Minimalistic multichip DIY LED build

[Skinnysloth]

So i should remove the 20w 16000k? Should i put anything in its place or just have the 50w and three 20w chips. Is there a certain blue to white ratio i should have? I know with the individual 3 w leds there is but I don't know if the same thing applies here.

I don't have a specific blue/white ratio to give you as that depends on what you find visually appealing. Some like it bluer and others prefer a crisp white, etc. The advantage of a dimmable driver is the ability to tweak the color to your liking. To accomplish this, I would have get 50w 10000K and surround it with at 2 royal blue and a violet (420nm). Run the white off one driver and the blues/violet off another so you can adjust it.

Some here like a warm white (6500K or even lower) to add more of the red spectrum to the lights.

I have a similar tank to yours, 48x20x20, and have a 2 clusters of 50w 10000K, 50w 450nm, 20w 420nm and 2x ocean coral white tri star (470nm 495nm 660nm) used to fill in some of the missing spectrum. The 50w white and blue were turned down to 25% and adjusted until the light was pleasing to my eyes. I don't know what percentage they are at now, but I would guess around the 50% range or less. I don't see much disco effect with the ocean coral white tri star on the sand bed, but it is plainly evident at the shodows of the branches of my frogspawn.

 

[MrShroomy]

I don't have a specific blue/white ratio to give you as that depends on what you find visually appealing. Some like it bluer and others prefer a crisp white, etc. The advantage of a dimmable driver is the ability to tweak the color to your liking.

I don't see much disco effect with the ocean coral white tri star on the sand bed, but it is plainly evident at the shodows of the branches of my frogspawn.

I do prefer "whiter" tanks over heavy blue ones. This is also my first tank so I don't know what the colors really look like in person so I would like to dim. Do you use a controller to dim or do you do it manually? I didn't really plan on buying a controller and was just going to get a driver that would let me. As far as the chips go I thought that the hybrid chips would help avoid the disco colors. Would two clusters of 50w hybrid, a 20w 10000k and 20w 420nm chip be strong enough to reach the bottom and provide enough color? Thats 90w of light for each side don't know if that's enough of the color spectrum though.

 

[Skinnysloth]

I do prefer "whiter" tanks over heavy blue ones. This is also my first tank so I don't know what the colors really look like in person so I would like to dim. Do you use a controller to dim or do you do it manually? I didn't really plan on buying a controller and was just going to get a driver that would let me. As far as the chips go I thought that the hybrid chips would help avoid the disco colors. Would two clusters of 50w hybrid, a 20w 10000k and 20w 420nm chip be strong enough to reach the bottom and provide enough color? Thats 90w of light for each side don't know if that's enough of the color spectrum though.

It's manually dimmed, but once I get my 50w dreamchip up and running, I may put together an arduino based controller. I think 90w should be plenty to reach the bottom of the tank. From my understanding, any depth below 30" should be fine with leds without optics.

 

[MrShroomy]

I noticed AC-RC on eBay has a lot of drivers to go for their chips. They have a 50w dimmable driver but their only 20w drivers are made to be run in a series. Can you suggest a different site for drivers?

 

[MrShroomy]

What is the difference between 40mil and 45 mil chips. I notice the 40mil ones are a little bit cheaper than the 45.

 

[mr.wilson]

I do prefer "whiter" tanks over heavy blue ones. This is also my first tank so I don't know what the colors really look like in person so I would like to dim. Do you use a controller to dim or do you do it manually? I didn't really plan on buying a controller and was just going to get a driver that would let me. As far as the chips go I thought that the hybrid chips would help avoid the disco colors. Would two clusters of 50w hybrid, a 20w 10000k and 20w 420nm chip be strong enough to reach the bottom and provide enough color? Thats 90w of light for each side don't know if that's enough of the color spectrum though.

If you like a white look, go with 14-16k white chips. Anything lower will look yellow and require a lot of blue to balance the colour/shadows. A higher colour temperature will give a more even colour mix. 20k white LEDs look too dim.

 

[megadeth72]

in my eye's the 14-16k chips look pretty blue

I'll have a spectrometer soon so I'll be able to post graphs

 

[epicentyr]

Aw Crap! I forgot how much I didnt pay attention in my EE classes. I have a Meanwell HLG-100H-54B constant current driver. I plan to run five 20w chips from it. should I be in series or parallel. :headwally::headwally: I appreciate all input. I thought I had this figured out last spring and now as I sit with my soldering iron I have no idea what I am doing.

http://www.meanwell.com/search/HlG-100/default.htm

 

[daks]

Aw Crap! I forgot how much I didnt pay attention in my EE classes. I have a Meanwell HLG-100H-54B constant current driver. I plan to run five 20w chips from it. should I be in series or parallel. :headwally::headwally: I appreciate all input. I thought I had this figured out last spring and now as I sit with my soldering iron I have no idea what I am doing.

http://www.meanwell.com/search/HlG-100/default.htm

Series would be my first call, BUT double check the fv (forward voltage) and mA rating of your chips. Some 20w chips take about 10V forward voltage and 1.7 A (1700mA) rating so parallel is out of the question for that driver. But double check the mA rating so you don't fry your chips.

 

[Ickey09]

I have started reading this thread the past few days, I am extremely confused. I have a 36l x 16w x 16d tank. It's 14.5 inches to the sand bed. I would like to keep soft, sps, lps corals. Can I get some suggestions on what I need? I would like to dim it. Is it possible to have just one pendant over this tank? There is a lot of info in this thread and when trying to read through it get bounced off all the other things your trying to take in. It would be nice to get it outlined in a sticky.

 

[epicentyr]

Series would be my first call, BUT double check the fv (forward voltage) and mA rating of your chips. Some 20w chips take about 10V forward voltage and 1.7 A (1700mA) rating so parallel is out of the question for that driver. But double check the mA rating so you don't fry your chips.

haha! if I understood what you just said I probably would not be in this situation :lmao::lmao:

 

[mr.wilson]

in my eye's the 14-16k chips look pretty blue

I'll have a spectrometer soon so I'll be able to post graphs

It ranges from one manufacturer to another, and even from one order to the next at times. In general, a 14-16k phosphor coated LED will look like a 10-12k metal halide lamp to the human eye. A spectrometer, it will likely yield the similar results. The hobby abandoned 5-10k lighting 20 years ago once 12-20k options became available. There has only recently been an increase in the popularity of warm white and cool white LEDs due to their high lumen/watt ratio. Lumens are based on how humans perceive light so it is a poor metric to use.

There is also a common misconception that low colour temperature chips have more red in them. While they do have less blue, it is replaced by green light, not red. There are phosphors that generate red spectrum, but they are so insignificant that it is not worth the resources. You will see a small bump on spectrographs, but not enough to be visually noticeable. The only way to get the kind of red light that you will experience from the sun or a metal halide bulb is to use red chips.

The colour of light rendered from a fixture is also judged by the aquarium contents and how they react. For example, a well stocked SPS tank looks great with red light and a white overall look, while a new stark tank looks better with blue light. Once a new tank fills in, predominantly blue light limits the colours that can be reflected, resulting in a monochromatic look with no colour depth.

 

[mr.wilson]

I have started reading this thread the past few days, I am extremely confused. I have a 36l x 16w x 16d tank. It's 14.5 inches to the sand bed. I would like to keep soft, sps, lps corals. Can I get some suggestions on what I need? I would like to dim it. Is it possible to have just one pendant over this tank? There is a lot of info in this thread and when trying to read through it get bounced off all the other things your trying to take in. It would be nice to get it outlined in a sticky.

The thread covers a broad range of options with a broad range of unique applications and personal opinions, including my own

In my opinion, multichips are best suited to medium to large aquariums. The low cost and availability of PAR 38 bulbs makes them the best choice for a small tank such as yours.

No you cannot illuminate a 3'L x 16" w tank with one pendant. Unfortunately, they cast an even circular beam. A 100w multichip would cover the 3' length, but the light would spill into your room and encourage nuisance algae growth on the viewing panels.

If you wanted to use multichip technology, you could use two 50w chips or four 20w chips. The shimmer and colour mixing would be better with the 50w option as there are fewer points of light. You are also better to have more light than you need and dim it down than to operate at max.

 

[daks]

haha! if I understood what you just said I probably would not be in this situation :lmao::lmao:

That link was for ONE LED that is used in the 20W array chip you have. Need to see a spec sheet for the 20W led array you have to give you a definite answer.

It shows that the forward Max current is 700mA (.7 Amps) and Max forward Voltage is 3.6 Volts.

Your Driver puts out 49-54 Volts and and 1.77Amps (adjustable if you open it up down to 1.1Amps in ( 1 mA = .001 Amps).

A good link that explains what happens with series and parallel circuits is

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_7/1.html


I.e. you'd need 14-15 of those individual LED's (not array's) in series to "use up the voltage"

Look at Voltage is series as as a single lane of cars paying money to toll booths going down the highway. V=$ and each toll booth charges $3.6 and each car left with $49-58.

Amperage is the same down that whole single lane of "cars".

That driver provides 1.7Amps (1700mA) (1.1 to 1.7A adjustable).

That INDIVIDUAL Led can only handle .7Amps (700mA) max. So to keep up with the car analogy.... you'd need to two lane highway. Or back to electrical terms a parallel circuit of two strings to split the current (driver would have to be turned down). of 1.4A (1400mA) into 700mA into each "highway lane".

Now the reason I can't give you a definitive answer if THAT led 20W will work is... I don't know how many lanes there are in the highway (how many LED strings are in parallel) nor how many individual LED's (toll booths) are in series with each other.

Kirchoff's law for a parallel circuit is that voltage is constant going into each branch (highway lane) and current gets split by the # of lanes. (But then we need to get into Ohm's law to figure out the resistance (toll booth) of each branch (highway lane) to figure how much current ( # of cars) will be able to flow, as current is like people and will more will always flow through the "cheapest" path....

Lol that probably just confused you more... it always does until the concept "clicks".

Needless to say, need to see the whole chip datasheet to give you a simpler answer....

 

[epicentyr]

That link was for ONE LED that is used in the 20W array chip you have.

Lol that probably just confused you more... it always does until the concept "clicks".

Needless to say, need to see the whole chip datasheet to give you a simpler answer....

Thanks daks! My intention is to have 4 drivers on completely separate plugs into a reefkeeper. Each individual driver would power five 20w LED modules. I would be able to dim and time all 4 drivers with different color LEDs independently allowing for excellent dawn/noon/dusk color control. I have purchased all LEDs from AC-RC on ebay. evidently they are banned links as my previous post was deleted. They are all 45 mil Epistar 20w colors are 445nm, 453nm, actinic hybrid, and 10k (10000k).

ballast 1 powers five 445nm
ballast 2 powers five 453nm
ballast 3 powers five hybrid
ballast 4 powers five 10k

It sounds like I may have been misguided on the ballast selection. I hope this is not the case. :debi:

 

[MrShroomy]

Just out of curiosity has anyone used these multichips with t5 lighting? I know some people have trouble coloring corals with leds but if you had t5 lighting doing the coloring that seems like it would work. Maybe have leds deliver the white spectrum and t5 deliver the "blue". That way you get the best of both worlds, any thoughts on this?

 

[megadeth72]

who has reported trouble getting coral to color?

 

[megadeth72]

It ranges from one manufacturer to another, and even from one order to the next at times. In general, a 14-16k phosphor coated LED will look like a 10-12k metal halide lamp to the human eye. A spectrometer, it will likely yield the similar results. The hobby abandoned 5-10k lighting 20 years ago

if you remember what hamilton 14k's looked like, that's what my 12-14k 50w looks like to me, a blueish white

my hybrid 50w on my sons tank looks just like 10k's I used to run almost 20 years ago, a very crisp white

 

[MrShroomy]

who has reported trouble getting coral to color?

None specifically but in a lot of the led vs MH and t5 threads people claim leds don't color corals as well.

 

[megadeth72]

I've only seen it reported that colors are different, same exact thing happens when you change halide bulb types, ie 10k to 20k or a change in t5 spectrum

it's not a led thing at all