LED moonlighting from autolumination

I went to pepboys and bought a $6.00 package that had three blue LED's all wired seperately. I wired them to my 12v converter on my 90 and it looks pretty good. You get the shimmer and you can actually see the beam going through the water. Not bad for 20 minutes work and $6.00. I think I might need another pack of 3 though to get better coverage.
 
melting

melting

Anyone have a problem with the lights melting, deforming?

I placed two of these in my 130 watt pc hood between the antic and daylight bulbs. My two three bulb "moons" are starting to deform as if they are melting. My lights have a built in fan too.

strange.:eek:
 
I have mine indirectly under my halides facing into the reflector and the plastic lens is discoloring to a brown color. I haven't noticed significant intensity issues yet, but then again, they've been setup for a while now and it may be getting progressively worse and I just don't notice it?
 
Re: melting

Re: melting

causeofhim said:
Anyone have a problem with the lights melting, deforming?

I placed two of these in my 130 watt pc hood between the antic and daylight bulbs. My two three bulb "moons" are starting to deform as if they are melting. My lights have a built in fan too.

strange.:eek:
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think this would be the best place to mount a plastic housing, against (or real close to) daylight bulbs! They do get hot and the LED's are just a simple piece of cheap plastic. They do work, and work really well, used properly. I have mine mounted off of and not touching any of my hood at all.

Russ
 
Wonder how long these would last with a 15v supply, the 3 led ones seem to be just 3 5v max led's in parallel, and I have several dozen 15 volt wall warts left from some old equipment.
 
sWampy said:
Wonder how long these would last with a 15v supply, the 3 led ones seem to be just 3 5v max led's in parallel, and I have several dozen 15 volt wall warts left from some old equipment.
Click to expand...

Not sure. Wonder if adding a resistor in there might help your cause? Any electrical engineers want to add their input?

Russ
 
Just came across this thread and saw these led's. These would be perfect for my tank. My question is how many would I need? would i need the 3 led ones or maybe soemthing a little brighter because of the size?

my tank is 96x30x40 wide

Also thinking about getting some of the red ones too for night viewing or would I even need those with the blues?

Thanks in advance.
 
I use four of the 3 LED units on my 75. 3 in front and one on the viewable side.

Here's a front shot:

moonlightfront.jpg


Here's a front/side shot:

moonlightangle.jpg
 
OK, looks like BeanAnimal has departed the thread.
So, just a suggestion for people who are complaining about the LED's burning out, how many ma power supplies to get, etc.

1. LED's are -extremely- voltage sensitive devices. Go to any LED site, and you will see with a little reading that proper voltage must be applied. So, whether you buy bare LED's and add your own resistors, or buy these LED's with included resistors already attached, you must not run them above the spec'd voltage.
Doing so will radically shorten lifespan from 10k-100k hours to several months, weeks, days, and from personal experience, seconds.

2. Most of the common wall-wart adapters that we all have laying around, or buy at Walmart or Radioshack are actually simple transformer type of PSU's. They rarely have whats called voltage regulation circuitry built-in. What this means is that they will deliver x current (ma) at the voltage specified/selected. However, when using these cheapie power sources, you actually want a walwart that is closer to the actual current draw that you will use, and not not significantly higher. Sort of the exact opposite of buying an oversized skimmer. I have a cheapie wallwart bought at Fry's or Radio Shack. It does 5, 7.5, 9, 12 vdc, up to 1000ma (1 amp). When I have it set to 12v and running a small load (leds, fan) of maybe 100-200ma, it is actually putting out ~16v.
So, were I to use this with one of the LED's mentioned in this thread, I would be running it at about 3v above its rated voltage of 13.2, ie ~16. It will run a fair bit brighter, and most likely burn out in several months.

Suggestions:
1. Borrow a multimeter and measure the actual voltage output of your wallwart. Heck, take it too Radio Shack, they'll test it for free.

2. If it is running a little high, then consider running it at 9v setting.


HTH
 
I'm so glad I found this thread! I stumbled upon it last night at like 2:00 in the morning and headed straight to autoluminations and bought my set. To think I was gonna spend $50.00 for a set on EBAY. My total cost last night including the 12v adapter and shipping was only $20.00.

I have a question though, has anyone had an issue with them comming unglued and falling in the tank?

Thanks.
 
reefarchitect said:
I have a question though, has anyone had an issue with them comming unglued and falling in the tank?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have my tank in-wall setup. So I just used electrical staples to mount the wire and didn't use the adhesive backing. If you use the adhesive to a nice smooth finish, I would think it should work ok.

Russ
 
Thanks. I was thinking of mounting them to acrylic and then zip-tying the wirelead around the acrylic just in case. I'll post some pics when it's done.

Thanks again.
 
The only problems I've heard of with these is sticking them on a wood surface. Maybe cause the wood is slightly damp inside the canopy?
 
Just got in two blue and two red LED discs (3-LED version) and the 12V wall wart from autolumination. Wired it up to a 3-way (on-off-on) toggle switch so I can flip from blue to red when I want to observe the tank with red light and not disturb the inhabitants.

LOOKS GREAT! Two over a 75G tank is a little on the bright side, but the fluorescent corals (like my Florida ricordea) just POP!

I bought the switch from Radio Shack, along with a male/female pair of wire connectors, so I can disconnect the wall wart from the system (in case I ever need to replace the wall wart, or just to move the hood.

I haven't mounted the discs yet, they're currently dangling from the reflector, and even still, the light diffuses nice and evenly across the whole tank from about 8" above the water surface.
 
I have two of the three light fixtures on a 58 and it's fine. IThere are some pics around of two on a 75 and that looks good as well.

Good luck.
 
I've got my 75 viewable from two sides (in wall) and I have four of the 3-LED units.

Three of them on the front and one on the viewable side.

I originally had only two on the front, there were some blacked out areas. The additional units fixed that great. Not too bright and no dark spots.

I space them one foot apart starting from the end of the tank (4' tank) like this:

12" in from edge is first LED
then 24" from edge is second LED
then 36" from edge is third LED (which works out to 12" from opposite edge)
then one centered on the viewable side

Hope this helped
Russ
 
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