LEDBrick Project - DIY pendant w/ pucks
- Thread starter theatrus
- Start date
https://splitsecond.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Acrostar-build/i-Bh4CFzL
https://splitsecond.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Acrostar-build/i-JRR6QNK
https://splitsecond.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Acrostar-build/i-4fZw9gG
Each 48v supply is running 3 pucks. These are phone pics, but in the image all pucks were being driven at 100%, the white channel is on a 700 LDD for now, but honestly it looks great. (The pics are for more blue than in person.)
https://splitsecond.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Acrostar-build/i-JRR6QNK
https://splitsecond.smugmug.com/Aquariums/Acrostar-build/i-4fZw9gG
Each 48v supply is running 3 pucks. These are phone pics, but in the image all pucks were being driven at 100%, the white channel is on a 700 LDD for now, but honestly it looks great. (The pics are for more blue than in person.)
Necroing an older thread here but what are people using for multi-chips? I was going to order another pair of the Blue Acro Pro's but they may be taking a break (which is fine). Just looking to add some additional lights to the outer side of my tank since it is getting less light due to rock size and height.
I like the multi chip design of the acro stars but haven't come across something has good quality wise and price. Someone mentioned another chip to look at but for the life of me I can't remember let alone find the thread or post
pfoxgrover
New member
Necroing an older thread here but what are people using for multi-chips? I was going to order another pair of the Blue Acro Pro's but they may be taking a break (which is fine). Just looking to add some additional lights to the outer side of my tank since it is getting less light due to rock size and height.
I like the multi chip design of the acro stars but haven't come across something has good quality wise and price. Someone mentioned another chip to look at but for the life of me I can't remember let alone find the thread or post
After many many hours of research into starting my second DIY LED build I took the advice of one of the resident DIY LED experts and bought Maxspect Ethereal lights instead of a DIY project. I am very impressed with the light that come out of them. Maxspect definitely had someone reading all these threads and they put a lot of the information here into a solid product. I am surprised they are not more popular. That said I think the Blue Acro lights sound pretty awesome. I hope to see one in action someday.
Thanks. I've looked at those but again for me it is the price point. If I turn up empty then I'll have no choice but to turn to boxed. My only complaint is that all of the manufactures are using their own controllers. I wish they would offer a version that doesn't use one to integrate our own. Both of my current LED systems are using either my Apex or Reef Angel.
Thanks again for the info. I'll keep an eye out.
lingwendil
Man who sold the world
For pucks with a similar form factor and quality to Blue Acro look at nanobox, he also does complete fixtures.
oreo57
Well-known member
these?
Can't link.. Verboten..
Anyways Nanobox chip:
https://nanobox-reef.myshopify.com/collections/nanobox-retro-kits/products/nanobox-v3-1-array
I actually believe they are sort of Bluacros creation.
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Yes, that are those. Depending on Blue Acro status if he is out for a bit, which I fully understand, then these seem viable. No idea why I forgot about them but they seem pretty solid and close to what I'm looking for. I am interested in a set of four. They will be on the outer edge of the tank so don't believe I need to punch down 30" to the bottom which is how tall my tank is. The Acros with lenses reach easily. In fact so much I'm only running them at 50% currently.
Not sure how many drivers I would need or if a single supply would work with a group of four but home work I guess.
Thank you [MENTION=296038]oreo57[/MENTION] and [MENTION=76786]llingwendil[/MENTION] - much appreciated.
Edit: I don't know what brand the first mention was Oreo, sorry. Double the price. Have you used either or thoughts? Since it is not my primary source of light I'm just trying to get a better spread on the outer edges.
Not sure how many drivers I would need or if a single supply would work with a group of four but home work I guess.
Thank you [MENTION=296038]oreo57[/MENTION] and [MENTION=76786]llingwendil[/MENTION] - much appreciated.
Edit: I don't know what brand the first mention was Oreo, sorry. Double the price. Have you used either or thoughts? Since it is not my primary source of light I'm just trying to get a better spread on the outer edges.
oreo57
Well-known member
That array was from led group buy..
No, never used them or the nanobox.
cursory look seems to show all but the blue channel of the nanobox can be driven by one driver and a 48V ps.
So 6 drivers unless you want to automate corners..
Possibly can include the blue w/ a more expensive 56V power supply.
If you just want some ancillary lighting and aren't too worried about exact color matching some cheap "hybrid" chips from evil bay might be an alternative to spending $100's on already mismatched panels..Nano's are probably closer than any suggestions below but... your choice.
This one is interesting (btw I just used 10w, no reason one couldn't go bigger).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-Super-...+led+actinic&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0
This is "standard"
https://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-10W-A...+led+actinic&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0
No, never used them or the nanobox.
cursory look seems to show all but the blue channel of the nanobox can be driven by one driver and a 48V ps.
So 6 drivers unless you want to automate corners..
Possibly can include the blue w/ a more expensive 56V power supply.
If you just want some ancillary lighting and aren't too worried about exact color matching some cheap "hybrid" chips from evil bay might be an alternative to spending $100's on already mismatched panels..Nano's are probably closer than any suggestions below but... your choice.
This one is interesting (btw I just used 10w, no reason one couldn't go bigger).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10W-Super-...+led+actinic&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0
This is "standard"
https://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-10W-A...+led+actinic&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_TitleDesc=0|0
theatrus
100-mile-commuter
A concept I'm playing with.
14 LEDs in a Angela reflector (about twice the size of the Brooke's I've been using).
Tentative LED arrangement:
Ch1: 5x Luxeon C Royal Blue
Ch2: 1x Viosys 385nm UV, 2x SemiLED 415nm, 2x SemiLED 405nm
Ch3: 2x Luxeon C Mint
Ch4: 1x Luxeon C Blue, 1x Luxeon C Cyan
Angela reflectors have a high transmittance color mixing lens which snaps into the main reflector (not pictured).
The actual PCB remains small at 2x2.5in. I'm planning on making this as a test, along with an edge-mated model that can be used with a plug-in driver.
The jumpers pictured are just 0 ohm 1206 resistors to more optimally allow the thermal pads to have more copper near the center of the LEDs.
14 LEDs in a Angela reflector (about twice the size of the Brooke's I've been using).
Tentative LED arrangement:
Ch1: 5x Luxeon C Royal Blue
Ch2: 1x Viosys 385nm UV, 2x SemiLED 415nm, 2x SemiLED 405nm
Ch3: 2x Luxeon C Mint
Ch4: 1x Luxeon C Blue, 1x Luxeon C Cyan
Angela reflectors have a high transmittance color mixing lens which snaps into the main reflector (not pictured).
The actual PCB remains small at 2x2.5in. I'm planning on making this as a test, along with an edge-mated model that can be used with a plug-in driver.
The jumpers pictured are just 0 ohm 1206 resistors to more optimally allow the thermal pads to have more copper near the center of the LEDs.
lingwendil
Man who sold the world
A concept I'm playing with.
14 LEDs in a Angela reflector (about twice the size of the Brooke's I've been using).
Tentative LED arrangement:
Ch1: 5x Luxeon C Royal Blue
Ch2: 1x Viosys 385nm UV, 2x SemiLED 415nm, 2x SemiLED 405nm
Ch3: 2x Luxeon C Mint
Ch4: 1x Luxeon C Blue, 1x Luxeon C Cyan
Angela reflectors have a high transmittance color mixing lens which snaps into the main reflector (not pictured).
The actual PCB remains small at 2x2.5in. I'm planning on making this as a test, along with an edge-mated model that can be used with a plug-in driver.
The jumpers pictured are just 0 ohm 1206 resistors to more optimally allow the thermal pads to have more copper near the center of the LEDs.
Cool!
Very interesting, If I had a larger tank I'd love to test a pair, they'd be overkill on my 20 long.
theatrus
100-mile-commuter
I decided to, amongst some other exciting prototypes, to re-do my original LEDBrick panel boards. Its a rush job (you can tell what used to be a Rebel footprint!), but packs a lot more useful spectrum than the original.
Load out:
4x 415nm SemiLED
6x Osram Square 455nm Royal
6x Luxeon C RB
3x Luxeon RB 3x Luxeon Blue
4x LXC Mint
2x LCC PC Amber 2x LXC 5700k High CRI White
2x LXC Cyan 2x Luxeon C RB
3x SemiLED 405nm 1x Viosys 385nm
Load out:
4x 415nm SemiLED
6x Osram Square 455nm Royal
6x Luxeon C RB
3x Luxeon RB 3x Luxeon Blue
4x LXC Mint
2x LCC PC Amber 2x LXC 5700k High CRI White
2x LXC Cyan 2x Luxeon C RB
3x SemiLED 405nm 1x Viosys 385nm
theatrus
100-mile-commuter
An 8 year update. I almost killed all of the LEDbrick units due to a dinoflagellate-induced-light outage. Upon firing up the lights three days later, I had neglected to consider that being fully powered down, no heat was being produced anywhere, and condensation combined with 8 years of salt spray had worked its way into everything. Firing up, I got a nice bout of zap zap flicker flicker nothing. Oh no!
(The main tank is in a period of half-teardown and cleanout and reboot, its also had 15 years of continued operation and the sand bed had gotten to dire straits, so no tank pictures)
When I had first built them, I didn't do any real control for salt spray, air, condensation, etc. The PCBs sit right in the air flow, and the case fit was never really designed. Going forward, remember to conformally coat all the boards to avoid this very issue.
Anyway, one of the lights as fine, because its logic part remained powered up due to an earlier salt spray mishap which exploded the 24V->12V regulator sometime at the start of the pandemic, which I bodged fixed with a 12V wall-wart. How bad does the salt spray get? Well, bad...
Yikes. Amazed anything works after all. And this is the working unit, since it never had water condense on it.
Other units didn't look _as bad_, but were non-functional due to numerous shorts across the board from salt. Amazingly not an amazing amount of corrosion.
Well, I'm happy to report that I managed to save 2 of the 3 units by doing nothing but giving multiple passes in the ultrasonic cleaner, with an alternating routine of Branson EC and just RODI water - about 5 washes with changing the solution after each pass to not let salt concentrate, followed by a drying pass in an elevated temperature (about 60C).
And... success. And they look a whole lot better and almost like new.
Unit #3 had a hard failure and the 12V regulator also wouldn't come up. Unlike the bodged unit still running, the board was salvageable, but the failure eventually came to a shorted ceramic capacitor and an inductor which also had shorted internally (so its basically a wire). A quick repair job later with a similar small but not exact set of components:
So, whats next? I need to give the boards another clean and give them a quick coating of conformal coating before reinstalling, and then, actually think about replacing them sometime this year. I have some ideas, for another post...
(The main tank is in a period of half-teardown and cleanout and reboot, its also had 15 years of continued operation and the sand bed had gotten to dire straits, so no tank pictures)
When I had first built them, I didn't do any real control for salt spray, air, condensation, etc. The PCBs sit right in the air flow, and the case fit was never really designed. Going forward, remember to conformally coat all the boards to avoid this very issue.
Anyway, one of the lights as fine, because its logic part remained powered up due to an earlier salt spray mishap which exploded the 24V->12V regulator sometime at the start of the pandemic, which I bodged fixed with a 12V wall-wart. How bad does the salt spray get? Well, bad...
Yikes. Amazed anything works after all. And this is the working unit, since it never had water condense on it.
Other units didn't look _as bad_, but were non-functional due to numerous shorts across the board from salt. Amazingly not an amazing amount of corrosion.
Well, I'm happy to report that I managed to save 2 of the 3 units by doing nothing but giving multiple passes in the ultrasonic cleaner, with an alternating routine of Branson EC and just RODI water - about 5 washes with changing the solution after each pass to not let salt concentrate, followed by a drying pass in an elevated temperature (about 60C).
And... success. And they look a whole lot better and almost like new.
Unit #3 had a hard failure and the 12V regulator also wouldn't come up. Unlike the bodged unit still running, the board was salvageable, but the failure eventually came to a shorted ceramic capacitor and an inductor which also had shorted internally (so its basically a wire). A quick repair job later with a similar small but not exact set of components:
So, whats next? I need to give the boards another clean and give them a quick coating of conformal coating before reinstalling, and then, actually think about replacing them sometime this year. I have some ideas, for another post...
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Did you hand solder all of those or DIY reflow Some of it
theatrus
100-mile-commuter
Original boards were all reflowed: stencil and an actual skillet (Hamilton Beach
), back in 2015-2016. I have a Chinese 240V IR+convection reflow oven now, which is more consistent with some modifications (though it will burn through some connectors). The parts are all hand placed on the boards though (I have a "cheap" PnP, but programming effort doesn't make it worth it for less than 20 boards).Fixing and modifications are hand - hot air and iron do most of the work.
Thanks for the update.
