Minimalistic multichip DIY LED build

[Lassef]

My tank is 120*60*60 cm (48"*24"*24"). I run 2 pcs of 100 LED Dream Chip, 1 pcs of 50 LED Dream Chip and 10 pcs of 10 W multi chip (8 white and 2 RB). The two 100 LED DC are 190 W each at max. The 50 LED DC is at 95 W at max and 10 pcs of "10 watts" have around 70 W at max. The "10 watts" array is directed at the background and has 90 degree lenses. The DC:s have 60 degree lenses. The "10 watts" RB has a light regime that start to ramp up at 12:30 - max between 16:00 and 20:00 and ramp down to 0 at 21:30. The eight whites ramp up at 13:00 60 % between 17:00 and 20:00 and 0 at 20:30. The DC:s starts with actinic channel at 9:00, the two RB channels at 10 - both max between 17:00 and 20:00. RB channels are 0 at 22:30 and actinic at 23:30. Whites start at 12:00 -> 40 % between 14:00 and 17:00 and ramp up to 100 % at 18:15. 19:45 ramp down to 0 at 21:00 (@ 007Bond - I have change my way to run the DC) I have max (around 540 W !) only for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Softies, anemones and LPS are doing very well ( I got a bubble tip in June and today - its three and soon four!) I´m not a friend of coloured pins (SPS) but I have start with some - and they are doing well also.

Compared with me - its not to much but do not run max (when you have so much power at the blue wavelengths) more than a couple of hours every day

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Johnyman]

If i dont have the Heatproof Silicon Adhesive to glue the lens in the multichip 100W, can i use something else?

Thank you

 

[Lassef]

I had some disasters with two multi chip I had glue with two components epoxy. After that - I have always use the heatproof silicon and the same has not happens again

I do not know if the epoxy cause these two disasters - but I will not use anything else but heatproof silicon in the future

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Johnyman]

I had some disasters with two multi chip I had glue with two components epoxy. After that - I have always use the heatproof silicon and the same has not happens again

I do not know if the epoxy cause these two disasters - but I will not use anything else but heatproof silicon in the future

Sincerely Lasse

Ok, i´ll not risk. Thank you

 

[noplay180]

What is the solution to power a 100 watt Dream chip my tank is 130" 30" 24

 

[TropTrea]

Hey Lasse (and possibly others), let's see if you can help me out here. I just installed new lights and I think I might have too much light, but can't really be sure as the tank is still empty (apart from a few shrimp).

So the tank is 95x50x45cm (approx 37x20x18") so about 56-57 gallons. I have the following lights:

- 20W hybrid actinic (AC-RC)
- 8x Cree RoyalBlue XT-E
- 4x Cree NeutralWhite XT-E
- 2x TrueViolet 405nm
- 2x DreamChip 100 with only Blue/RoyalBlue/UV channels activated

I do ramp up/down so obviously not all lights are on all the time. I plan on running the 2 DreamChips only as "high noon" lights for 2 hours per day. However, the total wattage according to my calcs is at least 350W - does this sound too little or too much? I plan on having SPS as before.

No optics on any of the leds.

Thanks!

You are talking in about just uder a 60 gallon tank that is not very tall. I would light a tank like this between 90 and 120 total watts of LED's. Dependent on the corals your keeping either the high or low end of that leve,

If your going with dimmers than I'd add about 50% more power to put you in the 135 to 180 watt range. With dimmers you will probably ot be running all the LED's at full power as you will adjusting them to your personal color taste.

 

[acabgd]

You are talking in about just uder a 60 gallon tank that is not very tall. I would light a tank like this between 90 and 120 total watts of LED's. Dependent on the corals your keeping either the high or low end of that leve,

If your going with dimmers than I'd add about 50% more power to put you in the 135 to 180 watt range. With dimmers you will probably ot be running all the LED's at full power as you will adjusting them to your personal color taste.

As I have planned running the 20W running for 8 hours + the 8xRB Cree for 4-6 hours (together with 4xNW Cree ran at some 30%), I would have some 50W running 6-8 hours.

I still don't have dimmers for the two DreamChips. Do you think running them just for an hour or two per day would be okay (like high noon), or would be way better to have them on dimmers and run them for a longer photoperiod?

Thanks a lot for your valuable input!

 

[biglurr54]

Wow thats a lot to read. im glad i found this thread before I ordered my 3w crees. I need some help designing my LED set up. I like the minimalist idea of 50 to 100 watt chips. I have 92 gallon corner that will house softies to sps. I cant decided what light combination to have. I would like as few chips as possible with the ability to adjust color. I was thinking 3 royal blue 50 watts, 1 UV 50 watt, and 1 10k 100watt. Would this be too yellow? What would be a good combination? While I wait for answers ill go back to digging through this post.

 

[Giga]

Does this count?

*
The details
*
1 x BXRA-50C5300(will be replaced with a Vero 29)
2 x Vero 18 4k
4 x Luxeon M royal blue
6 x Luxeon deep red
6 x Luxeon blue
6 x Luxeon cyan
6 x LGB 430nm
6 x LGB 405nm
*
I'm only about 65% done as the covers for the heatsink and spot light are not put on, vero's arn't mounted(below) and optics havn't been put on, as well as the fans for the heatsinks with all the color leds. You can see the wires for it behind the sinks'. The spot lights have a silent but powerfull pwm bladder fan. At leas all the major wireing has been done and run(WHAT A PAIN!) I thought I'd post this here as well as I'll update this as it gets done
*
Vero 18

*
Brains-StormX

*
Super powers

 

[asid61]

Post a link to the fan too. It's really useful for this build.

 

[e55driver]

That is a great looking project. I'm looking to up grade to a 220 84x24x24 The combo of chips I wanted to use was
4 50 watt chips
16 to 20 ten watt
and fill the rest in with cree.
The thing I'm stuck on the color of leds, anyone have any thoughts?

 

[NanoJosh]

Make all the colors dimmable and controllable separately. That way u can fool around with color combos and see what your coral likes the best.

 

[Giga]

This

http://www.nuventix.com/technology/

It's what all my bridgelux run on-they are way better then a standard heatsink and stylish too. I use the 60w heatsink and even running my led at 50w it's cool to the touch

 

[zachts]

This

http://www.nuventix.com/technology/

It's what all my bridgelux run on-they are way better then a standard heatsink and stylish too. I use the 60w heatsink and even running my led at 50w it's cool to the touch

I thought thats what you were using, those are very nice and come in all shapes and sizes including linear and square versions. The most usefull part is that they are all rated for thier heat disipation so you don't need to guess if it will be enough. also the rating is for disipation of heat in watts, not the wattage of the LEDs on the heatsink. So your 60 watt heatsink, depending on the efficiency of the chip it's cooling could probably handle a chip somewhere in the 75 to 100 Watt range with the cooler running on high.

 

[TropTrea]

As I have planned running the 20W running for 8 hours + the 8xRB Cree for 4-6 hours (together with 4xNW Cree ran at some 30%), I would have some 50W running 6-8 hours.

I still don't have dimmers for the two DreamChips. Do you think running them just for an hour or two per day would be okay (like high noon), or would be way better to have them on dimmers and run them for a longer photoperiod?

Thanks a lot for your valuable input!

There are several threads where peopl are debating if it is better to have 1,00 PAR for 1 your, 500 Par for 2 hours, 250 Par for 4 hours or 125 Par for 8 hours.

It all breaks down to Corals in nature have a roughly 24 hour cycle. This Cylce usualy includes 8+ hours of intense light for photosynthesis, and 8+ Hours fors respiration in extremly low par. The time perods between these are whar are called transition periods.

The issue with extremly high par is that every coral has a level where photosyntheseis starts and another level where the coral reaches saturation. In this area you could say that growth from photosynthesis is directly proportionate to the amunt of light the coral is getting. But on the low end if the corals needs 150 PAR to start photosynthesis then the time period where itis getting less than 150 PAR usless for that coral. On the other end of the spectrum if the saturation point were at 300 PAR then giving that coral 400PAR would be of little to no actual benifit. In reality some corals actualy shut down the photosynthesis during peak daylight hours so eve3n though they may be getting 600PAR they are not utilizing any of it. Then you also add the fact that excessive PAR has been known to bleach some corals.

Scientificly for growth the ideal would be to have the PAR level near but not surpassing the saturation point for 8 hours. However going by jut PAR readings is also misleading as RED and Green Light is included in the PAR readings while they are only a fraction of the value to corals as Blue light is. So looking at simple PAR readings is very misleading, and the spectrum of the light is probably much more important. Unfortunatly there is no simple peasurement for the spectrum effeceincy as it will also change between different coral types.

Overall I would not recommend going to a shorter than 4 hour period of time for max lighting. To me the ideal would be a LED lighted 100 gallon tank.

2 hours pre dawn lighting (25 to 50 Watts)
2 hours dawn lighting (75 to 100 Watts)
8 hours midday lighting (150 to 200 Watts)
2 hours dusk lighting (75 to 100 Watts)
2 hours post dusk lighting (25 to 50 Watts)
8 hours near darkness under (15 Watts )

 

[TropTrea]

That is a great looking project. I'm looking to up grade to a 220 84x24x24 The combo of chips I wanted to use was
4 50 watt chips
16 to 20 ten watt
and fill the rest in with cree.
The thing I'm stuck on the color of leds, anyone have any thoughts?

Your listing roughly 400 Watts of power plus here. The big thiong visualy is the ratio of whites to blues. Dependent on the type of Whites you use will determione the ratio.

Neutral Whites 4,000K to 5,000K I'd suggest 80 to 100 Watts
Cool Whites 6,000K to 7,000K I'dsuggest 100 to 140 Watts
Special High K Whites 10,00K to 12,000K 150 to 200 Watts

For your Blue Chips I found the ideal ratio is
4 Watts Royal Blue 455nm
2 Watts True Blue 470nm
1 Watt of Near UV 420nm

Suplementing with red I recommend 620nm chips if you do not use the Neutral Whites. The neutral whites produce enough red for our purpose which is why I prefer them. But with the higher the K the more reds you will need to suplement but this is mostly per your color taste in a getting a pleasing balance to your eye.

 

[Giga]

I thought thats what you were using, those are very nice and come in all shapes and sizes including linear and square versions. The most usefull part is that they are all rated for thier heat disipation so you don't need to guess if it will be enough. also the rating is for disipation of heat in watts, not the wattage of the LEDs on the heatsink. So your 60 watt heatsink, depending on the efficiency of the chip it's cooling could probably handle a chip somewhere in the 75 to 100 Watt range with the cooler running on high.

Yes this is true as you don't need to be that cool, you you can run them a little warmer

 

[zachts]

Your listing roughly 400 Watts of power plus here. The big thiong visualy is the ratio of whites to blues. Dependent on the type of Whites you use will determione the ratio.

Neutral Whites 4,000K to 5,000K I'd suggest 80 to 100 Watts
Cool Whites 6,000K to 7,000K I'dsuggest 100 to 140 Watts
Special High K Whites 10,00K to 12,000K 150 to 200 Watts

For your Blue Chips I found the ideal ratio is
4 Watts Royal Blue 455nm
2 Watts True Blue 470nm
1 Watt of Near UV 420nm

Supplementing with red I recommend 620nm chips if you do not use the Neutral Whites. The neutral whites produce enough red for our purpose which is why I prefer them. But with the higher the K the more reds you will need to suplement but this is mostly per your color taste in a getting a pleasing balance to your eye.

You also realize you CAN NOT!!! Compare LEDs using WATTS! it is not at all useful. Their output can only be compared in terms of relative output (typically mW or Lumens output per watt input).

Saying that 400 watts of multichips is adequat for a 200 gallon is useless if you don't know the actual specs. Because if you use "ebay" multi chips sure that might be about right, but if you used multi-chips arrays made by Bridgelux, Luxeon or Cree then 400 watts would burn the holy heck out of your tank.

Very few of these highly popular "Multichip LEDs" give any real useful data for their performance or comparison, and without this info you have no way to know if a "10watt muti-chip" has any more output than a "3 watt Cree" and in many cases they do not.

 

[asid61]

It's one thing to compare Cree and Luxeon, the higher up brands with lumens and watts. But when you look at some random Ebay led that says it gets 100lm/w, that's not even remotely comparable. What are the chances it actually has 100lm/w? Low. You don't use mW and Lumens when comparing a Cree to a Chinese. Especially in a thread about multichips that never use Cree or Luxeon anyway. It's assumed that they are of the lower efficiency. However, the Chinese leds are still more efficient than 70lm/w in most cases.

In a thread not specifically about Chinese chips, then yes, you could state things in terms of lumens and whatnot. But much more commonly, because of the slow, steady growth of leds in efficiency, it is easier to simply say you need 30% more power with off-brand leds and say something like 400w for 200g.

/rant

Anyway, I think 400w might not be enough for a 200g depending on its dimensions. Figure 1 watt of multichip for every 5in^2 for tanks up to 24" deep, and one watt per 4in^2 for 30 inch deep tanks. For deeper than that, 3.5in^2 per watt should be good. 90* optics for the first, 60* for the second, 40* for the last. 400w will be okay for SPS in the mid-top, but for SPS on the sandbed go with the rules posted above.

 

[e55driver]

That is a great looking project. I'm looking to up grade to a 220 84x24x24 The combo of chips I wanted to use was
4 50 watt chips
16 to 20 ten watt
and fill the rest in with cree.
The thing I'm stuck on the color of leds, anyone have any thoughts?

I was thinking of making the 50 watt the white and the 10 watts a combo of blue and royal blue. Would it be better to move up to 100 watts or would the 50's be fine for sps?