DIY Lights

T

teenreefer1

New member
Hey guys, I want to DIY this light because they are expensive as you know. They are going to be LEDS. I have been researching, I know how to build the lights and everything, but I don't know how many leds to get. I made an array of 7*4 of Leds(on paper(planning phase)).

Blue Red Blue White Blue Green Blue
White Red White Purple White Purple White
White Purple White Purple White Red White
Blue Green Blue White Blue Red Blue

White - 6500k, Blue - 440nm, Purple - 410nm, Red - 620nm, Green - 520nm

I have looked up the cheaper things and here is the stuff I'm thinking about.

Purple Leds $17
Red Leds 7.06
Blue $5.93
Green $6.24
White $6.93
6x12" Heat Sink & Fixture Kit $65
Cord $3
Driver $10.92
Metal Plates $10

It comes out to about $130
All but Purple Leds are on amazon,purple leds are on rapidled.com , they are all 3W leds...
Is this light setup good enough for a 40 gallon breeder. its 16" deep (or height)
I just want softy corals, maybe something different later on but most likely not.
 
there are some decent posts lately on this topic. prolly won't save as much as you think. what you are describing could be accomplished with a chinese black box.

that said look at the budget bruser led thread thats prolly a page back. some nice ideas on a nice array on the cheap. basically something like this which i'm specing out myself:

Main Blues:1xK16 Royal Blue from ebay (6 bucks, this is equal to 16 3watt leds)
Whites: 1-2 small Warm White COBs (I like the CrispWhites 1202s by luxeon, but there were a couple other suggestions but figure 6-16 bucks from mouser

above will cover your base colors. then add in a couple 3up stars from stevesled with cool blue, cyan, and lime. then 2 Hyperviolet stars. that should run 27ish.

prolly should have 2 of those arrays. since a single array would struggle for coverage over a 36x18 area. i'm going to mount mine in a line on a stevesled HD heatsink is my plan.
 
Several choices out there from sources like you mentioned or rapid, steves, blue acro. Personally speaking you could get multi chip pair, driver, and power supply for a bit less give or take. Like Kampo said I have a pair of multi chip over my 40 breeder and if high enough with good LED's you will get decent coverage. I am keeping Xenia, green button polyps, leather coral, Kenya tree, blue cloves, and about 5 or 6 rose bubble tips (don't ask, they keep splitting every other year it seems).
 
These lights look good but the problem is that they are missing the 420nm and 440nm leds, they have 2k and 10k leds which I hate. I really need those 42n. 440 and 6.5k leds. I think that diy is going to get what I want, it is not like I need these lights this second, it can wait.
 
Buy LEDs from Steve's LEDs, rapidLED, or other reputable places.

Do not buy anything called "epistar" or "bridgelux" (unless it's individual bridgelux COB type arrays from a real supplier like DigiKey) as they have poor efficiency and will often burn out their lenses sooner than you would like... Stick to actual name brand LEDs like Luxeon, Cree, SemiLEDs, Osram, etc. My preferred supplier is Steve's LEDs, and the SemiLEDs and Luxeon Rebel series are arguably the best you can buy, especially for the price.

An array from BlueAcro is also an excellent starting point, and he will customise the LED selection if you send him a message. He is member "Theatrus" on here. Another good choice is Nanobox for premade arrays.

My 20 long has a pair of 24w pucks from BlueAcro, and they run two channels each,, one is 3x 445nm, 1x 420nm, and the other channel is 1x 460nm, 1x "mint", 1x 5700k 90CRI, 1x 445nm. Highly recommended.

Kampo and I are building something similar with the K16 royal blue, but I don't have it finished yet. If you're interested, here's a good brainstorm thread that might be useful to you. I sort of go into my reasoning behind my selection of colors and how I do things on there. I've built dozens of fixtures, and repaired even more, and I've formed a few opinions over the years...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2651007

And here's the dedicated thread on the build I started at the end of that thread-
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2657497
 
Last edited:
teenreefer1 said:
These lights look good but the problem is that they are missing the 420nm and 440nm leds, they have 2k and 10k leds which I hate. I really need those 42n. 440 and 6.5k leds. I think that diy is going to get what I want, it is not like I need these lights this second, it can wait.
Click to expand...

Friend of mine has a 450 gallon using nothing but black box units running cool white and royal blue. no other colors

He has table acropora growing in that thing almost 2' feet across and clams big enough to snare a small child. He literally gives away SPS because he's saturated all the local LFS stores.

So, tell me again why you need all these screwball colors and what you know that he doesn't? I've run extreme blue LEDs on tanks (LED's with wavelengths between 400-440nm) and they are *pointless*. All they do is make your tank look darker and more purple because you are delivering energy to the coral in wavelengths your eye isn't sensitive to. The coral doesn't care if it's 420nm or 460nm > Molecule absorbs a blue photon and photosynthesis occurs. You can happily run 395nm 50watt Chinese UVAs on your tank and get good growth...and have a tank too dark too look at.

Green is also pointless.

Get a couple Mars Aqua units. Mine don't have 10k or 2k LEDs and the color is great. I put duct tape over the greens and a couple of the warm whites to balance it right.
 
teenreefer1 said:
These lights look good but the problem is that they are missing the 420nm and 440nm leds, they have 2k and 10k leds which I hate. I really need those 42n. 440 and 6.5k leds. I think that diy is going to get what I want, it is not like I need these lights this second, it can wait.
Click to expand...

Which lights are you talking about?
The ones I linked to had what you "want"..
 
lingwendil said:
An array from BlueAcro is also an excellent starting point, and he will customise the LED selection if you send him a message.
Click to expand...

I'll second the Blue Acro's. I have 4 of the 48w stars over my 240 gallon which is 30" deep and they are perfectly fine. I have a pair of older 4 channel multi chips from Rapid that I am also using and with the 6 have enough control and lighting. If I need more I'll throw in another pair of Acro's and call it a day after I buy another Mean Well power supply since I'm about maxed now.
 
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