What Bin selction should I make when ordering Cool White XP-G's from cuttter
R5 brightness bin, and pick the color bin that matches your personal preference. Look in the binning and labeling guide here:
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP_B&L.pdf
Look at the ANSI cool white graph, BOTTOM of page 9. The color bins are shown on a CIE1931 plot. Now, look at a CIE1931 representation:
"plot" the color bins over that representation and you'll get an idea for the tints. Basically, you want a bin that's on or very close to the BBL (the dotted line running through the middle of Cree's chart). Then, pick one that's more towards the left or right depending on how cool or warm you want the LEDs to appear.
Im interested in making my DIY LEDS. My tank is a 180gal (6feet X 2 feet X 2 feet) glass aquarium. I plan to make my tank SPS dominated and i want growth.
1.how many 3w LEDs do i need per 2 feet x 2 feet?
2. how should i space the LEDs on the heatsink?
3. what should be the size of my heat sink? square or rectagular?
4. do i need to put optics? 60 degree or 80 degree?
5. what wire should i use to connect to LEDs?
much appreciated on your suggestion and expertise. thank you.
Assuming you use "best of the breed" LEDs - R5 XP-G cool white and either XP-E or XR-E royal blues - mixed in a 40:60 ratio of cool white to royal blue (more or less 15kk color) and run at roughly 700mA drive current, you'll probably want to be in the neighborhood of 100 - 130 LEDs overall.
Heatsink size - just get enough heatsinks in whatever size/shape you want to give "good" coverage. It's OK if they stop several inches short of each wall of your tank and/or if there are several inch gaps between "panels". So, for instance, you might get 8" wide by 18" long heatsinks, run them oriented front to back, and use 6 of them. Then, just space the LEDs evenly across the heatsinks. There's no black art to this, you just need relatively consistent coverage if you want consistent light.
OR, you could take another approach. Design your LED rig so it is densely packed over the parts of the tank that will have corals, and there are only a few LEDs over areas that will be empty.
You'll most certainly want optics over a tank that deep; which optic will depend on which LEDs you use and how high above the tank you mount them.
Wire - for LED to LED on the array, you'll want something in the range of 22 - 26 gauge pretinned wire with good insulation.
When can we see pics of them in action?
