DIY LEDs - The write-up

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ok it took me several days to read through this thread, so I may have missed some details covered in the beginning... please forgive me.
Got a basic question here:
1. How are you guys wiring your fans? Are you running them off of the same power supply as the LEDs or running them on separate PS?

Also wanted to say, I've been an LED advocate for several years and it's good to see detailed discussion finally.
Also to soundwave,
I don't think the loss of your Tyree Grape has anything to do with your lighting. Perhaps it came from a system with very different parameters than your tank. IME, SPS growth in general has more to do with water parameters and stability than lighting.
I think it would be beneficial for the hobby if a seasoned reefer who has demonstrated sps success (ie. 3+ years colonies) on a particular system to try LEDs. This would help rule out the numerous other factors that come into play when attempting to keep a sps reef.
 
I have my fans wired to their own power supplies and not the LED drivers. No particular reason, just didn't want more stuff piggy-backing on the drivers at this point. Of course, that does increase the parts cost and number of outlets, but an extension cord fixed that just fine.
 
most of the fans comes in 12V and most of the power supplies we are using are 24V. I hooked up mine to the same PS cause its a small light and only needed one fan but I got a 24V Fan
 
fans

fans

I took all fans off. No problems at all. My thermal load is so small compared to the heat sink it doesn't matter. My heatsink barely runs above room temp. and the leds are cool to the touch. See my other posts for actual junction temps. If you have the leds array outside of a hood and used the heatsink usa heatsinks, you don't need a fan in most cases when using cree q5 leds. If you go to the triple led from luxeon than you will need a fan.
 
I received a large quantity of 1 ohm 1% 1/4w resistors and could share them with anyone who is having trouble getting these 1% resistors. I'll use them in series with the Buckpuck loads to measure the current draw. I couldn't find them except from a Thialand supplier & it took three weeks in transit. Jim
 
Question in the interest of saving cash:

I've got a 15 gallon tank that I've been dreaming of putting LEDs over for several months now. I was originally just going to overshoot the intensity for both blue and white LEDs, using 12 cool white Q5 XREs and 12 royal blue XREs, then purchase four dimmable buck pucks to tune either the white or blue down to temp.

But now I'm wondering, what if I just got nine of each, and ran them on three non-dimmable buck pucks at 1000mA? I would be saving the cost of a buck puck, six LEDs and dimming capability. What would the color look like? 14k? More or less blue than that?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15700033#post15700033 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by widmer
Question in the interest of saving cash:

I've got a 15 gallon tank that I've been dreaming of putting LEDs over for several months now. I was originally just going to overshoot the intensity for both blue and white LEDs, using 12 cool white Q5 XREs and 12 royal blue XREs, then purchase four dimmable buck pucks to tune either the white or blue down to temp.

But now I'm wondering, what if I just got nine of each, and ran them on three non-dimmable buck pucks at 1000mA? I would be saving the cost of a buck puck, six LEDs and dimming capability. What would the color look like? 14k? More or less blue than that?
Click to expand...

i had a thought on the one i will be doing eventually that might work for your situation......

* (6) whites on a dimmable buckpuck
* (6) blues on a dimmable buckpuck
* (3) white & (3) blue on a dimmable or standard buckpuck (your choice)

then you still have the color adjustiveness & depending on how you did power for them, you could sunrise/sunset them as well :D
 
I appreciate your consideration. My intention though is to only buy as much as I really would end up using. For instance, many people are buying equal numbers of blue and white LEDs, and putting them on dimmable pucks. But I wonder if many of these people are actually tuning their blue or whites back to half intensity and leaving them there, whereas they could have just bought half as many of that LED to begin with...
 
I have a 60x24x18 tank what would I need to do this. I have been following this for a while, and am ready to get started...
 
akindbro4u: good, maybe we can work some things out together... dimensions I have are the same depth and width... you would just need to accommodate the length of your tank at 12" more.

I guess it's my turn to give this a try. I've read through all the posts, I even took notes, but I am not an electrical guru, although given instructions, I can put just about anything together.

I will be setting up a 48"L x 24"W x 18" Tall Rimless Aquarium. I will be keeping a variety of coral. I currently have a small aquarium under T5s with SPS, LPS and Softies. My new tank will be similar content (yumas, button polyps, candy canes, acans, monti cap, valida) and will most likely start adding more SPS and will add clams which I've had before.

Here are my current thoughts as to an LED fixture:

Description: 6 rows of 16 (front to back spacing 3.5" , 3.25" from glass edge, left to right spacing 2.75", offsetting each row, alternating 2.75" & 4" from glass edge)
LEDs:
- Whites: (40) Cree XR-E Q5 White (or should it be Q4?)
- Blues: (48) Cree Royal Blue
- Shimmer: (4) 3W Luxeons, (I exchanged 4 whites for 4 shimmers "“ I'm thinking this is OK?)
- UV: (4) 3W UV Light (I exchanged 4 whites for 4 UVs "“ again, I'm thinking this is OK. I'm still wondering if I even need the UVs?)
- Moonlights: Undecided; hadn't figured out if folks were using the royal blues or something else. If they are using the Royal Blues, I'll probably just separate out 4-6 of the ones that are being mounted already"¦ would that require yet another Meanwell?
Optics: My depth seems to put me in a category of 'maybe' or 'maybe not'. I am undecided, and I know it affects the quantity and spacing of the LEDs, but I believe with my current spacing and tank depth, I could still put on optics at a later time without the spotlighting effect. I would appreciate some advice on this.
Heatsinks: Undecided. Will need to come up with my exact layout first.
Cooling: (4) generic fans (unless 2 will do?)
Power: (4) 24V @ 6.5 Potrans
Drivers: (8) Meanwell ELN-60-48
Controller: ReefKeeper Elite, RKM-ALC; I see others have done this, and will probably contact them directly for some details, as I'm not sure how to apply this.

I would truly appreciate some critique on my selections above"¦ do I have enough coverage, do I need optics, did I select the correct quantities of power supplies, meanwells, etc., are there better options for saving money, how are others implementing moonlights?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
One thing that jumps out at me, if you are using Meanwell drivers, you don't need power supplies. The meanwells plug directly into household current and have a built in transformer.
 
And then I'm not sure what you mean by "shimmers" A 3 watt Luxeon LED is for our intents and purposes the same thing as a 3 watt Cree LED. Both will have the same propensity for shimmer effect.
 
widmer... on the meanwells vs power supplies... these posts were complete information overload to try and absorb. That's absolutely the kind of help I need.

When I had read through the posts, I had seen that the addition of a few 3 watt Luxeon provided a shimmer effect similar (or better) than what you get with metal halide. I guess I'll go back and read up a little more on that as well.

Thanks!
 
I see a post from evil that says: "The ELN-60-48 will allow you to run 26 LEDs (2x13) at 750mA, and 13 LEDs at 1A."... so I'm wondering if I only need 4 of the meanwells?
 
All the LEDs will produce Shimmer. Those adding a few LEDs for shimmer are adding a few LEDs to an existing Fluorescent lighting system.
 
This set up is viable running 26 LEDs of the 48v meanwell but this means 13 LEDs in Series by two strings Parallel. If one LED fails open in either string the other string will be taking all the current 1.3A which the Crees will not handle long. You essentially wind up frying 13 LEDs because one failed. A chunk of change to replace when in a straight series if one fails open the string no longer lights. Hence replacing only 1 LED vs 14 in a parallel set up.

Now if you add the additional circuitry to absorb the added current in the event of a failure then you could safely do it. There was some talk of this some time ago in the thread but single series strings seemed the simplest to me so I've cleared that info from my buffer.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15702995#post15702995 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by robojet
I see a post from evil that says: "The ELN-60-48 will allow you to run 26 LEDs (2x13) at 750mA, and 13 LEDs at 1A."... so I'm wondering if I only need 4 of the meanwells?
Click to expand...

You would need 7 drivers, each can support 13 LED's in series.

Someone mentioned fans earlier and not running them, I would think that is a very bad idea. I am running 33 Cree's on a 22"x8" heatsink and with no fan the heatsink gets cookin. With a small fan it reduces the temp by quite a bit.
 
"The ELN-60-48 will allow you to run 26 LEDs (2x13) at 750mA, and 13 LEDs at 1A."

This has been mentioned before: Attempting to run LEDs in parallel with a Constant Current drive can result in a LOT of burned out LEDs quite easily.

Stu
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

R
DIY AI-coded ESP32 based aquarium controller
Replies
0
Views
307
ronnyking
R
AquaticReefTV
DIY Cable management time lapse
Replies
1
Views
530
S|\/|S
S
AZBigJohn
New Build... I'm back
Replies
15
Views
446
Dustin07
D
B
Beam Deflection - 15 years and I finally broke down and wrote a how to.
Replies
16
Views
913
BeanAnimal
B
A
Fleece filter bypass problems (Innovitech X filter)
Replies
1
Views
36
Vinny Kreyling
Vinny Kreyling
Back
Top