DIY LEDs - The write-up

[sammy113]

I found these today while sifting through this mountian of knowledge:
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-57/48-Ultra-Premium-LED/Detail

My question...
can I save myself the headache and just get two of these kits for a 72" 125g tank?
I see it has the LED's, optics, drivers, cords.

All I'd need to do is get myself a heat sink to mount them on correct?
And a power supply right?

Yes you can. I recently build a 125G light with 96 XRE. I'm still a little skeptic about XPG's cause what I've heard from people is that they will overpower the Blues so you will need at more blues than whites. At the end you end up spending more on additional Blue LEDs and you were thinking you saved on whites cause they were more powerful... Those kits come in a 50:50 ratio. Also the kit doesn't have optics for the XPG whites, just for the Royal Blues

Other than that, you just need Heatsink and fans. It already comes with driver which connects directly to A/C so you don't need additional power supply (just for the fans)

 

[The Grim Reefer]

Yes you can. I recently build a 125G light with 96 XRE. I'm still a little skeptic about XPG's cause what I've heard from people is that they will overpower the Blues so you will need at more blues than whites. Thos kits come in a 50:50 ratio. Also the kit doesn't have optics for the XPG whites, just for the Royal Blues

Other than that, you just need Heatsink and fans. It already comes with driver which connects directly to A/C so you don't need additional power supply (just for the fans)

I think they seriously need to rethink that kit. Optics on the blue and not the whites is going to create a spotlight effect unless the LED's are really crammed together.

 

[sammy113]

Yeah they need to. I talked to Mike and said that before. Also said to change those XRE for XPE's to match the white LEDs. The ratio thing is really personal likes so its kinda hard to know how many or which ratio offer. That's why I stick to the XRE. 50/50 and Dim to desired spectrum

 

[The Grim Reefer]

I should be able to fire my whole rig this weekend. 53 Royal Blues to 32 assorted whites, 6 Xre Q5's, 8 XRE Warm Whites and 18 XPG's. We'll see how the look goes but I fired up one circuit that was 10 RB's and 2 Warm Whites and the WW's definitely show up in the color. I just hope I guess right.

 

[pheinzig]

Also the kit doesn't have optics for the XPG whites, just for the Royal Blues

Other than that, you just need Heatsink and fans. It already comes with driver which connects directly to A/C so you don't need additional power supply (just for the fans)

1. I dont mind buying myself some optics from a different vendor.
For my 125g tank, i was thinking 60degree optics would be good.
2. About these dimmers...i didnt see any kind of knob/dial...so how does it work?

The ratio thing is really personal likes so its kinda hard to know how many or which ratio offer. That's why I stick to the XRE. 50/50 and Dim to desired spectrum

So why not get the XPG/XRE at 50/50 and dim that as well to blend?
The way it looks to me..ill be dimming the XPG whites more than I would have to if they were XRE's, that's just a bonus in power savings anyways is it not?

I should be able to fire my whole rig this weekend. 53 Royal Blues to 32 assorted whites, 6 Xre Q5's, 8 XRE Warm Whites and 18 XPG's. We'll see how the look goes but I fired up one circuit that was 10 RB's and 2 Warm Whites and the WW's definitely show up in the color. I just hope I guess right.

GRATS!!! I look forward to be firing mine up soon enough as well. Thanks everyone for taking the time to help me understand this a little better. My dad has been doing a lot of reading as well, he has an electrical engineering background, so all this stuff is easy for him to grasp. Hes found a few mistakes in some posts a ways back, something about "His math is wrong"
whatever that means, im not an engineer. Its electricity, not math :rollface:

 

[The Grim Reefer]

1. I dont mind buying myself some optics from a different vendor.
For my 125g tank, i was thinking 60degree optics would be good.
2. About these dimmers...i didnt see any kind of knob/dial...so how does it work?



So why not get the XPG/XRE at 50/50 and dim that as well to blend?
The way it looks to me..ill be dimming the XPG whites more than I would have to if they were XRE's, that's just a bonus in power savings anyways is it not?



GRATS!!! I look forward to be firing mine up soon enough as well. Thanks everyone for taking the time to help me understand this a little better. My dad has been doing a lot of reading as well, he has an electrical engineering background, so all this stuff is easy for him to grasp. Hes found a few mistakes in some posts a ways back, something about "His math is wrong"
whatever that means, im not an engineer. Its electricity, not math :rollface:

You start trying to work with Mr. Electricity you'd better know math or you might let the magic smoke out of your components :spin1:

 

[pheinzig]

Im toying with the idea of getting the raw parts instead of the actual kits.
right now I'm considering a W/B-40/60-XPG/XRE package.
I could change it up of course according to recommendations.
say...45/55 ratio instead. Or whatever would work on a 72" tank.
(Im not even stuck on 100, that number can move up or down as recommended)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I see these drivers on the same site i mention 20 min ago, there is no specifications as to how many LED's they run.
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-26/Mean-Well-ELN-dsh-60-dsh-48P-dimmable/Detail
How many do I need to order if I went this route?
I kinda like this idea better in a way. I get to customize EXACTLY how many of each I get.

The kits I mentioned earlier had just 2 Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable drivers for 48 LED's. Or option B:
4 Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable drivers for 48 LED's.

 

[pheinzig]

You start trying to work with Mr. Electricity you'd better know math or you might let the magic smoke out of your components :spin1:

Ya I agree 100%
Thats why pops is going to be looking over my shoulder the whole way.
I think hes gonna order a retro fit kit for his 29g nano tomorrow as well.

 

[Frode]

Some pics of the my DIY LED project:


Collection of the first materials:

I ended up not using the Meanwell PS, because I orderred PWM-dimmables but needed 0-10v dimming. Instead I got Lumotech drivers. I did not use the lenses either.


These are the leds I used on star-pcb:

The cooling elements:

And off we go.

First the housing, used an air duct from the DIY shop. Cut out a window, glued some strips to hold an acrylic sheet.

After drilling many holes, ready to screw them on...don't forget the cooling paste!

And wire them up. Each cooling element holds 16 LED's. The power supplies can handle 8 LED's at 700 mA. I planned out a nice configuration of the blue's and white's, but at assembling I turned one of the elements, and it all came out a bit simple I adjusted that later...but it was no problem in the first place (see pics) Not using lenses let the led light mix enough.

Soldering finished...first fire up for testing!

Completing the housing with fans and powersupplies:

to be continued...

 

[Frode]

And the rest of the story:

I had to connect a lot of wires, no pics of that proces. In the end everything fitted barely. The end result:

The LEDs are dimmable, 16 by 16. From 10 - 100%. Connected by Simmod to my IKS-Aquastar.

I am very happy with this addition of 32 LEDs to my 6 x 39 Watt T5.

 

[ErikS]

I think they seriously need to rethink that kit. Optics on the blue and not the whites is going to create a spotlight effect unless the LED's are really crammed together.

As mentioned it's so personal it's tough to offer a one size fits all. Without optics the XPGs will over power the blues. I used 20.5* ripple wides for the XPGs and it gives a more balanced look, just about like my Phoenix 14Ks on M80 ballasts (maybe a bit whiter).

What I didn't like (mostly my own fault) was that by ordering the XPG optics separately I didn't get to test fit them = I had to re-wire the XPGs so the lens holders (Carclo) would fit correctly. The lens mounts have two raised areas 90* apart = you only have two places for wires & screws (if used). I had wired them as convenient = my mistake. They also require adhesive to mount & while you can change the lenses it's nowhere near as easy as the XRE version. The lenses clip in, can be a bit of a PITA to get back off. I like the design of the Carclo optic mounts better, they're lower profile & don't give that "funnel" finished look.

It wasn't much of a pain to order them elsewhere LEDSupply ships fast & they're cheap.

Notes - I'm testing my skills & a build, it's a simple 12 LED kit run @ 700mA (LPC-35-700W). Even at 700mA the XPG are retina searingly bright. Using the Mark-1 eyeball they are at least twice as bright as the el-cheapo 2x54w T5 (single reflector) I use for dawn/dusk (what they are intended to replace).

At this point I have not made the final judgement for the full build, I guess I'll have to try an all XRE build :lmao:

All I'd need to do is get myself a heat sink to mount them on correct? And a power supply right?

Yep, you'll need a something capable of delivering 0 - 10v for dimming (or a constant 10v to run @ 100% of whatever you set in the driver).

 

[TheFishMan65]

It should work assuming you can switch some for royal blues. You also maybe near the low end of the LED count. Don't know dimension for a 125 off the top of my head. One consideration is dimming. I see they are dimmable, but does the dimming mode fit with your overall design plans?

[EDIT]
Wow lost a whole page somehow. This was a response to phensig (probably spelled wrong) on the last page.

 

[TheFishMan65]

A couple of people liked this idea so I finished it up. Keep the comments coming.

I have read this thread and several others. I will try and summarize, because there is a lot of reading and a lot of repeated questions. Please realize a lot of this is from memory and my opinions so it could be wrong. Please point out any discussion points and I will try and correct them. I can post the summary periodically so that it is easy to find (what every ten pages?). And thank you to all of the people (too numerous to count) that have supplied this information. And now you have even more to read.

INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM HERE
So if you are still interested in doing LEDs I recommend looking at them as well:

• This thread soundwave’s– just incase this gets posted else where
  This is the first post in the original split. For you those that are new there used to be a 40 page limit to a thread – a new thread was then started until it reached for pages. Etc.
• LED build and PAR readings (pic intensive) - Santoki
• Taqpol's DIY LED prototype build, detailed pictures
• LED lighting on a budget! - kcress
• Widmer's LED Projection System

Related threads that might be useful:

• DIY LED driver for reef lighting

There are numerous other threads relating to builds, but I think these cover most of it. If you think I missed an important thread (highly possible there are a lot of threads out there), please let me know.

LEDs
Which LED
The whole reason most of got into this light scheme was for efficiency. Having said that there have been a lot of question like will this LED work. The thing to look for is efficiency and spectrum. If the spectrum is what you want (matches the bulbs in there now) then you are fine. Most people have picked the CREE led because of its efficiency of over 100 lumen per watt. If the LED you are looking at is not over 100 lumens per watt you probably don’t want it.

How Many
The current recommendation is 1 LED for every 10-20 square inches of tank surface. Fish only could get by with the lower count, and a coral tank would need to be near the higher end. However if you take advantage of LEDs ability to focus corals could be spot lighted and cut down on the number of LEDs required.

Color Mix
Currently the general recommendation is:

• 50/50 for white XR-E and royal blue XR-E
• 40/60 for white XP-G and royal blue XR-E
  [\LIST]
  If I remember correctly this is 14k. If you want a bluer tank you more royal blue. Before you ask, there is no XP-G in royal blue.
  
  Ultra Violet LEDs
  It is believed that UV LEDs are not needed. But if you do here is a source that hlsooner found:
• 
  Those rough guidelines are probably about right [referring to an earlier post]. It's hard to give really specific suggestions because of all the variables, and not every type of LED has every width of optic available (i.e. there really aren't any 60 degree optics for XP-G that I'm aware of). I might cut your ranges a little as follows, for "average" depth tanks (say, 18").
  
  80 degree: anything up to a foot
  60 degree: 18"
  40 degree: 24"
  20 degree: 36"
  anything smaller: on the ceiling!
  
  As noted above though, concentrating the light with optics has other inherent effects besides the obvious one of increasing intensity and reducing spread. The spacing between your LEDs becomes a little more important as your optics get narrower, both from a coverage perspective and a "color separation" perspective. When you have wide optics or no optics, it doesn't matter that you are alternating blue and white LEDs every few inches (typically) because by the time the light hits the tank, it's "mixed" together well. With really tight optics, you can get an effect where shadows look blue on one side, and yellow on the other side - this is because the different colors of light are so laminar that they don't "mix" evenly.
  
  And, of course, you can get the typically undesirable "shafts of light" effect if you use tight optics and big spacing between your LEDs. So, typically, as your optics get narrower, you are forced into a closer LED spacing to compensate for these effects, which COMPOUNDS the typical issues of using tight optics (less light spread and more intensity directly under the LEDs.) Effectively, if you want or need to use tight optics on a larger tank, you are FORCING yourself into a very high output light fixture, because you'll have to increase your LED count (decrease spacing) to get good coverage. The alternative if you really want a lower-output fixture is to use lower drive currents along with the closer spacing and tighter optics.
  
  One final thought on optics that isn't brought up often. As stated above, tighter optics result in more laminar light. As you change from wider to tighter optics, your light behaves less like an MH and more like a laser. As this happens, we start to get some effects that may be considered desirable, but it's very possible for them to become overwhelming with very tight optics. Namely, shimmer and "contrast" in the sense of shadows becoming very, very well defined.
  
  Shimmer is pretty much a "good" thing to most reefers, and you can control/influence it easily by changing the amount of turbulence on the surface of your tank. So it's a non-issue.
  
  Level of contrast in the shadows might be considered a good thing, up to a point. As your optics get tighter, there is less "sideways" light in the tank, which means that corals/rock located in a shadow will get less and less light. Up to a point, IMHO, this can be very desirable - the sharply defined, dark shadows can look really cool. BUT, for people with lots of corals, it can be undesirable if taken TOO far, because lower branches on big colonies will be receiving very little light, which might cause growth problems or die-back for the coral. This can be somewhat avoided by letting your corals grow up in the LED-lit tank, and/or creative effects with LEDs.
  
  Which brings me to my last thought for this post (I promise!). The above "dark shadow" issue could be easily thwarted if a few LEDs were angled with respect to the tank, instead of all of them pointing straight down. To date, 99% of LED builds have been BORING! :lol: The typical approach is to get a big heatsink and spread X number of LEDs evenly across it, then hang it above the tank. This gives a final result very similar to what you'd get with T5 and MH. A perfectly even and vertical distribution of light from edge to edge across the tank. LEDs let us BREAK FREE from that mold if we so desire! You can't bend a T5 lamp to get "angled" light at one end of the tank and vertical light at the other end. BUT that is easy to do with LEDs! Us reef folk seem happy to have actinic lights coming on before white lights as "sunrise" simulation. Imagine a tank where the "sunrise" actually involved a narrow shaft of light piercing the tank in a nearly horizontal fashion. The possibilities are endless! We can position individual LEDs, or small banks of LEDs, at different heights, angles, and positions to get some really cool effects. Time to think outside the box![/QUOTE]
  
  POWER SUPPLIES
  If you are doing a really big fixture multiple power supplies can be a problem. See this post by kcress:
  [*][URL=" http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16978586&postcount=86"]Summary of multiple power supply issues)
  
  SPLASH GUARD
  I think the recommendation is anything under two feet should have a splash shield to keep the spray away from the LEDs.

 

[ErikS]

^ Post should be a sticky ("Everything you wanted to know about LED......). One place for all the links.

Thanks, somehow I missed Widmer's thread (thought I had seen them all ).............though a bit diluted by Mr-yaks-a-lot-but-never-builds-anything :lmao:

 

[TheFishMan65]

You talking about me I only have one string up and running. I didn't list a bunch of threads. I skipped several were someone posted to get an answer and there were only 10 posts. I am also fairly sure I missed some, but these are the ones that I follow and seem to have a lot of readers and posters.

I will try and keep it updated and add anything I missed. I am sure there is some, but it is hard to remember it all. I am a firm believer in read all you can find before you start asking questions. But all these these are long, ideas have changed, and then trying to find them all. I can see were it might be a wee tiny bit daunting for some just starting.

 

[sammy113]

1. I dont mind buying myself some optics from a different vendor.
For my 125g tank, i was thinking 60degree optics would be good.
2. About these dimmers...i didnt see any kind of knob/dial...so how does it work?



So why not get the XPG/XRE at 50/50 and dim that as well to blend?
The way it looks to me..ill be dimming the XPG whites more than I would have to if they were XRE's, that's just a bonus in power savings anyways is it not?

60 degree optics are ok
For meanwells you'll have to do your own boad/ dial to dim the drivers. There is another thread which has digrams and all.

Then again, what's the point of buying more powerful LEDs if you are dimming them down to match the blues? The other option is to buy these 96 in a 50:50 ratio and then add more blues? You'll need more heatsink space and a few more bucks. At the end you will dim the whole units cause its too much light and you'll bleach some corals.

The 125G lamp I build is running right now @30% power and already bleached some birdsnest and acros. I don't really think this thing will be running @ 100% anytime soon

 

[skippyreef]

DOes anyone know where I can get heavy duty Dsub9 connecting wire. I bought some off ebay to discover they are 28AWG and that will not ahndle 3-4 drivers. It gets warm with simply 2 drivers on.

 

[Reef_Matrix29]

And the rest of the story:

I had to connect a lot of wires, no pics of that proces. In the end everything fitted barely. The end result:



The LEDs are dimmable, 16 by 16. From 10 - 100%. Connected by Simmod to my IKS-Aquastar.

I am very happy with this addition of 32 LEDs to my 6 x 39 Watt T5.

Where did you pick up your heatsink rails at?

 

[wld1783]

Has anyone found the optimal current to drive the LEDs? Based on my results The PAR and watts seemed linear based on the total current. Just woundering how much more I can push the LEDs and still get 50,000 hours out of them.

I was working with 3 different drivers and here are the results. The PAR and LUX readings were taken at 24" the fixture is 8"x24" with 48 CREE XR-e with 80degree optics.

4 Mean Well LPC 35-700
12 LEDs each in series
296 PAR
142 LUX
122 Watts

2 Mean Well ELN 60-1050
2 parallel strings of 12 LEDs each in series
210 PAR
101 LUX
94 Watts

1 Mean Well CLG 150-48A
4 parallel strings of 12 LEDs each in series
323 PAR
153 LUX
146 Watts


Bill

 

[bstohrer]

Bill,

Thanks for posting the data! Every little bit helps.

Take a look at theis document from Cree. http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXR-E_lumen_maintenance.pdf. Lot of detail, but it should answer your question.

Bob