DIY LEDs - The write-up

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Do you have any experience with the endor stars? I am thinking about them for my 110 tank. I was thinking on a 24" heatsink, 4 of those white endo stars spaced 6" apart with 4 endo star blues in between? My fixture would be 2 of these heat sinks with 4 meanwell drivers because I think each meanwell can handle 4 of those endostars at 48v. I'm just wondering if this spacing would lessen the light. Also if anyone knows how blue the blue is, because the royal blues are just amazing.
 
Do you have any experience with the endor stars? I am thinking about them for my 110 tank.

I was thinking on a 24" heatsink, 4 of those white endo stars spaced 6" apart with 4 endo star blues in between? My fixture would be 2 of these heat sinks with 4 meanwell drivers because I think each meanwell can handle 4 of those endostars at 48v.

I'm just wondering if this spacing would lessen the light. Also if anyone knows how blue the blue is, because the royal blues are just amazing.
 
Hello,
Great Thread! I am in planning stages of building a fixture for my 75 mixed reef. Would it be sensible to use 700ma buckpucks for all my LED's with optics so I dont get to much light and bleach my corals?
I know that Soundwave put optics on his but I dont remember if he took them off due to spotlight affect or because it was to much light.
Right now I am planning on using 24 white and 24 royal blues on each side.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Alan
 
Nice MerDoX! So when you gonna ditch the T5s? :D



anj1204;
You can use the 700mA and turn them down if you get an adjustable BP. Or the 1000mA. It depends on the LEDs you use.

If they're spec'd at 350mA but can go to 700mA then use the 700ma. If they're spec'd at 700mA and can go to 1000mA go with the 1000mA.
 
You understand that you need to do surface mount soldering to use those? And that you cannot just run wires to their pins? They must be soldered onto a correctly laid out circuit board?
 
^ i wondered about that.....is there a reason that is the case??

i saw the buckpucks w/ the pins & they sell a plug-on wire harness, so figured you could just solder wire to the pins....as long as you kept them from touching each other
 
They depend heavily on a large pad underneath the chip to conduct the heat to a larger board copper plane that acts as a heat sink for the chip. Not easy to solder!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15285641#post15285641 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by james3370
^ i wondered about that.....is there a reason that is the case??

i saw the buckpucks w/ the pins & they sell a plug-on wire harness, so figured you could just solder wire to the pins....as long as you kept them from touching each other
Click to expand...

James, take a look at the spec sheet for the part he listed - it's a raw SMT IC, *not* a finished product like the buckpuck drivers. Besides te fact that you can't just solder wires to the pins on the chip and run LEDs, it's not even a finished product - it would require several external components correctly matched to your desired configuration in order to work correctly.

Do you have any experience with the endor stars? I am thinking about them for my 110 tank.
Click to expand...

I have no personal experience with them, but from the Rebel datasheets, they look more or less comparable to a Q5 bin Cree XR-E, except of course they are physically small enough - which means you can fit three on a star. So you're getting three times the output from a single star. You suggested 4 of them at a 6" spacing - I can't confirm this with personal experience, but I would guess that would be wide enough that you'd get some dropoff between the stars - might be worthwhile to think of a closer spacing, and more chips. IMHO the reason to use these 3-up stars is when you have an application where you want to fit a lot of light into a small physical space. For a traditional layout across a big open tank top, I would only use these if I wanted extremely intense light, and was going to use a conventional spacing (i.e. 2" or so) but wanted far more output than single-emitter chips.

Also if anyone knows how blue the blue is, because the royal blues are just amazing.
Click to expand...

Again, no personal experience, but looking at the datasheets, the blue rebels are similar to the blue XR-Es, and NOT the same as the royal blue XR-Es. I'm making this statement based on the wavelengths they peak at - the royal blues peak a little lower. That's why, on my build, I'm using some of these blue endor stars, and some XR-E royal blues. I really wish they made the endor stars with royal rebels, but I can't find that configuration anywhere.
 
dipping my toe in thinking about starting a long term build here, could i run something like merdox light strip and change my 4xt5 lamps to all10k, 12k, or 50/50 to get more par but still get the actnic bennifit from the leds? I think that color is awesome!

Merdox, What did that project run you?
 
and for a 140cm * 65cm *75cm h (55*25,5*30h) how many leds would you think are going to be necessary? the is a dsb tank, mainly Sps, and some lps, so it does need lots of light... help me out.. how many blue, how many white..

thanks to all..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15287745#post15287745 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Giojo
and for a 140cm * 65cm *75cm h (55*25,5*30h) how many leds would you think are going to be necessary? the is a dsb tank, mainly Sps, and some lps, so it does need lots of light... help me out.. how many blue, how many white..

thanks to all..
Click to expand...

figure 2-2.5" from each glass surface & 2" apart length-wise (2.5 if using optics) & 3" apart width-wise gives you excellent coverage. 50/50 mix is a good combo. also, you are gonna have to have optics for a tank that deep

so.....
55 - 5 = 50 / 2.5 = 20 per row
25 - 4 = 21 / 3 = 7 rows
20 * 7 = 140 leds * $6/per led = $840

optics will run ya $1-1.50/each

then you gotta power it...meanwells or buckpucks & power supplies. meanwells can do about 12 leds per meanwell (about 12 meanwells) or buckpucks can do up to 6 leds per buckpuck (about 24 buckpucks)

meanwells will run ya $30/each for the dimmables, so 30*12=$360

dimmable buckpucks w/ the pot are $20/each, so 20*24=$480
then you need power....(12) 24v/12.5a power supplies @ $24.95/each = $300

as you can see, the meanwells are the way to go on a large system ;)

so.......
840 - LEDs
200 - optics
360 - meanwells
====
1400.00

but you're not done yet LOL....you still need heatsinks. w/out looking at it exactly, i'd say figure another $500 or so for those

figure $2000ish.....granted a huge front-end investment, but the leds should last 5-10 years, so figure what the added electricity & bulb changes over that span of time will run ya & they pay for themselves over time....not to mention the almost zero heat input, so if you are running a chiller, that will almost be not needed (unless you have other issues heating the tank up...pumps, ambient temps, etc)
 
For the meanwells you have to wire a plug to the drivers correct? I was also comparing these with the buck pucks.

I don't know much about electrical stuff, but say you had 6 meanwells driving whites and 6 meanwells driving blues. Could you have all 6 meanwells wired to 1 outlet to go into the wall?
 
Hey everyone, having some knowledge about the photonics industry, I just wanted to make a comment about reliability. . .

It would be prudent to have some relatively easy way of replacing individual LEDs. Although Cree claims 70% output at 50,000 hours, they do not specifically say this is the MTTF. It is is, don't forget that half of the units will die before that time. Even under ideal conditions, I wouldn't be surprised to see some failures within a year or two. Of course, this hobby is not known for providing "ideal" conditions for electronics to live in...think humid, salty air...Also, with all this DIY, the electronics is not always built to strict specifications; current spikes are a great way to kill LEDs!!!

Anyway, LEDs are the future of lighting, keep up the good work!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15287892#post15287892 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bigbus
For the meanwells you have to wire a plug to the drivers correct? I was also comparing these with the buck pucks.

I don't know much about electrical stuff, but say you had 6 meanwells driving whites and 6 meanwells driving blues. Could you have all 6 meanwells wired to 1 outlet to go into the wall?
Click to expand...

that is the part i am unsure about as well.....haven't really researched it cause i am gonna be doing a smaller system, so there is no cost benefit to me to do the meanwells, so i didn't go any deeper in my research of them

i think i remember somebody on nanoreef saying they had to have 10v input to turn them on....but i breezed over it so can't be sure
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15287951#post15287951 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by james3370
that is the part i am unsure about as well.....haven't really researched it cause i am gonna be doing a smaller system, so there is no cost benefit to me to do the meanwells, so i didn't go any deeper in my research of them
Click to expand...

For supply power, you could certainly wire multiple mean well drivers (in parallel) to the same outlet. Of course, this assumes you aren't exceeding the specs of any of the components used - if you have a 15A outlet, you don't want to wire 20 or 30 drivers to it!

i think i remember somebody on nanoreef saying they had to have 10v input to turn them on....but i breezed over it so can't be sure
Click to expand...

You are mixing up supply voltage with control voltage. All of the mean well drivers (at least the ones being used for these sorts of projects) must be wired to 120VAC (i.e. put a plug on the driver and plug it into a standard outlet in your house.) Some of the dimmable models are configured to dim based on a 1 - 10VDC signal, which is of course wired to the device separately from the supply power. Other mean well drivers are configured to dim based on a PWM signal, and of course others have no dimming.
 
First I have not read this entire thread and if its been covered I appologize...

Has someone done any testing on an led system like this or commercial and proven that it can support the light intensity required to maintain hard corals?

If so its time for new bulbs for me... something like this would probably be worth the investment... but what I am curious about is this still in the testing were not sure stage or is this a system that is ready to be used???
 
gguertin, skim through the thread. Soundwave has posted a few sets of growth pictures showing his SPS growing from month to month, which is pretty clear proof that it'll work. Also, he posted results from putting a PAR meter under his rig.

if you search other forums, you'll see similar excellent results from others who have had similar systems running for at least several months.
 
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