Pete's 110 build

[psteeleb]

thanks Brett and Brett

My wife likes the hobby, always has. I will add she also thinks it's a money pit.
I depend on her being my eyes and lab technician when I'm gone.


I ended up ordering some additional parts for my LED phase 2 build, if every thing gets here on Friday I'll be posting more on it this weekend. If not I'll bore everyone with more coral and fish pictures. :lol:

 

[psteeleb]

I picked up this Watermellon chalice frag from a local reefer a couple weeks ago and it's starting to color up nicely

here it is again but under actinics

and the other side

The orange gorg continues to do great, the body even looks like its plumped up a little from when I first got it
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When I first set up this tank I was going to remove and inspect & dip all my acropora's monthy or maybe every other month. After a few months of not seeing anything I skipped doing this for the past 6 months or more. Having a little time on my hand I decided to pull them and give them a close inspection and a dip. The dip was for one hour in a 30X concentration of interceptor and a 15 minute dip with regular concentration of ReVive. The good news is I didn't find any pests, the bad news is I almost killed my chips acro, I guess it was right under the area I was pouring in the Revive and it must have gotten a super strong dose. At first I wasn't sure of it's fate but today it looks a lot better, the skin still shows some sign of being burned from the ReVive but the polyps are at least out.

here is a close up of the ORA pearlberry - I'll take shots like this of the acropora on a regular basis as the camera can pick up details (of pests) that I can not see by my eyes alone.

a couple more random zoanithid pictures

this favia has continued to do well - it started with just a couple heads less then a year ago

random ric

 

[drummereef]

Great pics as always Pete. Do you think it was the Revive that did it? I would think the intercepter would be a lot more harsh to the corals but I really don't know...

 

[psteeleb]

Great pics as always Pete. Do you think it was the Revive that did it? I would think the intercepter would be a lot more harsh to the corals but I really don't know...

it could be but I've use that high concentration before with no issues. Plus the interceptor was mixed in the bucket before hand for a few minutes where I just poured in the ReVive a cap at a time. My resoning behind the Revive is only the one coral appears to be burned so I was thinking it may have been right below where I poured it in so it may have gotten an undiluted exposure

 

[drummereef]

it could be but I've use that high concentration before with no issues. Plus the interceptor was mixed in the bucket before hand for a few minutes where I just poured in the ReVive a cap at a time. My resoning behind the Revive is only the one coral appears to be burned so I was thinking it may have been right below where I poured it in so it may have gotten an undiluted exposure

Gotcha, sounds reasonable. I watch the concentration of my Revive mix next time I dip too.

 

[psteeleb]

I got started on the new LED light bars today

first I had to drill and tap the 36" x 1" x 1" long heat sinks. The lower heatsink has been drilled & tapped for the screws, at this point the upper heatsink in the picture has only been drilled. The black star LEDs are Cree Royal Blue 3w XPE's the others are Cree soft white XRE's. Each set will be on it's own dimmable driver.

next up was using a thermal paste to thermally bond the LED stars to the heat sinks, the LEDs are then achored using the new clips shown above the LEDs

here is a close up of the clips

and here are the 2 light bars ready for wiring & lens installation

 

[drummereef]

Drool...... Freakin' sweet project Pete. Can't wait to see how you wire it all up.

 

[psteeleb]

Drool...... Freakin' sweet project Pete. Can't wait to see how you wire it all up.

just to keep your curiosity level up here are some progress pictures

here is one of the light bars with most of the wiring done and some of the lens holders and lenses installed

as I'm splitting the current to drive 2 bars as a safety precaution I'm adding resistors and fuses to each light string, this way if one side goes bad the other side is protected. I'm planning on a total of 4 dimmable systems each split so I have to plan for 8 resistors and fuses
here is the inside of the resistor box prior to assembly

and here is a picture of the fuses that will be installed to each bar (including the actinic LED's I already have)

 

[psteeleb]

And there was light, blue lights anyway

When testing the ballast on the white lights there was a flash and that's it.
Tracking down the problem I found that the very end white LED did not have a good connection. The white LED's came tinned (pre soldered) with some sort of film on it. Apparently the film was pretty thick on the contact and wasn't working properly. I had tested all the LED's earlier, but I also remounted them at one point. Once cleaned up and tested again I tryed the full system test and again nothing. Tracking down the power with the volt omhs meter I found the fuses had blown. Probably with one line out the full load going to the other blew the fuse - it did it's job.

After replacement everything worked fine.

In this picture only the blue lenses are installed on the bar on the right

Here is a picture of the resistor box. I'm considering replacing the inline fuses with some panel mounted ones or a 8 fuse holder. The fuses are the red wires on the left and come from the ballast. Each ballast is split and feeds to systems (and two fuses).

 

[frankpayne32]

Tanks looking great Pete. I have the same type of pipe organ coral in my tank. You don't see them too often.

 

[drummereef]

Hey Pete, I'm having a hard time understanding the fuse setup. Is it necessary with these systems to incorporate a fuse box? Also, are the fuses protecting the drivers or the LED strips, or both? Sorry... little slow here.

 

[psteeleb]

Tanks looking great Pete. I have the same type of pipe organ coral in my tank. You don't see them too often.

thanks Frank - I agree the pipe organ is not like the typical ones you see with the white flower looking polyps. I picked this one up at a local fish store and it has done well. I've always liked pipe organs as they offer the flowing look of star polyps without being as invasive. One of these days I may pick up on of the more typical ones.

Hey Pete, I'm having a hard time understanding the fuse setup. Is it necessary with these systems to incorporate a fuse box? Also, are the fuses protecting the drivers or the LED strips, or both? Sorry... little slow here.

My bad as I didn't describe what I was after with this LED build or what I was doing

The Meanwell ELN 60 48D driver is designed for 9-12 Cree 3w LED's but has a rating of 1.2 amps (and they test out higher) and has to be tuned down using the built in potentiometer so it won't over drive the LED's. I'm not an EE but from what I found out you can split the current into two 0.6 amp (or 0.85 amps as tested) and drive two sets of 9-12 Cree 3w LEDs.

So it's like getting a two for one deal with the Meanwell. In comparison people are using the Inventronics 35 700 dimmable but it's rated at 0.7 amps and cost a couple more dollars. I may not be up date but from what did study and learn a few months ago these are the two best deals for dimmable LED drivers, both are under $40

Anyway back to your question. When splitting the current on the Meanwell you create a situation that if one string fails all the current will go through the other string and likely over power and thus burn out the LED.s. So for example if the meanwell is split and is driving 2 sets of 12 LEDs it will likely be set to something around 0.75 -0.85 amps each string or 1.5 "“ 1.7 total both strings. If one string fails then all that current (1.5 "“ 1.7) will go through the other string. The LEDs can only handle a max of 1 amp and therefore it is recommended to install the fuse. I suspect it is primarily there to protect the LED's but if the unit was shorted I suspect it will also protect the ballast.

More here:
http://reefledlights.com/resistors-and-fuses-in-parallel-strings/

 

[drummereef]

Awesome, that makes perfect sense. :thumbsup: What's the benefit of running 1x driver for 2x strings, just to cut the overall equipment cost? Are there any benefits to running separate drivers for each string? Sorry for all the questions... :uhoh3:

 

[psteeleb]

Awesome, that makes perfect sense. :thumbsup: What's the benefit of running 1x driver for 2x strings, just to cut the overall equipment cost? Are there any benefits to running separate drivers for each string? Sorry for all the questions... :uhoh3:

Yes - it's primarily to save some money on driver costs
other benefits of using one driver for two strings:
- it saves a slot for the 10VDC APEX dimmer control. Although, I suspect you could run two ballasts from one dimmer control maybe even more.
- I suspect there would also be some electrical cost savings by using one driver instead of two
- saves space

Benefits of using more drivers:
- more dimming or on/off control
- lower chance of over driving an LED or string of LED's assuming you don't have a fuse and or resistor <-- I suspect it may be a good safety practice to install a fuse even if you are not splitting the current

 

[Rodrigo_BG]

Hi, great corals and incredible shots! Do you need any specific lense in your camera to get those macros?

 

[drummereef]

Yes - it's primarily to save some money on driver costs, but it also saves a slot for the 10VDC APEX dimmer control. Although, I suspect you could run two ballasts from one dimmer control maybe even more.

Perfect, thanks!!!

 

[IridescentLily]

Your Cyphastrea.

 

[psteeleb]

thanks Lily

here is a coralorph - this picture does not do it justice, the ones I have are very beautiful, mostly clear with the white ball tips and flashes of fluorescent greens and pinks

 

[frankpayne32]

thanks Lily

here is a coralorph - this picture does not do it justice, the ones I have are very beautiful, mostly clear with the white ball tips and flashes of fluorescent greens and pinks

Very cool! Is that just a lucky hitchiker?

 

[psteeleb]

Very cool! Is that just a lucky hitchiker?

yes it is, and I have to assume they are survivors from my 300g tank. I had hundreds in my 300g, most of them resided in my overflows and a few in the display. The ones in the overflows probably ate pods and fresh shrimp spawns as the over flows always had a good population of pods and what I guess were shrimp babies. I suspect they also ate what ever detritus and food got in there. The overflows also had a very healthy population of feather dusters in them.

My guess is I have around 30 or so in this tank but I haven't checked my overflows and there could be a decent size population in there.

sorry about hte spelling I believe they are a coralmorph