LED lighting in my pico reef
- Thread starter Chelsey
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There's a picture of Carinya's tank over on nano-reef. She has commented about having great SPS polyp extension, among other things, with the use of LEDs.
Chadfarmer:
The LEDs will likely be in a series, I don't know how many LEDs will be in each series but i'd like to have a small # incase one goes out. They will most likely be powered by a computer power supply. I also thought about using an AC/DC converter, but now that the electrical brains behind this operation is gone I'll have to do a lot of researching and stuff before I can get anywhere as opposed to just doing it.
Well, I've got all of the LEDs sitting in the grid now. I've still got to permanently seat them but I wanted to wait until I knew exactly how they were supposed to go before I attached them. The black marks on the end of some of the LEDs designate blue LEDs, the rest are white. I think I've got somewhere between 100 and 200 LEDs left over if anyone is interested.
Note to self and others that are about as bright as I am :lol: :
When painting a canopy, unscrew the lid prior to painting and polyurethaning. It took nearly all of my strength just to unscrew the lid and then I had to physically kick the thing apart! :lol: I guess I'm just a weakling
Note to self and others that are about as bright as I am :lol: :
When painting a canopy, unscrew the lid prior to painting and polyurethaning. It took nearly all of my strength just to unscrew the lid and then I had to physically kick the thing apart! :lol: I guess I'm just a weakling
Ok, so here's the latest update (or lack thereof):
I've been at Mizzou for the past month and haven't been able to get much of anything done on the pico. The last time I went home I got the pico started on the cycling...added water, sand, and live rock. My mom has been in charge of topping it off and has reported a "slight odor" coming from the tank. I know I need to do a water change and the silicon is probably curing (since I didn't use 100% silicone ) so I'm not too worried. Besides, my mom has the nose of a bloodhound! This coming weekend (namely Friday afternoon and Saturday) I'm going to Silicon the LEDs into place and yank a power supply out of an old computer. Hopefully on Sunday I'll be able to drop the lighting fixture off at Howard's house...since my "electrician" for this project is no longer in the picture 
D) Howard has graciously offered to take on the electrical part of this...THANK YOU HOWARD! I'll post an update with pics as soon as I have one...probably will be Friday or Saturday
I've been at Mizzou for the past month and haven't been able to get much of anything done on the pico. The last time I went home I got the pico started on the cycling...added water, sand, and live rock. My mom has been in charge of topping it off and has reported a "slight odor" coming from the tank. I know I need to do a water change and the silicon is probably curing (since I didn't use 100% silicone
) so I'm not too worried. Besides, my mom has the nose of a bloodhound! This coming weekend (namely Friday afternoon and Saturday) I'm going to Silicon the LEDs into place and yank a power supply out of an old computer. Hopefully on Sunday I'll be able to drop the lighting fixture off at Howard's house...since my "electrician" for this project is no longer in the picture D) Howard has graciously offered to take on the electrical part of this...THANK YOU HOWARD! I'll post an update with pics as soon as I have one...probably will be Friday or Saturday
Ok, so all day today I've been working on this project. I pulled the power supply out of an old computer and I've been working on siliconing the LEDs in place. if I could do anything over it'd be drilling the holes in straight lines instead of worrying about getting X amount into 1 square inch...it would've made siliconing and wiring SO much easier!
Minor update:
I decided that my acrylic LED board wasn't going to work...I was too concerned about putting 9 LEDs per square inch than I was about straight lines, so it's going to make wiring difficult. I'm going to attempt to do the wiring myself if at all possible, so things need to be easy and in order so that I don't screw it up. I'm going to try to find a board with predrilled holes and go from there. I'll update again when I have something to update
I decided that my acrylic LED board wasn't going to work...I was too concerned about putting 9 LEDs per square inch than I was about straight lines, so it's going to make wiring difficult. I'm going to attempt to do the wiring myself if at all possible, so things need to be easy and in order so that I don't screw it up. I'm going to try to find a board with predrilled holes and go from there. I'll update again when I have something to update
Cool project. I work with lighting, so I had some thoughts that might be helpful.
I'm sure you know heat kills LEDs. Typically LEDs are rated at 100,000 hours, but as soon as manufacturers cluster them together, the rated life drops down to 50,000 (for the honest manufacturers) due to heat. It looks to me like you are going to have a very high density of LEDs with out a particularly thermally conductive surface to dissapate the heat. Are you using fans for cooling? Maybe this is not such a big deal, but if you are going through all the trouble, you might as well keep them cool and extend the life and light output.
Anyway, I know acrylic is an OK thermal insulator so therefore a bad LED mounting surface, while aluminum is a good thermal conductor and is why most commercial products are mounted to an aluminum housing. (I know Sylvania's new tri-color LEDS are mounted to a sticker which then gets "stuck" onto a heat sink)
These are a couple of top notch products that I've used. It may be possible to look at their cutsheets for clues as to how they are mounting/disspating heat as you never use fans on commercial products (too unreliable, plus they don't work too well outdoors).
Check out the IO Line 2.0. The unit is basically one very solid aluminum extrusion that acts as the heat sink. These are 1-watt LEDs.
http://www.iolighting.com/
Also, check out the Altman Spectra series PAR64 LED fixture. We are using these to light a color changing tower. Also impressive light output. I think they are clustering 36 1-Watt LEDs in something about 12" in diameter. That is a lot of heat.
http://www.altmanlighting.com/
HTH
Mark
I'm sure you know heat kills LEDs. Typically LEDs are rated at 100,000 hours, but as soon as manufacturers cluster them together, the rated life drops down to 50,000 (for the honest manufacturers) due to heat. It looks to me like you are going to have a very high density of LEDs with out a particularly thermally conductive surface to dissapate the heat. Are you using fans for cooling? Maybe this is not such a big deal, but if you are going through all the trouble, you might as well keep them cool and extend the life and light output.
Anyway, I know acrylic is an OK thermal insulator so therefore a bad LED mounting surface, while aluminum is a good thermal conductor and is why most commercial products are mounted to an aluminum housing. (I know Sylvania's new tri-color LEDS are mounted to a sticker which then gets "stuck" onto a heat sink)
These are a couple of top notch products that I've used. It may be possible to look at their cutsheets for clues as to how they are mounting/disspating heat as you never use fans on commercial products (too unreliable, plus they don't work too well outdoors).
Check out the IO Line 2.0. The unit is basically one very solid aluminum extrusion that acts as the heat sink. These are 1-watt LEDs.
http://www.iolighting.com/
Also, check out the Altman Spectra series PAR64 LED fixture. We are using these to light a color changing tower. Also impressive light output. I think they are clustering 36 1-Watt LEDs in something about 12" in diameter. That is a lot of heat.
http://www.altmanlighting.com/
HTH
Mark
No problem. Good luck with the project!
I wonder if I can get some information from the local Sylvania guy on what temperature their LEDs need to be kept. I'm sure other LEDs would at least be in the same ballpark. Then you can use that as a guide to determine if you are running way too hot or if you are in good shape.
And even though I think you are on the right track $$$ by creating your own board and wiring everything up, you might as well check out these lamps. I've got a sample of the blue, red, and green lamps. They seem to work pretty well only they are kind of expensive.
Not sure if the link will work..
http://www.tcpi.com/PDF/274_00373 LED LR20 SS.pdf
It's their 6-watt LR30 reflector lamps. They are medium base lamps, so it's just plug and play!
I wonder if I can get some information from the local Sylvania guy on what temperature their LEDs need to be kept. I'm sure other LEDs would at least be in the same ballpark. Then you can use that as a guide to determine if you are running way too hot or if you are in good shape.
And even though I think you are on the right track $$$ by creating your own board and wiring everything up, you might as well check out these lamps. I've got a sample of the blue, red, and green lamps. They seem to work pretty well only they are kind of expensive.
Not sure if the link will work..
http://www.tcpi.com/PDF/274_00373 LED LR20 SS.pdf
It's their 6-watt LR30 reflector lamps. They are medium base lamps, so it's just plug and play!
I got some PDFs from the osram rep. I can e-mail them to you if you are interested in them. They are just cutsheets of some of the LED products, but they contain temperature limitation information. I’m sure you could get these off their website.
Fine Print Note:
100K hour service life for a Tc of 40°C for Red, Amber Red, Orange & Yellow. 50K hour service life for a Tc of 40°C for White.
Basically anything above 40 degree C (measured at a particular point on their unit) will negatively affect the LEDs. However it looks like these will operate between -4 to 185 degrees F (but obviously damage will occur at the higher temps)
Also, the rep mentioned, “end of life is figured as 50% of light output. They continue to loose light as time goes on.â€Â
Good luck!!!
Fine Print Note:
100K hour service life for a Tc of 40°C for Red, Amber Red, Orange & Yellow. 50K hour service life for a Tc of 40°C for White.
Basically anything above 40 degree C (measured at a particular point on their unit) will negatively affect the LEDs. However it looks like these will operate between -4 to 185 degrees F (but obviously damage will occur at the higher temps)
Also, the rep mentioned, “end of life is figured as 50% of light output. They continue to loose light as time goes on.â€Â
Good luck!!!
Ok, so here's another update (mostly just to bring the thread back to the first 10 pages of the SLASH forum )
The acrylic board wasn't going to work and I didn't feel like drilling a bazillion holes again, so Lost Marbles suggested using a circuit board (I think that's what it's called) and managed to find a piece in his garage! Here's the board:
The black rim around the edges is where the LEDs aren't going because of the rim of the tank and canopy. The short side of the board holds 18 LEDs and the long side of the board holds 37 LEDs for a total of 666 LEDs :eek1: The density of LEDs is going to be 16 per square inch (HOLY COW!) and a ratio of 3:1 white to blue, so there will be 166 blues and 500 whites.
)The acrylic board wasn't going to work and I didn't feel like drilling a bazillion holes again, so Lost Marbles suggested using a circuit board (I think that's what it's called) and managed to find a piece in his garage! Here's the board:
The black rim around the edges is where the LEDs aren't going because of the rim of the tank and canopy. The short side of the board holds 18 LEDs and the long side of the board holds 37 LEDs for a total of 666 LEDs :eek1: The density of LEDs is going to be 16 per square inch (HOLY COW!) and a ratio of 3:1 white to blue, so there will be 166 blues and 500 whites.
The tank has been up and running for quite a while now and guess what...the silicon didn't work worth a darn so the rock wall came tumbling down. Here's an updated FTS, please ignore the following: silicon, mag float, dirty glass, detritus The tank is WAY overdue for siphoning and a water change 
The inhabitants include 3 cerith and 1 astrea snail, 1 TINY hermit crab that gets blown over by the flow from the PH if he isn't careful, and a green clown goby:
Hopefully I'll be able to start working on securing the LEDs in the board tomorrow or Friday and then it'll be up to Lost Marbles to do the wiring Hopefully by the end of summer I'll have some coral in this tank! :lol:
The tank is WAY overdue for siphoning and a water change
The inhabitants include 3 cerith and 1 astrea snail, 1 TINY hermit crab that gets blown over by the flow from the PH if he isn't careful, and a green clown goby:
Hopefully I'll be able to start working on securing the LEDs in the board tomorrow or Friday and then it'll be up to Lost Marbles to do the wiring
Hopefully by the end of summer I'll have some coral in this tank! :lol: Similar threads
