Minimalistic multichip DIY LED build

My drivers arrived yesterday, I mounted them to an icecap heat sink, got all of my LED's to their coolers and got most of the wiring done. I need to grab some more heat shrinks and connecters for the wiring to complete everything but I did wire one up just to see what it looked like.

Lights mounted and wired.
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Drivers mounted and wired.
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One of the lights rigged up over my tank for a test run.
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LED running in the center of the tank(left of picture) 250w MH running on right side.
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LED running alone in center of tank.
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DrawnToBeaches said:
Could someone post a link to a couple LEDs in the red wave lengths? And a cheap dimable driver to run them, and heat sink would be nice but I can source that
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It beats me why anyone would want to add red LED's. If they use neutral whites in the 4,300K to 5,500K reagon they get a nice white balance with enough red. Some corals have been known to bleach from excess red light especialy 685 nm.
 
Lassef said:
No - you can´t use normal 3 or 1 watts in a serie with that 100 W chip. Your 100 watt runs at 3 A (constant current) and 3 and 1 watts run normally at much lower currents. However - I know one "3 watts" that are able to work with 3 A, Cree´s XL-M. With LED its the current that is critical and therefore you normally use constant current drivers. If you want to combine different chip - they must individually manage the same current. You can put different chips i a serie if they manage the same current an if their total FV (forward voltage) is in the constant current region of the driver.

Sincerely Lasse
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I believe the Cree XL-M are actualy 5 Watt LED's and are actualy rated with a max current and voltage that they can handle nearly 7 Watts. Sure they loose effeciency there but can handle it more effeciently than some of the 10 Watt arrays out there running at the same wattage.
 
According to the datasheet Cree XL-M have a FV at 3.35 V att 3000 mA - this will give arround 10 watt. However - I have done tests with this chip and it looks like 2000 mA (FV=3,2 V and therefore 6.4 watt) is optimal. The increase of PAR readings between 2000 mA and 3000 mA was rather small - only arround 10 - 15 %. I have only done the test once and it was with teoretical 2000 mA and 3000 mA (not meassured)

Sincerely Lasse
 
Lassef said:
I can´t see any lenses - are you planning to use lenses?

Looks god.

Sincerely Lasse
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Haven't quite decided yet whether or not I'll be using lenses. I'm going to get them up and running tonight and see how things look. I'll probably order a few different lenses in the next week or two to try them out but it really looks good without them. The spread is just right and there seems to be plenty of light at the bottom of the tank for just about anything. I'm going to be putting a sheet of glass between the lights and the water to shield them from any spray.
 
Bcamp said:
6' tank?
How much did each completed light cost? (ballpark)
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Yes, 6 ft tank.

The total that I have wrapped up per fixture including led, cooler, and driver is $64. That's less than I was paying yearly to replace each of my three MH bulbs, not to mention the electricity that I'm going to save going from 1200w to 300w.
 
Im thinking of converting on my standard 125g 6' tank. My question is how are you guys dealing with the braces. There are 2 braces so I was thinking of building 3 units of multiple chips to hang over each section. Has anyone done something like that?
 
I just read this entire thread and very thankful i have found it and have already made my mind up that im going to do this. I did the math and my 40 breeder comes out to needing 108 watts of lighting, so im going with 100 watts, my main question is should I go with 10 of the 10 watt leds 5 of them 16k and 10 of the 455-457nm blues, or just 2 50 watt hybrids? and also if I go with the 10 piece setup could they be passively cooled with a simple aluminum heatsink? Im gonna use 2 ELN-60-48D meanwell drivers and that should be undervolting them somewhat.
 
I'd love to order one of these and try it out. What would be comparable to my 150w 20,000K HQI MH in my JBJ 28 nano?
 
I'm so excited to see updates in this thread!

You are only using three of these 100 watt fixtures in a 72x24x30 tank? I have been debating doing a multichip fixture in my 120 (48x24x24) and was thinking about using three 50w bulbs over each half of the tank. Could I get away with only doing one 100w over each half? If so I could add some 3w purples and blues around each of them for a little extra color pop
 
Tickle said:
I just read this entire thread and very thankful i have found it and have already made my mind up that im going to do this. I did the math and my 40 breeder comes out to needing 108 watts of lighting, so im going with 100 watts, my main question is should I go with 10 of the 10 watt leds 5 of them 16k and 10 of the 455-457nm blues, or just 2 50 watt hybrids? and also if I go with the 10 piece setup could they be passively cooled with a simple aluminum heatsink? Im gonna use 2 ELN-60-48D meanwell drivers and that should be undervolting them somewhat.
Click to expand...

With a 40 breeder which is what I use for my frag tanks the big challange is that these tanks are shallow and unless you put your LED's 24" above the tank shadowing gets extreme. I'm running 24 3 Watt LED's and I initialy had 90 degree lenses. I pulled the lens because of all the hard shadows I was getting. My LED's were about 8" above surfavce of the water.

My other thought is that for color selection this is something that is very personal. I'm running 6 Neutral Whites, 2 Cyan LED's 8 Royal Blues and 8 Blues. This is giving me roughly a 3+ blue to 1 White ratio. If you use a higher K rated White though you will need more whites to get the same look as I have.

Now if you were going to run a taller tank like a 45 Extra Tall tank then the higeer wattage LED's would be much better option than the 3 watt LED's.
 
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