeah, they have to have a 10v supply. However, if you use the new TCP drivers from NanoTuners, they have a 10v supply built in. Just depends on how you want to do it. You can make non-dimmable work just the same, you just obviously can't adjust the color except to change LEDs out. :) You could add an ALC module to your RKL for dimming, FWIW. Assuming you don't already have 4 modules on it, anyway.

Brandon
 
The drivers automatically adjust their voltage to match the number of LEDs, Cheng. So long as you don't go over their maximums or under their minimums, the individual Vfs do not matter.

Brandon
 
Won't hurt a thing. :) In fact, they're technically all slightly different anyway. LEDs are constant current devices, so its consistent current that matters. :)

Brandon
 
Let me also add, though, that this is assuming that you're using series circuits, which most people do. Parallel is a completely different beast.

Brandon
 
so Blue and Royal blue max current = 1000mA
White and Cool White max current = 1500mA

if he's mixing them.. it means he's running them w/ 1000mA(or 700) PS... right?
 
Correct. Personally, I run all at 700mAh to reduce heat and (theoretically) prolong the life of the LEDs. You still get plenty of par, although if you want to, you can definitely push things to 1000mAh if you have adequate cooling.

Brandon
 
usually dont you group the type of leds together with different drivers. For example many designs ive seen have the whites together with a 1000mA driver and the blue together with a seperate 750mA driver.
 
that's what I thought Tomstill. but if you are mixing so many different LEDs.. I guess you have to power them using the same drive.
 
You can, but you don't have to. Most people who separate them out are doing so for dimming/color adjustment purposes.

If you run your whites at 1000mAh, and you're using XP-Gs, they're already more efficient. So running them at a higher amperage will mean you'll need more blues to offset it, especially if they're being underdriven. So, IMO, I'd rather run all at 700mAh and save the power and heat and have a more balanced look without having to use a ton of LEDs. Just my opinion, though. Some people run all of their LEDs full throttle, which is also fine if you have adequate heatsinking and active cooling.

In other words, its all completely relative. :)

Brandon
 
Brandon, any suggestion on the heatsink?
I am thinking to use a few 12x10" ones on led group buy, and mount 36 LED on each heatsink(too many?) or how about just C channel from Lowes?
 
I ordered all xpe LEDs. I didn't want to run into any problems running them off the same driver. Now reading this I wish I would have got the xpgs. I also have built the pendants I am going to mount the LEDs to. I will try to post pics this evening of them and tell you guys my plans on mounting them
 
That would probably work, Cheng, but it might be a little dense. Heat-wise I think it would be fine so long as you put a fan on it, though. Are you planning on using 40 degree optics?

Pics would be awesome, gannmann!

Brandon
 
 
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