LA Laker Turbinaria
For all you LED haters out there check this out...
- Thread starter canar
- Start date
LA Laker Turbinaria
moon jelly
Active member
Looking awesome canar!!!! I need to get out there to see the tank in person 
Daimyo68
Active member
Here's a buyer for your chiller: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2322179
canar
Addicted to bright lights
We use Cat6 for POE at work for all kinds of stuff. When I looked at the specs of POE+ and compared it to the drivers the specs were similar. A buddy of mine works at Commscope and I double checked with him as well.
Basically each heat sink can have up to 4 drivers the way I laid it out. Since one cat6 cable has 8 wires it was able to run 4 drivers no problem. I made a small board for each heat sink and mounted the drivers on it. I then used terminal strips to attach the wires from the drivers. The other end of the terminal strips I used the cat6 which runs from under my cabinet through the canopy to each heat sink. The wires run cool and have had no problems at all. At one point I was looking at putting some kind of plug at each end but I could not find anything online I was happy with.
Basically each heat sink can have up to 4 drivers the way I laid it out. Since one cat6 cable has 8 wires it was able to run 4 drivers no problem. I made a small board for each heat sink and mounted the drivers on it. I then used terminal strips to attach the wires from the drivers. The other end of the terminal strips I used the cat6 which runs from under my cabinet through the canopy to each heat sink. The wires run cool and have had no problems at all. At one point I was looking at putting some kind of plug at each end but I could not find anything online I was happy with.
canar
Addicted to bright lights
Ok so my tank is ten feet long by three feet wide. As you can see I have a center overflow. If you notice I built long narrow heat sinks to run along the sides of the overflows. On the end you can see the heat sinks are mounted on the exact same angle as the rock work. I have one large rock that always wound up shadowed when I ran halides. I now have a small heat sink on that area angling at the side of that rock. Its lit up nice now and I have frags growing there too.
Your display looks amazing and impressive. I actually went from LED's to MH. I think LEDs are the future but not now. Its great people are getting them and making things with them, how else will the technology evolve without trial and error. What LED's lack right now is its fixture size and practicality. You have to buy dozens if not hundreds of 3 watt lights and literally run them up and down you're entire canopy and solder them all together and drive the correct lines based on the color which may have different amperage needs. Being able to do that in a DIY setup is amazing craftsmanship and a PITA at the same time. I replaced 60 LEDs, 4 drivers, 2 big heat sinks, 120+ solder contacts, 60 lenses with just 2 bulbs, 2 reflectors and 2 ballasts. That is far more practical hands down. I think the pendant style LEDs lights like Kessil and the dreamchip (multichip) will be where LED's finally make some new headway in the market and you can start to see the manufacturers like Ecotech heading that way too. LED makers need to start beefing up these lights so I can take one light that covers a 20"x20" area and be driven by one driver, then you got something. At least that's my take on it. Nice work!
Great looking display. I have MH and LED's. Starting with 2 kessil 360W fixtures, they are very complact. Could you tell me your total LED power consumption? I work for an LED lighting company that speciallzes in replacing traditional metal halide and based on what I have seen a 50% savings should be expected but no more. I think the failures come from lack of good light intensity and distribution due not enough LED or bad beam angles. I'll be transitioning to LED over the next 2 years, one thing I light about the kessills they are compact and powerful with good spectrum. There is some shadowing but I can fix when I install enough fixtures over my 240g.
Mike
Mike
greendougan
New member
Dang man that looks awesome. Nice job
Amazing looking tank, however as vpaul79 pointed out and as other threads have, the issue is coverage and lack of it with current comerical units. How much wattage are you running? Its a bold statement to say led haters. I to am like vpaul where I was running 6 led fixtures and had nothing but problems, so I went back to metal halides and to either diy or buy the ammount of fixtures to actual cover my tank was way to expensive.
canar
Addicted to bright lights
Ok currently I have 6 heat sinks in there. Three are at about 180W Two are at about 160W and the last one is about 55W. That adds up to less than 1000W. Granted to be fair I could probably use one more heat sink with LED's in the back half of my tank adding another 180W. So even with that I would say I am easily under 1200W.
Now for my old setup. I had ten 400W MH and four 60 Watt Actinic tubes running. That's 4240 watts. Every 4-6 months I had to buy 10 new bulbs @ $100 each and 4 new bulbs at $40 each. That's $1160 every 4-6 months. I think my savings are a LOT better than 50%
canar
Addicted to bright lights
Thanks buddy. It took me almost 2 years to get over that happening. :sad2:
canar
Addicted to bright lights
I agree with this 100%. LED's are not for everyone. This is like a double edged sword. My application is a big tank with a good sized canopy. Because of that LED's are perfect. When I ran the halides I had a lot of shadows. That's because the bulbs were evenly spaced throughout the canopy. Now I am able to manipulate where the light goes. My lights follow my rock work right now. There was no way to do that with the halides. Doing that in a fixture is always going to be crazy hard. Even now when you think about it if I change my aquascape I will need to move my lights. In the end I believe the extra effort is worth the results.
Ted
Similar threads
