Finally finished - DIY LED

[Stusdesktop]

Well I finally got the LED fixture finished and hung this morning, nothing like a deadline to get things finally moving. These are going over a 90g that will be going on the stand tomorrow afternoon.

The LED's are currently 62 inches from the floor with the option to raise/lower them with the chain length. There is a single power cord off the back of the fixture which allows all of the wiring to be unplugged and the fixture moved easily. Six drivers running on 4 separate plugs will allow for staggered lighting schedules with each plug running a certain color mix.

#1 Royal Blue
#2 White Mix
#3 True Violet/Pink
#4 Blue/Turquoise

Changing out different LED's is just a matter of un-soldering the stars and adding in whatever color seems to be needed. Right now I think I may need to pull a couple of pinks in exchange for reds and possibly a couple of blues for greens. That's down the road once the tank has been running for a while though, at least 10 weeks as I have major surgery coming up and will be limited to a 5 lb lifting limit for a couple of months.

Onto the pictures:

Hung Fixture

DIY LED 002 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Top of fixture showing fans (Minor screw up here, I was hoping to have the fans inside the fixture but the amount of wiring inside made that impossible).

DIY LED 004 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

One half of the LED's from under the fixture, mirrored over the other half of the tank.

DIY LED 005 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Continued in next post.

 

[Stusdesktop]

Continued:

Royal Blue String (Min power)

DIY LED 008 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Royal Blue String (Min Power @ 62 inches)

DIY LED 019 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

White String (Min power)

DIY LED 011 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

White String (Min power @62 inches)

DIY LED 022 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Violet/Pink string (Min power)

DIY LED 010 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Violet/Pink string (Min power @ 62 inches)

DIY LED 017 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Blue/Turquoise string (Min power)

DIY LED 014 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

Blue/Turquoise string (Min power @ 62 inches)

DIY LED 016 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

 

[saltyscotsman]

looks really good

 

[ReeferSteve78]

I like the layout and looks very good.. Hope to see it with the tank

 

[SkiFletch]

Very cool. some really good work there man. What did you do for drivers and what kind diodes are there?

 

[Stusdesktop]

All Bridgelux LED's (from aquastyle) except for the true violets (from clay-boa)

The driver's are actually inside the fixture, 6 maxwellen (again from aquastyle). The fans are blowing into the fixture cooling the back of the aluminum plate heat sinks and vent through a gap between the heat sinks downwards and upwards from either end of the acrylic. There are 4 pots on one end of the fixture for dimming each of the 4 color groups. Been running all 4 strings at about 50% power now for 2 hours and the heat sinks are at room temp, can place fingers anywhere on the fixture and not tell it's running.

Basically I wanted to set it up with a single connection point on the rear of the fixture. Right now it's pull one plug and the fixture can be carried away by a single person with no wires trailing. I'm using 10 strand outdoor sprinkler wire (16 awg) for the power lead, at one end it goes into a 120v rated 12 pin molex connector. At the other end it splits into 4 separate power leads to power each string and the last 2 wires split off into a wall wart for the fans.

Tomorrow the stand should come in from the garage (minus doors as I need to do a little more trimming to those). As long as my muscle shows up the tank will be on the stand in the afternoon. My Christmas present was a universal rocks background (60 inches x 24 inches) that I'm hoping to silicone into place Monday and plumb the sump and reactor manifold. That will give me just enough time (I hope) to cure the silicone, stack the rock (100lbs of Marco) add the water and start the cycle before I'm out of service. If timing doesn't work the brutes and RODI will come upstairs and I'll make the water right next to the tank.

I have everything stacked and ready to go, rock, sand, plumbing supplies, controller, sump, DJ power strip and stand lighting already in the stand. Should have been running long ago but summer happens and there is no time to slow down, winter happens and it's too cold to work outside.

 

[Stusdesktop]

Got a little excited and tossed the sump up on a table to see, this is all strings running at approx 35%.


tank led 001 by Em & Stu, on Flickr

The stand is higher than the table so I may need to lift the fixture. Ideally I want to aim for about 12 inches over the tank as my final point. I do see another "oops" in the picture. I'm going to need to pull the acrylic front and sides and hit it with more Krylon. It's gloss black and looks great until the lights go on, then you can see through it ...dang.

 

[SkiFletch]

Hah, yeah LED's dump a LOT of light don't they? It's great in the summer too when they don't bake your house :lol:.

 

[solRNY]

nice DIY! good job on the wiring, barely see any