RTMA
DIY Fanatic
Wow how did I miss that! Congratz RJ! Hope Mom and Baby are doing well!
I'd also like to thank our Host and hostess. It was a wonderful time.
Feb 21st Meeting
- Thread starter tank o tang
- Start date
Wow how did I miss that! Congratz RJ! Hope Mom and Baby are doing well!
I'd also like to thank our Host and hostess. It was a wonderful time.
terahz
1x10^12 Hz
Congrats RJ! No worries about the LEDs, just say when you want to do them and we'll figure it out
Thanks everyone. It was a pleasure hosting the meeting and I'm glad you had fun and that you learned something. I'll be happy to help anyone setup their own LED lights and controller and host another meeting anytime.
On a side note, sorry for taking so long to put up the notes from the meeting up that I promised. I've published them on our website http://www.arksc.org/. I didn't post them here on RC directly because we can't edit posts and this document will probably change with time.
Obi-dad
Active member
I ordered a few LEDs and assorted parts just to play with, and now I have spots in front of my eyes :lol: - they are wicked bright! And I only had the guts to turn them up to 700ma (using a 1000ma buckpuck and didn't want to risk burning out the LEDs).
Georgi, your individual heatsink idea works great. I had them at 700ma with no fan, and they only got about 15 degrees above ambient temp. And that way you can aim each LED however you want, as opposed to those monster heatsinks that everyone else seems to be using. Those monster heatsinks may be overkill for the heat duty anyway (and much heavier to support in a canopy).
This is great fun, can't wait to build an arduino!
Georgi, your individual heatsink idea works great. I had them at 700ma with no fan, and they only got about 15 degrees above ambient temp. And that way you can aim each LED however you want, as opposed to those monster heatsinks that everyone else seems to be using. Those monster heatsinks may be overkill for the heat duty anyway (and much heavier to support in a canopy).
This is great fun, can't wait to build an arduino!
RTMA
DIY Fanatic
I also ordered some LEDS - 6 White & 6 Blue from Deal Extreme (got them in about 1.5 weeks) Also buck pucks (wired dimmable w/ pot) and 3 Royal Blue Crees from RapidLED. I wanted to compare the blue from DealExtreme to the true royal blues. So far the DealExtreme blues fluoresce the corals really well. Can't wait to try the royals. (Testing with 2 AA batteries)
My Bucks are not in yet, and I was thinking of using Aluminum tubing for the heatsinks. Still have to choose a power supply. This is getting fun. Gotta see how to power the 12v fans too.
My Bucks are not in yet, and I was thinking of using Aluminum tubing for the heatsinks. Still have to choose a power supply. This is getting fun. Gotta see how to power the 12v fans too.
Obi-dad
Active member
For the one-color LEDs the technology is the same so they should look very similar. The white ones can look different because they are not just the semiconductor, but also have a phosphor layer that converts the blue wavelengths to white, and not everyone uses the same phosphor mix.
terahz
1x10^12 Hz
Yes, they are very similar. The RBs are just slightly to the left of the spectrum:
Blues - 465 "“ 485nm
RBlues - 450 "“ 465nm
Attachments
terahz
1x10^12 Hz
Blue light promotes coral growth, green and red light produce lowest rates of growth, so the idea is the further you are away from the green, the better for the corals. The big DIY LED write up thread has all the info you might want, if you're up to reading 150+ pages. Here is the link after the last split:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1678127
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1678127
Obi-dad
Active member
I didn't read carefully enough, I thought he had two different make LEDs of the same color, so I was saying even though different manufacturer they should look similar. I didn't realize he actually had two different color LEDs (Royal Blue vs Blue)
