DIY LEDs - The write-up
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Here ya go
Maria Cornejo" mcornejo@powergatellc.comBased on my experience with these supplies I would recommend using them if you can....
TheCoralNabber
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A couple of questions...
1. Heat wise how do the LED arrays compare to MH?
2. For a 20x20x18 oceanic cube how many LEDs total and what width/length of heatsink would you guys suggest.
3. Has anyone thought of IR controllers to control the lighting? I know that a lot of people do in home theater type installations
1. Heat wise how do the LED arrays compare to MH?
2. For a 20x20x18 oceanic cube how many LEDs total and what width/length of heatsink would you guys suggest.
3. Has anyone thought of IR controllers to control the lighting? I know that a lot of people do in home theater type installations
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
In terms of heat transferred to the aquarium, likely far far less. These LEDs will get hot, and you have to get that heat away from the chip - performance drops off as they get hotter, and they'll last less.
But, certainly, they will heat up your tank less than most other forms of reef lighting of comparable output.
That's 400 square inches of surface area. Following the trends in this and other DIY LED threads (700 - 1000mA drive current, XR-Es or Rebels, 50/50 mix of blue and white, 10 - 20 square inches per LED), you'd be in the right ballpark with 30 - 40 LEDs. Stick on the high end and use optics if you want high light livestock.
Care to provide more insight into what you're talking about? It would certainly be possible to use an IR signal to transmit control inputs from some handheld unit (a remote control?) to the LED drivers, but ultimately you'd have to hack it. Most of the drivers people are using require either a variable DC voltage (i.e. a pot chopping down some reference voltage) or a PWM signal to dim, so you'd have to translate your IR signal into one of those two formats. Or maybe I'm completely misinterpreting your thought?
TheCoralNabber
New member
I'm thinking something like this might work, but unfortunately they have been discontinued from this time. It is nice because it is programmable and can be controlled by IR, I just want to find one that is dimmable as well. You could use a remote to control to turn on/off the lights say if you wanted to watch a movie. Each color and your moon lights could be controlled separately if you wanted to watch a movie (if you have your tank in the same room as your TV)
http://www.smarthome.com/2034WS/Programmable-Touchless-Light-Switch/p.aspx
http://www.smarthome.com/2034WS/Programmable-Touchless-Light-Switch/p.aspx
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
Ok, so you just mean on and off - sure, something like that would be interesting. When I had read your post, I had thought you meant "controllable" in the sense of "dimmable."
kcress
New member
Remember that a MH creates its light by heating metal so hot that it turns to vapor. To get so hot it produces white light means lots and lots of IR. The invisible IR comes roaring out of the bulb. about 5 times more than the light you see. This all hits your water and gets absorbed. Even the IR coming out of the back of the bulb reflects just like the light back and down to the water. This all goes to water heating.
LEDs don't use this method at all. They don't put out light by HEATING anything. They "warm" up but that is not the focus. So a bunch of focused IR does not come with the light. LEDs should heat the water about a 1/5th of the amount a MH does.
TheCoralNabber
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I had thought that dimmable would be really nice as well. Some of the ones that I've seen are programable as well. But then if you wanted to turn it on manually you could as well or with a remote from the comfort of you couch...
JoshuaG
New member
Made a new fixture today, got the acrylic pieces this morning and she is all together. I had way too much light spillage without optics and my old fixture would have just been a pain to redo everything to fit the optics back in, so I went this route.
Like the old one better, but this will do
Like the old one better, but this will do
AS far as the remote control,
I had been building one that utilized X-10 control so you could remote control it... Essentially I was using the Neptune AC3, I had a EE figure out the outputs off of it and then to a controller they would make to decipher the signals, out to a PWM device and power source then to the LED's.
It was a huge project, so to simplify it I have gone a different route using the new System they have (Neptune Systems). you can simply buy the X-10 program for your computer, program in the lighting schedule you like, use the X-10 outlets for power control (ON/Off) and program a remote and you are all set. Issues to consider are that X-10 is not that reliable (or so I hear) and this method would not give you the dimming without further design. I am not sure if you could use the light switches instead of the outlets (they have dimming) the question would be how to use the voltage to control the lighting, it goes from 120-0V not from 10-0V so you would be feeding less than the optimal source voltage to your power supplies (Mean Well or Buckpuck).
Personally I like to have a more solid connection so the Neptune Apex is my answer"¦ http://www.neptunesys.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=40
It has a web server and Ethernet connection so I wonder if you could set up an IR interface to your computer to run a macro and change the Apex config, if not you could use a wireless PDA I would suspect. I do not yet have the controller, I still have my AC3.
JoshuaG, that looks sweet!! Thank you for posting pics.
I had been building one that utilized X-10 control so you could remote control it... Essentially I was using the Neptune AC3, I had a EE figure out the outputs off of it and then to a controller they would make to decipher the signals, out to a PWM device and power source then to the LED's.
It was a huge project, so to simplify it I have gone a different route using the new System they have (Neptune Systems). you can simply buy the X-10 program for your computer, program in the lighting schedule you like, use the X-10 outlets for power control (ON/Off) and program a remote and you are all set. Issues to consider are that X-10 is not that reliable (or so I hear) and this method would not give you the dimming without further design. I am not sure if you could use the light switches instead of the outlets (they have dimming) the question would be how to use the voltage to control the lighting, it goes from 120-0V not from 10-0V so you would be feeding less than the optimal source voltage to your power supplies (Mean Well or Buckpuck).
Personally I like to have a more solid connection so the Neptune Apex is my answer"¦ http://www.neptunesys.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=40
It has a web server and Ethernet connection so I wonder if you could set up an IR interface to your computer to run a macro and change the Apex config, if not you could use a wireless PDA I would suspect. I do not yet have the controller, I still have my AC3.
JoshuaG, that looks sweet!! Thank you for posting pics.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
You can't control dimming via adjusting the power coming from the wall outlet (120 VAC) as with a rheostat dimmer you'd use for incandescent lights. For one thing, the drivers - buckpucks, mean wells, etc. - are designed to give a constant output regardless of the voltage supply they are running on.
The way you have to go if you want to control dimming is to use the dimming circuits these drivers have - NOT by adjusting the main power supply to them. These dimming circuits are meant to take some specified DC voltage range (0 - 10 or 0 - 5 for the mean wells or buckpucks respectively) or a PWM signal. So, if you went with any of the methods you're describing, you'd still have to translate to one of those formats. X-10, for instance, is just on/off. So it won't work. The vast majority of reef controllers are also just on/off, or variable DC for very specific purposes (driving Tunze pumps or the like). Only a few of the most high-end controllers out there now have this capability, and IMHO it's a pretty high price point for what you are getting.
I guess it boils down to being extremely specific about what you want. Do you really want to be able to dim up and down remotely via IR remote? Or, do you want to automate dimming up and down to simulate sunrise and sunset? etc.
IMHO, if you just want on and off, any of the cheaper reef controllers are fine, or just plug in appliance timers. If you want automated dimming or anything more complicated, it's probably either a very high-end controller or a DIY solution. I'm planning on running my nano's LEDs on timers until I can DIY a controller. I'm looking at arduino as a base for the controller - depending on which board you get, you can have 6 - 10 PWM outputs, so you could automate or manually control dimming through whatever interface you wanted.
Since LED is really the first reef lighting technology that takes really well to dimming, I guess it should be no surprise that none of our "infrastructure" (i.e. cheaper controllers) is ready for this sort of thing yet, despite the fact that it's pretty easy to do. . .
The way you have to go if you want to control dimming is to use the dimming circuits these drivers have - NOT by adjusting the main power supply to them. These dimming circuits are meant to take some specified DC voltage range (0 - 10 or 0 - 5 for the mean wells or buckpucks respectively) or a PWM signal. So, if you went with any of the methods you're describing, you'd still have to translate to one of those formats. X-10, for instance, is just on/off. So it won't work. The vast majority of reef controllers are also just on/off, or variable DC for very specific purposes (driving Tunze pumps or the like). Only a few of the most high-end controllers out there now have this capability, and IMHO it's a pretty high price point for what you are getting.
I guess it boils down to being extremely specific about what you want. Do you really want to be able to dim up and down remotely via IR remote? Or, do you want to automate dimming up and down to simulate sunrise and sunset? etc.
IMHO, if you just want on and off, any of the cheaper reef controllers are fine, or just plug in appliance timers. If you want automated dimming or anything more complicated, it's probably either a very high-end controller or a DIY solution. I'm planning on running my nano's LEDs on timers until I can DIY a controller. I'm looking at arduino as a base for the controller - depending on which board you get, you can have 6 - 10 PWM outputs, so you could automate or manually control dimming through whatever interface you wanted.
Since LED is really the first reef lighting technology that takes really well to dimming, I guess it should be no surprise that none of our "infrastructure" (i.e. cheaper controllers) is ready for this sort of thing yet, despite the fact that it's pretty easy to do. . .
Der_Willie,
You are absolutely correct that the controllers can not be dimmed with lower voltage (thus the reason I mentioned that issue) The EE's I worked with figured out a way to read the X-10 signal from a controller and adjust the output to the LED's through PWM... not using any of the off the shelf power supplies, but making their own.
The controller I mentioned has a voltage regulated output that you run straight to the Mean Wells Dimming inputs and you can dim or do anything by simply programming the controller... I am just not sure of the wireless (IR) controll.
You are absolutely correct that the controllers can not be dimmed with lower voltage (thus the reason I mentioned that issue) The EE's I worked with figured out a way to read the X-10 signal from a controller and adjust the output to the LED's through PWM... not using any of the off the shelf power supplies, but making their own.
The controller I mentioned has a voltage regulated output that you run straight to the Mean Wells Dimming inputs and you can dim or do anything by simply programming the controller... I am just not sure of the wireless (IR) controll.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
I'd skip it. I would guess it's a low bin. If it was a high bin, I'm sure they would say so in order to attract customers - note that on all the other DX XR-Es, they go so far as to include a picture of the kit label.
yupgopotty
New member
jimnrose, I'd agree with der_wille. If it was a decent bin they'd give you the full specs on it. I've purchased some cool white CREE Q4's from DX in the past and they worked great but the shipping time is pretty slow.
You're better off going with ledsupply or rapidled IMO.
You're better off going with ledsupply or rapidled IMO.
Thanks guys. I'm sure your right and the price difference is only $1.56 per unit, so not worth the risk. I'll go with Led Supply. I sent Led Sppply and also Cree an e-mail to help me decide between the Blue & the Royal Blue. The blues are rated in lumens/watt (standard rating practice) but the royal blues are raten in mW (I'm assuming it's milliwatts flux). I don't know how to compare the two for light output. The frequencies are very close 470 & 450nm. Jim
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