DIY LEDs - The write-up

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der_wille_zur_macht said:
I definitely agree - was just pointing out that there's no way to ground the driver itself, since it has no provision for it (i.e. there's no GND wire sticking out of it!)

We've had the grounding debate a few times, and IMHO, it's worthwhile to ground the heatsink regardless of where the driver is mounted. The LED wiring itself isn't the only potential source of ground faults - imagine if you had a power cord running to a fan, or a pump, or something else in the tank and it rubbed through on the edge of the heatsink.
Click to expand...

Good points on reasons to ground as well. On the other hand if the heat sink is grounded and you have a pump in the tank leaking voltage and you happen to touch the water and the heat sink, ZING!!!!

In short I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. I spose if everything is on a GFCI it doesn't matter anyway.
 
100%hydrophylic said:
Grim Reefer, grounding the heat sink is attaching the green wire from the power cord to the heatsink like people suggested for me?

if so, it sounds like you just said thats a bad idea lol.... or maybe im talking about something different and im just confusing myself?

sorry to be a bother, i really dont want to fry anything though.
Click to expand...

I am not saying it's good or bad. Read me and Willie's last few posts and decide for yourself. There are absolutely valid points on both sides and I really don't want to derail the thread by instigating a debate on the merits of grounding or not grounding.
 
I think if using meanwells I would ground since AC is present and use a GFCI. But if your driver is a buckpuck or some other low voltage DC driver then I would probably not ground (to prevent LED damgae) and still use a GFCI.

Did you get the common idea use a GFCI? Not trying to imply it was not mentioned I just think this is a really good idea. Did I mention a GFCI :)

PS. Grim, I read somewhere before you stick your hand in the water you are supposed to unplug everything.:lolspin:
 
On rethinking. Ideally the source for the low voltage should be isolated (its ground and the A/C ground are not connected). then you could use the AC ground on the heat sink and not risk damaging the LEDs. They are made, but I think very expensive compared to the power supplies from MPJA.
 
TheFishMan65 said:
I think if using meanwells I would ground since AC is present and use a GFCI. But if your driver is a buckpuck or some other low voltage DC driver then I would probably not ground (to prevent LED damgae) and still use a GFCI.

Did you get the common idea use a GFCI? Not trying to imply it was not mentioned I just think this is a really good idea. Did I mention a GFCI :)

PS. Grim, I read somewhere before you stick your hand in the water you are supposed to unplug everything.:lolspin:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I am sure everyone shuts down everything before touching the water.:D
 
Here's a excerpt from the NEC that I could find online ( note the ELN-60-48 is a class 2 power supply ):

"600.7 Grounding and Bonding
The panel rejected exceptions to the grounding section for class 2 wiring and did accept an exception in the bonding section. The panel was clear in requiring the equipment grounding conductor to extend to the power supply location. Other important issues were how to allow an exception for equipment grounding on secondary wiring. The panel and the task group needed assurance from UL that the secondary output could not get directly connected through fault to the primary and that the equipment grounding would exist where the primary voltage would terminate at the power source. Listed power sources shall require a provision for termination of the equipment grounding connection or shall be required to be installed in a listed or metal enclosure. When the power source is installed in a channel letter the equipment grounding conductor shall extent to the channel letter(s) where termination is required.
New exception is as follows:
Exception: Remote metal parts of a section sign or outline lighting system only supplied by a remote Class 2 power supply shall not be required to be bonded to an equipment grounding conductor."


From what I can see this means three things:

1 - the enclosure that the Meanwell is in needs to be grounded ( but "power supply location might just mean the power strip it is plugged into ).
2 - the UL listing guarantees that the DC output shall never short to AC HOT.
3 - The metal parts of the downstream DC legs do NOT need to be grounded.

Stu

I'm sure kcress or Bean will come along and tell us how to interpret this and how the meanwell meets the requirements.
 
I look at it this way. If your AC supply to the drivers or power supply is anywhere water might find it's way into I'd be grounding anything connected to the driver.
 
Building question

Building question

Question for you.

If I am building a strip of 6 LED lights 1w each can I run them on an imput voltage of 12 V?

If I am building a strip of 6 LED lights 3w each can I run them on an imput voltage of 12 V?

The reason why I am asking is I am trying to buy a LED circuit board but they are showing the imput voltage as 12v also they have the same circuit board that could carry 12 leds and the imput voltage is still 12v.

Thanks for your help.
 
Ok, so I've finished reading through every post in this thread along with most of the other major build thread. So my brain is a bit mushy (and forgive me for asking question I know and already read the answers to, I just need further clarification), so I'll post up what I THINK I want to do with my DIY build mixed in with some questions (please if I am wrong about something, or you think there is a better, more efficient way of running the build please let me know!).

It's a long read so thank you in advance for at least reading through it!
First off, my aquarium is currently running 2 250W MHs with 7 T5s. Its 135 gallons with dimensions of 58 inches long; 24 inches high, and 23 inches wide. I have mostly SPS with some LPS and a clam. I plan on having a 3 plated build like Santoki's build. I would hang the lights about 2-3 feet above the aquarium (it has no braces). The 2 side panels would be tilted at ~30 degree angles so that I can hopefully hit the corals from multiple angles that would otherwise be shaded by coral growth. Would a steeper angle be needed?

Talking to Der_Willie_Zur_Macht , we came to the conclusion that 40 degree optics and aim for a total LED count in the 70 - 90 range depending on which LEDs I choose. The thing with the numbers is that after reading a lot of feedback some people experience bleaching with their corals which is in all likelihood due to light shock from having too strong of bulbs. I originally thought I would overshoot it and go for 100 LEDs. But I think I will settle for either 75 3W LEDs to evenly cover my tank at with 60 degree optics. Or 80 3W LEDs at 40 degree optics.

The coloration I'm going for would be a crisp blue that also offers good growth (not a flooding blue) Looking into using a combination of Cree XR-E Q5 cool whites (35%), Cree XR-E Royal Blue (65%). I flirted with the idea of adding Cree XR-E Blue, Cree XR-E Green to give a varied spectrum but it seems most people are doing a mix of cool white and RB so I figured I would stick with that combo. Does anyone have any experience with other combos of LEDs? Also does anyone have any suggestions on my selection for optics and the amount of LEDs I plan on using as well as their combo percentages?


Purchasing:
-I read in LED on a Budget thread that Rapid LED is eating some of the cost on their bundle packages, is this something I should look into getting instead of buying individual parts and assembling it myself?
-When buying the LEDs mentioned above is it a good idea to get the LED w/ the lens already on it such as in rapidled's package they offer? In the end I save 20 bucks, but in terms of the quality is it the same lens as I would normally buy?
Heat Sinks:
-Can any piece of aluminum be used instead of buying a heatsink (assuming the proper thickness and length were available)? I would shape/add on extra aluminum to give it the U shape that mimics heatsinkusa.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1814351&highlight=shackscs
-Or take it step further, how little aluminum would I need in order to effectively cool my setup? I'll be blowing 2 large fans I have across the top of my heatsinks. I say two large fans because its what I currently have to cool my current lighting and they work fantastically and look nice despite being huge.

Optics:
A few thousand pages back DWZM was talking about the poor efficiency of frosted optics. Are there any particular makes of optics that I should be looking for in terms of who manufactures them? Someone mentioned The Carclo 10mm optic run at 80% where as most other optics run 90% efficiency.
Dimming:
-The dimming capability come from running "œD" Meanwells, correct? Is it possible to dim without a driver?
-Does dimming reduce LED efficiency?
-Does dimming shorten lifespan?
-Is dimming only really if you want a sunrise/sunset look, or assimilation of corals?
-When everything is installed and ready to go, how do you dim the LEDs?

Drivers:
-Where can I find drivers at a local store, I called home depot and they never heard of it them (this home depot though isn't the best)?
-Which current driver models should I use for my setup?
- I read in kcress' thread that we can run driverless rigs if we don't want/need dimmable lighting. Does this compensate the integrity/longevity of the lights? (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1751598)



General Wiring:
I've read this fantastic thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672708) but I want to make sure I understand all the info and avoid screw ups (which will happen anyways, lol). I've custom built my current lighting setup without any real flaws and its been about a year that its been running without blowing up so I think I did a good job. But since building this thing I've been electricuted 3 times :lolspin: So even though I am sure I can build this thing. I need to be 100% sure.
-What does tinning a contact do? (I honestly don't know what this refers to, did a google search and I got a bunch of tin can related responses....)
---- How do I do it?
-Matrix Wiring is where the wires cross over one another like in the pictures for this thread?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1815358
----Is there anything special I need to remember when doing a matrix wiring setup?
- What's the most convenient method of getting the LEDs bolted/stuck on to the heat sink? I've seen people mention nylon screws, superglue, thermal adhesive, regular screws, self-tapping screws, 2-sided adhesives, etc"¦ I would want to be able to readily change an LED should one fail, or any other reason in which the LED would need to be swapped.
- If I wanted to mix some cool white XP-Gs with my XR-Es, is there a special way of wiring them so that everything is uniform without a drop in efficiency from any of the LEDs?
- How do I design my wiring so that I can have just one or two plugs to power the whole LED system? I read that I should use a single 14AWG cord. But I say a pretty straight forward diagram in another thread on how to power meanwells. What is the step to make each cord draw power from a single source?

Pulled this picture from: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672708&page=12

meanwells.png


- So I read the post (forget by whom, I have everything I think is important from this whole thread on a word document that is 20 pages long of font 7 text): the ELN drivers have two internal adjustments. You need to pop the case off to see them. One is for voltage - leave it alone - the other is for current. DO NOT run your LEDs any more until you verify that the current pot is set to a safe value. Put a multimeter in series with your LED string, turn the thing on, and adjust the current trimpot to get the output current you want when your external dimming control is set to the maximum value (10v). THEN put the case back together and use your external dimmer to cut current from that max you set with the pot. If you never adjusted the internal trimpot, that explains why your LEDs are getting so hot. You're likely driving them way too hard.
Is there a visual aid for this. I want to make sure I adjust this properly should I need to (from what I read it seems all of the Meanwells need to be adjusted upon purchase).

:wildone::worried::crazy1:

Thanks again guys :thumbsup:
 
Thanks for that excerpt Stu.

Essentially code demands that all metal parts be "bonded" to the system ground. The confusing "exception" mentioned refers to things that are part of a lighting system that are small and distributed. An example would be one of those string lights with umpteen bulbs that's held up with 10 metal clips. The clips are being excused from the bonding requirements.

Otherwise bond it all.

Do not avoid bonding because you may have a clapped-out assembly with bad connections. That logic matches not wearing a parachute on a test flight because the added weight might cause the wing to buckle! Chances are the LEDs won't fail in that case anyway because the output is supposed to be isolated anyway.

You want everything around a tank that's metal grounded because, that is needed for circuit breakers to protect us. If a live wire like your HOT connection to a driver comes loose,(seen this many times), and touches the heatsink you want a serious fault current to flow. Why? So the breaker trips instantly. If you have a poor ground path too little current may flow to trip the breaker. Unfortunately that lessor amount of current can still heat things far, far beyond ignition temperature. Those things can you your cords, fittings, fish, kids, the house, etc., etc.

Grounding the heat sinks also reduces radiated electrical noise from our fixtures.

The electrified water - grounded heatsink situation is a slim but not infinitesimal possibility. But, it becomes a mute point since you are using a GFI outlet to power your system. Right!?!

As far as the NEC is concerned any separate metal piece of electrical equipment must be bonded. The 500 or so annual electrocutions,(electrocution by definition is fatal), are most commonly work related. Statistics showed that they were often caused by coming in contact with un-grounded equipment that had become unintentionally live. Since these bonding rules have been implemented electrocutions have dropped significantly.

If you take any of your electrical appliances apart you will find ground wires snaking to any and all separate panels. They consider any panel that is screwed to another panel - separate.

Be safe - ground. Learn not to burn - ground. Stay cool - ground. :beer:
 
2reefs said:
Question for you.

If I am building a strip of 6 LED lights 1w each can I run them on an imput voltage of 12 V?

If I am building a strip of 6 LED lights 3w each can I run them on an imput voltage of 12 V?

The reason why I am asking is I am trying to buy a LED circuit board but they are showing the imput voltage as 12v also they have the same circuit board that could carry 12 leds and the imput voltage is still 12v.

Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

It depends on the characteristics of the LEDs and what else is on that "board" they're selling you (i.e. if there's a driver on there). "Input" voltage is an ambiguous term unless we know more details - is it the "input" to a driver, or the voltage that the LEDs are being driven at? Are the LEDs in series, or parallel, or some combination?
 
Jay1982 said:
Would a steeper angle be needed?
Click to expand...

It'll depend on how far "out" to the sides the panels are, etc. Luckily this will be easy to change as you experiment.

Cree XR-E Q5 cool whites (35%), Cree XR-E Royal Blue (65%). I flirted with the idea of adding Cree XR-E Blue, Cree XR-E Green to give a varied spectrum but it seems most people are doing a mix of cool white and RB so I figured I would stick with that combo. Does anyone have any experience with other combos of LEDs? Also does anyone have any suggestions on my selection for optics and the amount of LEDs I plan on using as well as their combo percentages?
Click to expand...

With all XR-E, that's gonna be pretty blue if you run at the same drive current - people sometimes use ratios like that with XP-G whites, but with XR-Es you might want to stay a bit closer to 50/50 unless you REALLY like blue.

As far as experimenting with other LED colors, the only other color I've played with is plain blue. It's nice - it makes a sort of pale sky blue tint. It doesn't have the pop of royal blue though. If you wanted to imitate a 20kk MH, you might want to replace 10 - 20% of your LEDs with plain blues. Otherwise, I don't really see anything convincing me to deviate from the standard choices.


Purchasing:
-I read in LED on a Budget thread that Rapid LED is eating some of the cost on their bundle packages, is this something I should look into getting instead of buying individual parts and assembling it myself?
Click to expand...

You'll just have to price things out. Vendors are changing their prices on a regular basis and things aren't always in stock, so sometimes it doesn't matter what price is on the website (if they never have any to sell you).

-When buying the LEDs mentioned above is it a good idea to get the LED w/ the lens already on it such as in rapidled’s package they offer? In the end I save 20 bucks, but in terms of the quality is it the same lens as I would normally buy?
Click to expand...

It is pretty much the same optic people are commonly using, so no loss of quality. FWIW it doesn't actually come already mounted on the LED (you wouldn't be able to solder anything to the LED if it did) but they're easy to connect.

Heat Sinks:
-Can any piece of aluminum be used instead of buying a heatsink (assuming the proper thickness and length were available)? I would shape/add on extra aluminum to give it the U shape that mimics heatsinkusa.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1814351&highlight=shackscs
-Or take it step further, how little aluminum would I need in order to effectively cool my setup? I’ll be blowing 2 large fans I have across the top of my heatsinks. I say two large fans because its what I currently have to cool my current lighting and they work fantastically and look nice despite being huge.
Click to expand...

Yes, no reason to use the massive oversized sinks if you can cobble something together on your own. One thing to keep in mind though is that if you reduce heatsink size to the point that you're absolutely dependent on fans for cooling, you pretty much NEED to incorporate some sort of failsafe such that the LEDs shut down if the fans fail. Otherwise, a dead $5 fan might cost you a few hundred in dead LEDs.

Optics:
A few thousand pages back DWZM was talking about the poor efficiency of frosted optics. Are there any particular makes of optics that I should be looking for in terms of who manufactures them? Someone mentioned The Carclo 10mm optic run at 80% where as most other optics run 90% efficiency.
Click to expand...

The standard-issue XR-E optics are fine. Even the "low efficiency" frosted optics I was complaining about aren't THAT bad, and at a high fixture height they'll do so much good by increasing light in the tank that the few percent of lost light isn't an issue.

Dimming:
-The dimming capability come from running “D” Meanwells, correct? Is it possible to dim without a driver?
-Does dimming reduce LED efficiency?
-Does dimming shorten lifespan?
-Is dimming only really if you want a sunrise/sunset look, or assimilation of corals?
-When everything is installed and ready to go, how do you dim the LEDs?
Click to expand...

ELN meanwells are available as D or P type. Both are dimmable - D is dimmable via 0-10v analog signal, P is dimmable via 10v PWM signal. You need a driver or some other constant-current feature in your LED circuit no matter what - you CAN use a dimmable driver but choose not to dim it, as long as you meet the default requirements of the driver (i.e. some need a signal on the dim circuit even if you don't plan on using the dimming feature.) Dimming doesn't reduce efficiency or shorten lifespan. In contrast, it probably increases both, though the devil's in the details as far as how the driver implements the dimming.

Dimming can be used for a variety of purposes. If you build a dimming control with a knob on it, you can use it to manually change the brightness of the LEDs - that could be used to adjust for new corals, or change the overall look of the tank (i.e. dimming blues and whites separately).

Alternately, you could use a microcontroller to generate the signal, or an off the shelf reef controller with correct outputs. Then, you can simulate sunrise and sunset. Or, even more "advanced" things like random cloud cover, storms, etc. Really, the sky's the limit - I don't think we've fully explored it's possibilities yet.

Drivers:
-Where can I find drivers at a local store, I called home depot and they never heard of it them (this home depot though isn’t the best)?
-Which current driver models should I use for my setup?
- I read in kcress’ thread that we can run driverless rigs if we don’t want/need dimmable lighting. Does this compensate the integrity/longevity of the lights? (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1751598)
Click to expand...

You almost certainly won't find LED drivers anywhere locally, especially not at Home Depot (maybe in 10 years, but not today.) You MIGHT get lucky and find a local electronics supply house that distributes Meanwell products and could order them for you, but in general I'd expect to buy them online.

The most popular drivers are as follows:

  • Meanwell ELN 60 48: 12 - 14 LEDs per driver (depending on LED Vf), adjustable up to 1.3A drive current, dimmable via PWM or analog depending on which version you get.
  • Meanwell LPC700-35: 12 LEDs, 700 fixed current, no dimming
  • Buckpucks, which can run 6 LEDs each, are dimmable and available in different currents, and require a DC power supply (typically 24v).

Running driverless is fine, too, if you don't think you'll ever want dimming. As I said above you do need SOME method of limiting current.

General Wiring:
I’ve read this fantastic thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672708) but I want to make sure I understand all the info and avoid screw ups (which will happen anyways, lol). I've custom built my current lighting setup without any real flaws and its been about a year that its been running without blowing up so I think I did a good job. But since building this thing I've been electricuted 3 times :lolspin: So even though I am sure I can build this thing. I need to be 100% sure.
-What does tinning a contact do? (I honestly don't know what this refers to, did a google search and I got a bunch of tin can related responses....)
---- How do I do it?
-Matrix Wiring is where the wires cross over one another like in the pictures for this thread?
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1815358
----Is there anything special I need to remember when doing a matrix wiring setup?
- What’s the most convenient method of getting the LEDs bolted/stuck on to the heat sink? I’ve seen people mention nylon screws, superglue, thermal adhesive, regular screws, self-tapping screws, 2-sided adhesives, etc… I would want to be able to readily change an LED should one fail, or any other reason in which the LED would need to be swapped.
- If I wanted to mix some cool white XP-Gs with my XR-Es, is there a special way of wiring them so that everything is uniform without a drop in efficiency from any of the LEDs?
- How do I design my wiring so that I can have just one or two plugs to power the whole LED system? I read that I should use a single 14AWG cord. But I say a pretty straight forward diagram in another thread on how to power meanwells. What is the step to make each cord draw power from a single source?
Click to expand...

Tinning means coating something with a layer of solder. You do it by heating the thing up with an iron and apply solder to the thing. This coating is done to individual components BEFORE you solder them because it increases your chances of making a good solder joint.

"Matrix" wiring can mean different things. Generally it doesn't matter if the wires physically cross eachother on the array, the differences are in how the LEDs are electronically connected, in terms of orientation - series or parallel or some combination. Generally, unless you want to experiment, a series configuration is best. So you probably don't want to wire your LEDs in a matrix unless you have a good reason to do so.

Attaching the LEDs to the heatsink HAS to be done in a way that encourages good thermal transfer. This means a method designed with that goal in mind - screwing them with a tiiiiiiny bit of good thermal paste between them is probably as good as anything, but it requires drilling lots of holes. Purpose-designed thermal epoxy (i.e. arctic silver) or double-sided tape (i.e. Bond-Ply 100) is OK, too. DON'T use super glue or anything not designed for the purpose. I've pretty much always screwed my LEDs so I can't speak to removability of other options.

Mixing in XP-Gs shouldn't be a problem - in series, the current will be the same in all LEDs, but the voltage drops will be different - that's not a big deal, as long as the total drop is within spec for the driver.

You can wire the supply-side of several meanwells to a single power cord if that's what you're asking about with respect to putting them all on one connector.

Pulled this picture from: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672708&page=12

- So I read the post (forget by whom, I have everything I think is important from this whole thread on a word document that is 20 pages long of font 7 text): the ELN drivers have two internal adjustments. You need to pop the case off to see them. One is for voltage - leave it alone - the other is for current. DO NOT run your LEDs any more until you verify that the current pot is set to a safe value. Put a multimeter in series with your LED string, turn the thing on, and adjust the current trimpot to get the output current you want when your external dimming control is set to the maximum value (10v). THEN put the case back together and use your external dimmer to cut current from that max you set with the pot. If you never adjusted the internal trimpot, that explains why your LEDs are getting so hot. You're likely driving them way too hard.

Is there a visual aid for this. I want to make sure I adjust this properly should I need to (from what I read it seems all of the Meanwells need to be adjusted upon purchase).
Click to expand...

The datasheet shows the two pots inside the case, so look at that to determine which is which.
 
Jay1982 said:
General Wiring:
I've read this fantastic thread (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1672708) but I want to make sure I understand all the info and avoid screw ups (which will happen anyways, lol). I've custom built my current lighting setup without any real flaws and its been about a year that its been running without blowing up so I think I did a good job. But since building this thing I've been electricuted 3 times :lolspin: So even though I am sure I can build this thing. I need to be 100% sure.
Click to expand...

I do not want to discourage you, but you really need to be careful working with and around electricity. If you are getting shocked, there is a problem! It could potentially kill you.

With that said I always ground everything with electricity and metal, including my T5 reflectors. This eliminates static electricity which mybe all that is shocking you. It can still give a good jolt from my experience.
 
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