Minimalistic multichip DIY LED build

@ Bean Animal

I interpret the table a little bit different. In the row Heat I should add the percentage infrared because infrared is nothing more than a form of heat radiation when it hits something. Additionally the UV radiation is normally blocked in the lamp glass - it is converted into heat, in other words. Then the picture becomes an other.

And once again, if you use 100 watts in the wavelength range 420-460 nm, it is the same as if you add more than 400 watts of a full spectrum source with respect to the light that is active in photosynthesis. For most of the corals that live deeper than 3 meters in the wild, it is precisely this wavelength ranges that accounts for the photosynthetic growth of corals - virtually no other wavelengths, with the possible exception in the 470 nm area. The white light is needed basically just for the viewer. And that topic is not what I'm discussing right now, I just want to show that we are at a great risk when we concentrate almost all of the energy input in the wavelength regions that are biologically active.

Sincerely Lasse
 
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Yes I remember seeing this chart back when it was nearly impossible to get a LED over a 1 Watt rating. I believe it was put out by Sylvania who is not a leader in LED production today Today there are LED's that far surpass what was out then, with shingle chips noow exceeding 10 Watts from Cree, and multi chip exceedinng 100 watts by seveal companies.

Another thing is that is not considered here is the direction that the light is radiated. In the case of the Metal Hide and florescent bulb light is emitted in a 360 degree circle. While from the LED it is generated in usualy a 120 degree angle. There for the light is vasicly 3 times as dense in that area if both sources are producing an equal amount of light.

With that in mind you can say at a given point with each light source using th same amount of energy your get.

Incadesent Bulb giving 80 Lumns
Florescent Bulb giving 210 Lumns
Metal Hide Bulb giving 270 lumns
LED is giving 600 to 900 lumns.

Yes we do play with reflectors to boast up the first three but the effecency in reflectors is not 100% With the best reflectors we can double the amount of light focused on a given spot. That would mean the 270 lumns form th MH could get up to 540 which is still lower than the worst LED in the example.

We can go on and talk about the way this data can be presented when to the lay man either comparisons of lumns. par, pur, and flux mW. It is common to have a light source very high on one of these measurements and very low on another.

Now when we are talking about the spectrum at various depts in the ocean claiming that there is no light in wave lenghts longer than 470 nm at 3 meters is very false. Yes there is a reduction there compared to 430 nm but even at 600 nm some light does get through well below 30 meters.

From the surface which we will say has all wave lenghts at an equal amount as the dept increases some light is filtered out at different rations. For an examle lets say there is 100 mW of each target frequency at the surface.

wave lenght 430 470 510
surface 100 100 100
1 meter 95 90 80
2 meters 90 81 64
3 meters 86 73 51
4 meters 82 66 41
5 meters 78 59 33
7 meters 70 48 21
10 meters 60 35 11

As you can see the ratio of light differences increases but it will only get down to to levels that are unmeasurable rather than to complely 0. I had a chart on this when I was in school that would show this much better.

The cut point of 470nm is abbritary simular to the 420 nm being a cut point on the other end. Some will argue that frequencies as low as 380 nm are benificial, and others will argue that anything below 430 can be detrimental. On the longer wave lenghts the range of 625 to 685 is where most people try to avoid because these have either proven to cause bleaching in SOME corals, or produce a big boast for cyna bacterial growth.

For the Blues I have find that a combination of Cree Royal Blues and Blues give me fantastic coral growth. The Royal blues produce a strong spectrum from 430 nm to 470 nm while the blues are string between 465 and 505 nm. The combination give me a strong peak at about 470.

I also like to use Neutral Whites because I can use less of them than the cool whites to get a good color balance and they are no weaker in there blues than the cool whites. But yes I will agree that 85% of the uuse of LED's other than Blues is for pleasing your eye rather than growth. The other 15% is more for the florescent chemicals that are not covered by the blue spectrum.
 
As they floresce they actualy emit light in wave lenghts that are used by other chemicals in the coral for photosynthesis.

I wasn't aware this was happening. Is there evidence for this?

It has been reported that Fluorescence protects corals at high light intensity and helps prevent mass bleaching in heat stress. I think it has also been shown that the majority by far of the fluorescent energy released is at wavelengths that are not used in photosynthesis.
 
I love this thread !
Just love the information/discusion about light.
Could it be that corals are absorbing lightwavelengts in different ratio's , sort in the way plant uptake nutrients in ratio, and there for you will encounter different species at different depth's ?
As you see the ratio change as depth is increasing ( troptea's chart).
And could it be that if we keep species in ouwer tanks that are acustomed to different ratio's and we only use one ratio , coral A is growing wild and coral B has a stagnant growth at the same time ?

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
I love this thread !
Just love the information/discusion about light.
Could it be that corals are absorbing lightwavelengts in different ratio's , sort in the way plant uptake nutrients in ratio, and there for you will encounter different species at different depth's ?
As you see the ratio change as depth is increasing ( troptea's chart).
And could it be that if we keep species in ouwer tanks that are acustomed to different ratio's and we only use one ratio , coral A is growing wild and coral B has a stagnant growth at the same time ?

greetingzz tntneon :)

@ tntneon I wish I knew more about the differences in different species. Its interesting to me that corals are quite good at collecting light energy, they collect with an efficiency close to that of terrestrial plants but with many fold lower (6X) photosynthetic pigment levels. The skeleton itself is a light collector and modulates the internal photon concentration. Nature is wonderful! I am so glad we can have some of it on display in our living rooms. It just never gets old for me.

The reason I'm interested in the group buy of the dream chip is its connection to the biology (thankyou Lasse) and the inherent ability to turn on some higher (possibly useless) wavelengths (adapted to mammalian photorecreptors) for my own viewing pleasure. So thanks to Ron and Lasse for following through on that.
 
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I wasn't aware this was happening. Is there evidence for this?

It has been reported that Fluorescence protects corals at high light intensity and helps prevent mass bleaching in heat stress. I think it has also been shown that the majority by far of the fluorescent energy released is at wavelengths that are not used in photosynthesis.

Yes I had seen several reports on this. But what people do not realize is that there areseveral photosynthetic chemicals within most corals. Each of these chemicals do require light at a different frequency. While it is true that chlorphyl is the most dominant I believe there have been atleast 8 such chemicals identified. Each of these will be excited by at least 2 specific wave lenghts, many of which are barely measurable at the levels that these corals live. Therefore they get this light from the florescence of other chemicals.
 
I love this thread !
Just love the information/discusion about light.
Could it be that corals are absorbing lightwavelengts in different ratio's , sort in the way plant uptake nutrients in ratio, and there for you will encounter different species at different depth's ?
As you see the ratio change as depth is increasing ( troptea's chart).
And could it be that if we keep species in ouwer tanks that are acustomed to different ratio's and we only use one ratio , coral A is growing wild and coral B has a stagnant growth at the same time ?

greetingzz tntneon :)

Yes this can happen. In many cases it is a matter of excess light at a particular ave lenght that bleaches out coral A while coral B loves light at that frequency. In reality there is a lot more to it than just the dept the coral came from but also its lognatude and latatude.

Sur many corals in time do adapt. but what is happening is the ratio of natural chemicals within the coral is changing to its enviroment. some corals are better at this than others.
 
With that in mind you can say at a given point with each light source using th same amount of energy your get.

Incadesent Bulb giving 80 Lumns
Florescent Bulb giving 210 Lumns
Metal Hide Bulb giving 270 lumns
LED is giving 600 to 900 lumns.

Is much better to give lumen/watt and and, in practice, these lamps are quite similar. There are LEDs that produce high lumens per watt, but it is in currents that are normally not used because of cost. Looking at photons per watt inserted, they are more equal.

Now when we are talking about the spectrum at various depts in the ocean claiming that there is no light in wave lenghts longer than 470 nm at 3 meters is very false.
Never said that. When I stop at 460 - 470 nm its because of this table

Summary: (from Photosynthesis, 6th Edition" by Hall & Rao (1999.
Cambridge University Press)

Chlorophylls:

Chlorophyll a .... 420nm and 660nm .... in all higher plants and algae
Chlorophyll b .... 435nm and 643nm .... in all higher plants and green algae
Chlorophyll c .... 445nm and 625nm .... in diatoms and brown algae
Chlorophyll d .... 450nm and 690nm .... in red algae

Carotenoids:

beta-carotene .... 425nm, 450nm, 480nm ... in higher plants and most algae
alpha-carotene ... 420nm, 440nm, 480nm ... in most plants and some algae
Luteol ........... 425nm, 445nm, 475nm ... in green and red algae and higher plants

Violaxanthol ..... 425nm, 450nm, 475nm ... in diatoms and brown algae

Phycobilins (water soluble):

Phycoerythrins ... 490nm, 546nm, 576nm ... in red algae and some
cyanobacteria

Phycocyanins ..... 618nm ................. in some red algae and
cyanobacteria

Allophycocyanins . 650nm ................. cyanobacteria and red algae

According to chlorophyll b have I seen other figures at the blue part - 450 nm.

Chlorophyll c is probably the most interesting chlorophyll for us because it occurs (along with chlorophyll a and Violaxanthol) in dinoflagellates and diatoms (the most common Zooxanthellae´s of corals) all of these is in the range of 420 - 470 nm


Yes there is a reduction there compared to 430 nm but even at 600 nm some light does get through well below 30 meters.

From the surface which we will say has all wave lenghts at an equal amount as the dept increases some light is filtered out at different rations. For an examle lets say there is 100 mW of each target frequency at the surface.

wave lenght 430 470 510
surface 100 100 100
1 meter 95 90 80
2 meters 90 81 64
3 meters 86 73 51
4 meters 82 66 41
5 meters 78 59 33
7 meters 70 48 21
10 meters 60 35 11

As you can see the ratio of light differences increases but it will only get down to to levels that are unmeasurable rather than to complely 0. I had a chart on this when I was in school that would show this much better.

Thank you for the table - has looked for something similar


The cut point of 470nm is abbritary simular to the 420 nm being a cut point on the other end. Some will argue that frequencies as low as 380 nm are benificial, and others will argue that anything below 430 can be detrimental. On the longer wave lenghts the range of 625 to 685 is where most people try to avoid because these have either proven to cause bleaching in SOME corals, or produce a big boast for cyna bacterial growth.

For the Blues I have find that a combination of Cree Royal Blues and Blues give me fantastic coral growth. The Royal blues produce a strong spectrum from 430 nm to 470 nm while the blues are string between 465 and 505 nm. The combination give me a strong peak at about 470.

I also like to use Neutral Whites because I can use less of them than the cool whites to get a good color balance and they are no weaker in there blues than the cool whites. But yes I will agree that 85% of the uuse of LED's other than Blues is for pleasing your eye rather than growth. The other 15% is more for the florescent chemicals that are not covered by the blue spectrum.

Look at this chart again

attachment.php


Cree´s Royal Blue´s has their peak at 450 nm. I want to have the whole part between 420 and 460 filled up. if I do that I will have a very strong source that I have to handle with caution. As I try to say - we are handling very powerfull sources from both a biological and a physically point of view

Yes I had seen several reports on this. But what people do not realize is that there areseveral photosynthetic chemicals within most corals. Each of these chemicals do require light at a different frequency. While it is true that chlorphyl is the most dominant I believe there have been atleast 8 such chemicals identified. Each of these will be excited by at least 2 specific wave lenghts, many of which are barely measurable at the levels that these corals live. Therefore they get this light from the florescence of other chemicals.

Have you any references to this (articles)

tntneon said:
I love this thread !
Could it be that corals are absorbing lightwavelengts in different ratio's , sort in the way plant uptake nutrients in ratio, and there for you will encounter different species at different depth's ?

Yes

As you see the ratio change as depth is increasing ( troptea's chart).
And could it be that if we keep species in ouwer tanks that are acustomed to different ratio's and we only use one ratio , coral A is growing wild and coral B has a stagnant growth at the same time ?

greetingzz

And yes again :)

Sincerely Lasse
 
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I think the biggest energy savings (power/money) when it comes to LEDs is not having to run a chiller.

If that is the case that you NEED to run a chiller then I agree. However not everyone needs to run a chiller with halides. Unless the tank is kept in an area where the ambient temperature exceeds 70°F, if you overheat your tank with halides you're probably running too many halides :D You don't absolutely need to keep the temperature of a tank rock solid 24hours a day.
 
I think the biggest energy savings (power/money) when it comes to LEDs is not having to run a chiller.

I think there is lot more to it. I have run HO T-5 with 4 39 Watt bulbs on my 40 breeders for roughly 50 years now. As an experiment I converted on to LED's about 9 months ago. To this day the I would say both growth and color n the LED tank is better than on the T-5's.

The T-5 tanks have 4 39 Watt bulbs for a total of 156 Watts. The LED tank has 8 Royal Blue, 6 True Blue, 2 Cyan, and 6 Neutral White LED's. They are running at 700ma and roughly 3.2 Volts each, meaning they are drawing 2.24 watts each for a total of about 50 watts.

Will you always get a savings of 1/3 of the wattage needed with LED's. No it depends a lot on the effeciency of the LED's selected the current they are running at and your personal color taste when selecting the LED's. As was earlier stated some LED's may give out 150 Lumn per watt at one current and 115 lumn per watt at a much higher current.

On a side note I had two 420nm LED's in the system however everyone told me the tank looked pink with them in. When I pulled them out the overall color drasticly improved.
 
Yes I remember seeing this chart back when it was nearly impossible to get a LED over a 1 Watt rating. I believe it was put out by Sylvania who is not a leader in LED production today Today there are LED's that far surpass what was out then, with shingle chips noow exceeding 10 Watts from Cree, and multi chip exceedinng 100 watts by seveal companies.
The chart is updated as the technology evolves. The chart represents currently available technology, not what sylvania manufactures.

Another thing is that is not considered here is the direction that the light is radiated. In the case of the Metal Hide and florescent bulb light is emitted in a 360 degree circle. While from the LED it is generated in usualy a 120 degree angle.
Not really... The LED and MH are both point sources. The LED can only radiate visible light through the lens, the other 180 or so degrees of light is reflected by the back of the LED die or its built in reflector. A MH with an engineered reflector is comparable, as is a T5 with an SLR.

Honestly, I don't have the focus (no pun) to respond to the rest of the post and it is somewhat beyond the context of my post. You had indicated that LEDs don't directly produce as much heat as a MH or T5 and that is simply not correct :)

The bottom line is (as I posted above) that LEDs are not magic. With the current technology, by the time we get enough emitters to get the color and brightness we (at least some of us) are looking for, we are really not that far off Watt for Watt with a T5 or MH. We gain some ground with regard to heat radiated into the aquarium and hopefuly some ground with regard to consumables cost. I (we) don't care exactly what wavelenghts are present at a given depth for a given natural reef. Frankly speaking, a tank that replicated that "look" is not what most of us are looking for, it it were then most would be pretty happy with the 3:1 RB/CW ratio or the look of something like the Kessil A350... some of us think it looks like crap. :)

Again, I am not beating up LEDs and am in fact fully invested into building my "dream" fixture and giving them a spin. I could use a little less heat in the tank and would in fact like to boost both PAR and brightness.
 
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@ Bean Animal

I interpret the table a little bit different. In the row Heat I should add the percentage infrared because infrared is nothing more than a form of heat radiation when it hits something. Additionally the UV radiation is normally blocked in the lamp glass - it is converted into heat, in other words. Then the picture becomes an other.
Very valid observations, but I would not change the chart, as it was not designed for "us". It simply shows were each watt converted goes :)

the utlility of the UV and IR and when, what or where it strikes something and is turned to heat is also a matter of application and context. In our case (aquarium) a fair portion of it IS likely turned to heat in the fixture and some in the tank :)

And once again, if you use 100 watts in the wavelength range 420-460 nm, it is the same as if you add more than 400 watts of a full spectrum source with respect to the light that is active in photosynthesis.
Maybe somewhere in that neighborhood yes. My point was that many of us are now going back and trying to add in many of the other wavelengths to help coloration, pigminstation, flouresence, etc. :)

That is many of us are not looking for the "diving" experience and want bright vivid aquariums that lean more toward crisp white than mildy dim ocean blue :)
 
Maybe somewhere in that neighborhood yes. My point was that many of us are now going back and trying to add in many of the other wavelengths to help coloration, pigminstation, flouresence, etc. :)

That is many of us are not looking for the "diving" experience and want bright vivid aquariums that lean more toward crisp white than mildy dim ocean blue :)

I´ll do a last try to explain what I´m up to. I do not like the blue midwater look either - thats was the reason why I started to work with high Kelvin white chip´s. I discover that if I use this type of chip - I did not need as many blues as if I work with 6500 K chip´s to get a white look in my aquarium. Less blue - less dull colors and still lot of other wavelengths from the 10 - 16 000 K chip´s.

I have experiences both with discrete emitters and multichip.

Some people does not belive me - and thats up to them - I presupposes that the persons which are critical has experiences with both systems like myself.

But if you do not belive me -and thats up to you - please, stop trying to indicate that I have opinions that I do not have. Once again - I do not like the blue look!

The "dream chip" adventure starts with a question -which would be the optimum configuration of a 100 watt chip to provide both a good appearance and that the light would not be limiting for growth.

After the configuration has been developed, the question arose whether it was possible to arrange the different LEDs in five independent channels that could be handled separately. Then with one type LED in each channel.

It was possible and it was also possible to do it with 45 mil LED which means that a formal 100W chip with 5 * 20W channels can be operated in a maximum of 50 watts / channel. The configuration is 2 channels 20 LED each of whites (10 -16 000K), 1 channel of 20 pcs 445 nm,1 channel of 20 pcs 455 nm and 1 channel of 10 pcs 420 nm and 10 pieces of 430 nm. These can be partly dimmed but also run with different power. Formally 40 watts of whites could be 80 watts white with a higher current on these channels.

Variations are almost unlimited

I do not write this in order to promote the "Dream Chip" because it is to late to jump on this train - I´ll want only to give the thinking behind it.

SIncerely Lasse
 
Lasse,

Relex my friend, I was replying to your post in contex to wattage and the comments regarding wattage and heat by troptea. I am in agreement with most of what you have said, I was not infering that you do not have experience or a valid opinion or desire a midwater blue look :)
 
Lasse, You may have said it before but I'm getting confused now, (normal state :).

If I wanted two dream chips in series, for a 4X2X2 tank and to control all 5 channels of the chips, apart from jannes 5 channel driver (which I am waiting on the edge of my chair for), what would be a good solution for the drivers.

I will use the new large format dreamchip AC-RC heatsink.
 
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