PRIMARY LED lit Custom glass tank

[melev]

I think you'd have to run these successfully over your tank for at least a year before you could offer them to someone else at that price. Your's are working, but you've already had to replace some due to set backs. Once you can report their stability and if you are happy with their look 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years later, that would be good incentive for someone else to want them as well.

This is just my opinion. The theory that they will last longer is wonderful, and I'm sure everyone wants that. It just has to be proven in a saltwater environment to make it sellable.

 

[Buckeye ME]

How has it been holding up after a few more days? I'm thinking about trying something similar with a 5g hex since PC would be a pain to mod.

 

[poke75]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6738656#post6738656 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tigerarmy40
I dont know if yoiu guys have talked about this but have you thought about coming up with a design and then getting a patant? Im sure that if this succesful that someoone will be coming out with a setup very similar!!

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but patents are supposed to be awarded to technology that is non-obvious to someone of average competence in the field. Additionally, if someone wants to defeat your patent, its as simple as moving production to someplace like China where copying other's work is standard operating procedure.

 

[zachtos]

Yeah, good point about the patent. I'm really only interested in this as a hobby anyways though. Only 1 more burnout over the last week. It seems like many LEDs were damaged during the initial overdriven week of operation. i'm hoping they are reaching a stable point now. I messed around w/ my LUX meter again. It seems like some parts of the array are dimmer then others by a bit. But I get around 10,000-12,000 LUX at the surface of the water and about 9000 LUX at 6" and 7000 LUX at 12"


all soft corals doing well still. I modified the hood by placing the 12Vdc fan so it sucks air up and out of the hood through a hole on the top of the hood, I placed a chrome grill over it so it would look nice. I repaired 2 more LEDs, the current measured through the array is an average of 21mA.

kh=10ppm, salinity = 1.025, temp = 81F, nitrate=0ppm, ph=8.6 aprox.
hydro SPS is dying, flesh is peeling from skeleton.
I harvested over 2" ball of chateomorpha macroalgae, so the refugium LEDs are working well

currently treating tank w/ 0.4G PWC once weekly, tropic marin salt, mixed and stored in advance. 10% of volume of tank, adding 1tsp baking soda and 1/2tsp kent turbo calcium to each 4 gallons of distilled water. I am treating w/ kent de-nitrate and seachem carbon 1 tbs/ ea changed weekly and ran in a nylon stocking inbetween one of the overflows. tank is evaporating 3-4L of water/ week. No fish in tank, only snails, no crabs.

 

[mupham]

Great project so far, I've enjoyed reading your posts. It seems like the ideal solution for nano tanks. I can't wait to start saving on my power bill Another nice feature of LEDs that hasn't really been touched on, is that you can vary the intensity for different periods of the day, something difficult to do with flourescent or MH bulbs and balasts. This is currently done already with many of the moonlight controllers that try to mimic the lunar cycle. Maybe even have some Red and Amber for sunrise and sunset effects if you wish.

Have you tried anything to diffuse the output of the LED or will that lower the intensity too much? There were some concerns about the narrow beam of the LED lens and potentially harming corals. Do fish swimming across the top close to the LEDs seem to be going from light to dark?

I agree that wiring those in series saves you resistors, soldering, and current draw, but limits your ability to deliver a steady current to each LED as voltage drops vary per device (3.2v ~ 3.8v). In parallel, even with a very cheap 12v unregulated power supply and a 470 ohm resistor, the current to each LED is not going to vary more than +/-10%. To get the most longevity out of your initial LED investment, it might be worth it to wire it in parallel. As in life there are tradeoffs. Perhaps just having fewer LEDs in each string may help also.

In general AC is safer as the DC is more likely to cause the muscles to contract and hold on to the live wire. But we also need to consider the voltages we are encountering in our tanks. With LEDs you are talking 12 or 24 volts DC. Whereas our balasts are pushing hundreds of volts AC. This would make LEDs far safer than MH, in terms of potential shock hazards.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

[zachtos]

no, I am not diffusing the light at all... that is a lot of extra work it sounds like to me. You can vary the intensity of the LEDs by changing the voltage or by using a pulse width modulator (PWM). I have looked into it but it just seemed to add another degree of difficulty to my project and more potential for things to go wrong at this point.

no fish, but I dont see a shadow under my powerhead.

I think I would prefer shorter strings in series, but It is hard to squeeze resistors into such a confined space honestly. I measured the current going through my fuse this weekend, It is 0.72A across 34 strings, one was blown at the time but the average current per string is 21mA. Many of my LEDs appear to be at different intensities, I believe due to damage they recieved prior. I may end up re-doing the entire array if need be, and may sell or store the old one.

 

[Zigzag Man]

I've also been following this thread closely, because I find it very interesting... thanks for taking the time to share this venture with all of us...

I would, however, like to comment on a couple of things:

This is 89% average intensity of MH and seems to be able to penetrate deeper then MH can w/ less drop off at great distance.

This just might be me, but the dropoff looks fairly linear, the same as with MH. The final reading gives me cause to question, as you lose 4500 lux between 18 to 24", yet between 24 to 36" (a twofold depth increase), you only lose a couple-hundred lux? That just seems odd to me.

3. due to low heat generation, may be mounted very close to water surface, this gives them an advantage because they can get much closer then MH, thus giving them the winning edge in my book

The only drawback with mounting them closely is unless they are completely sealed, you're going to get corrosion on the metal legs of the resistors and LED's, not to mention the solder joints... you're probably going to have to find a way to seal all the metal from the elements if you want the array to last beyond two to three years. With proper sealing, I think this will work great.

I've seen a few LUX readings of 10,000K bulbs and they were very close to the 20,000K bulb I have.

You must have found some dogs of 10K bulbs, because on average (like was mentioned before) 10K bulbs are at least twice as bright as their 20K counterparts... if you check out JB NY's bulb comparison (at http://www.cnidarianreef.com), you can see his readings first-hand, though this was with single-ended bulbs... the comparison should carry over to HQI as well though for relative intensity versus bulb color temp.

Otherwise, once again, thanks for sharing... for a nano tank this array looks like it would be great... near-20K-halide intensity without the heat or electric bill... but like you said yourself, for anything larger it's probably going to be cost (and time) prohibitive.

 

[zachtos]

the reason the LUX doesnt drop off at deeper levels is because LEDs FOCUS the light in a tight beam, as MH/PC dispurse it in a WIDE angle.

corrosion supposedly isnt an issue from what I've read w/ discussions at nano-reef.com forums. neanderthalman has a thread were we discussed corrosion.

as mentioned before these LEDs did decrease in output by 60% after I stopped inadverantly overdriving them. They now produce #'s about 60% of what you see posted. 10-12000LUX at 3". Still these are pretty good lights for small tanks, I still think for 6Gallon and under that you cant beat them. For fuge lights, I think they dominate considering the growth they put out and the neat look of the pink light.

 

[Zigzag Man]

the reason the LUX doesnt drop off at deeper levels is because LEDs FOCUS the light in a tight beam, as MH/PC dispurse it in a WIDE angle.

Howdy zachtos... thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions.

The thing that gets me is that if the beam were more concentrated, you'd see that in the graph... what I see is a linear drop-off in intensity by depth, which is what you'd expect... however, the graph seems to be showing that rather than diffusing even further the next 12" (between 24" to 36"), the LED's instead refocus into a tight beam (according to the graph)... do you get what I'm saying?

Here's a quick graph of what I'm talking about... maybe it'll be easier to visualize:

The graph above essentially shows the reduction in lux as the 'spread' of the light, as well as the distance from the light. In the beginning, the graph you posted shows the 'normal' linear dropoff one would expect as the light spreads, and the tank gets deeper (and thus the light has more water diffusing it's path). However, between 24 and 36", the light beam of the LED array in your graph, actually refocuses in the opposite direction, which is the only way it could maintain it's relative intensity (a couple-hundred lux) over another 12" of depth... one would expect that the light would continue to spread as is with the 'normal' LED I included in the center of the graph above (resulting in the same linear intensity drop-off). Essentially the spread on your array is almost even at 36" as it was at 24"...
Now, it's doubtful that anybody would use LED's on a tank 36" deep, and I'm not accusing you of 'fudging' the results to make it look better... I'm just curious as to what's causing this anomaly. I also thought about the LED beams finally overlapping after 36" (so you're actually doubling-up the light because you have the light from two LED's falling where only one had fallen before, but I thought you had mentioned previously in this thread that you spaced the LED's in your array so that the beams overlapped already).

Once again, thanks for putting up with my query.

 

[zachtos]

Don't read into the data too hard. When I measure I get a range of LUX values such as 4000-5000 at the depth for instance. I will typically chose a number near the average measurment. At different points in the light pattern I will get results that vary by up to 30%, I think some has to do with the LED's manufacturing.
I will try to get my roomate to help me get some new readouts with my lowered intensity lights this week again. Hold off on further analysis until then.

 

[zachtos]

My SPS coral has died and my 2 Kenya leather corals are shriveled and dying. I do not believe this is caused by lighting (it would not occur so rapidly). More then likely this is from PH instability or chemical warfare among the softies in only 4 gallons.

Ricordia/green mushroom/green star polyps/coraline algae are still doing good

no skimmer, running 1.5tbs of carbon/1tbs denitrate, harvesting macro algae, water is auto-topped off, macro light is on 16hr/day, weekly 0.4G distilled water changes w/ tropic marin mixed and stored in gallon jugs.

temperature is usually between 79-81deg F.
nitrate/nitrite/ammonia 0ppm
kh 8dkh
calc: last known to be 425ppm
ph - 8.3-8.8? hard to say w/ my kit in that range aquapharm.?
salin 1.025

I have never had luck w/ anything other then polyps/shrooms/clams/GSP (xenia off and on). I've had bad past luck w/ toadstool, kenya. I'm guessing chemical warfare is the issue, but I'm not experience enough to really know for sure. I've read before that SPS is very vulnerable to softie toxins and nitrates.

 

[badpacket]

Hmm

Hmm

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6746046#post6746046 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by zachtos
This tank has not been at any shows.

Eggcrate is too large, and glue is a bad idea for maintenance purposes. I used a pre-drilled sheet of polyplastic from usplastics.com, I had to do a quick once over on the 4.7mm holes to widen them to 5mm. The LEDs fit snugly w/o glue. The re-drilling only took 30min to do around 400 holes, the stuff cuts like butter and doesnt melt."

Hmm, just noticed this. I wonder if basically sinsulating the LED's inside the plastic sheet isn't roasting them. Possible reason for early failure.

 

[zachtos]

could be, but i'm thinking it was heat from over current more likely. i've only had one more die in the last two weeks. still die off from the first damaged batch.

 

[zachtos]

my kenya trees seem fine now, must be water quality fluctuation issues. The carbon must be cleaning it up now. I have LED spectrographs for all you lighting experts to analyze now. You can see that I still am lacking in the 420nm zone, but have good coverage otherwise. My coral growth right now seems slow, but the tank is only 2.75 months old. I will try and keep posting a photo every 1.5 months or so to document growth. I still plan to add a green clown goby once my LFS gets one in stock. I also do not plan to place any more SPS in the tank due to softie chemical warfare. I may try a xenia again later, some frogspawn, and some more zoos/shrooms.

Lab results compliments of Hromm at nano-reef.com

 

[zachtos]

I am still not sure if my array was damaged from the overdrive period or if they just die early period. I seem to get one burnout every 10 days on average. Itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s getting ridiculous and I am already getting sick of the project. If the array continues to die like this I may just convert to 70W MH... although that will probably be the same intensity, it will be less hassle. I'm definitely going to rebuild the array someday when more powerful 5mm's are available that are higher quality. I would just be happy if they stopped burning out though. By the way, the whites are the only ones that burn out, not the blues/reds/uvs. I did re-measure my array, the output is depressing but still very good for a nanocube. I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have the numbers at work but they were roughly
3" 8500lux
6" 7500lux
12" 6000lux
18" 5500lux
24" 5000lux
36" 4500lux

one side of the array is more intense then the other side for no apparent reason, I'm guessing one side was damaged by heat more then the other. I NEED MEASUREMENTS TO COMPARE THIS TOO still... I really wanted LUX readings off a 70w MH and 150w MH but I guess I will just have to assume its in that range and more powerful then 18W PCs. I'm still unsure of if doubling the powercompact bulbs actually increases LUX. that cant be possible can it? It can only give better coverage correct? So this still should give great coverage and intensity for a small tank. although I'm reaching the conclusion that a MH would be easier and about the same cost, although an ICE PROBE would be needed, it's not a big deal. LEDs are great for moonlighting and refugium lights but the jury is still out as a display so far. More follow-up research to come.

 

[miatawnt2b]

Zachtos,
do you happen to have a temperature reading of the LED's in your array. Could this burning out issue be one of heat?

Just a thought.
-J

 

[zachtos]

no temperature reading, but they feel only slightly warm to the touch, so they must be under 100 deg F, well under safe operation w/ the 12V fan. I think the issue was before they may have been damaged by overdriving. OR they are poor quality, which i suspect. besthongkong must be super cheap for a reason. 500 high power LEDs for under $100. although I only have problems with the whites.

 

[zachtos]

duplicate

 

[labragg1]

cool!!!

 

[zachtos]

Yesterday when I got home I noticed my custom glass tank had been leaking all day slowly after only 3 months. I could not find a leak on any seem, so I proceeded to apply silicone to every corner and seem along the outside of the glass tank. It really isnt that noticable because I have a base around the bottom. The tank seems to have stopped leaking as of this morning. If any more problems like this come up, I will scrap the entire project. It's not worth the daily stress anymore, this is not relaxing in the least, especially since I will be losing more and more money. I lose 2-3 white LEDs per week, I can replace every white LED but that will take me about 8hours of work and cost around $70. screw this. very very close to getting MH and declaring LEDs are feasible IF you can get a good manufacturer.

All corals are still alive and growing slowly, corraline is spreading along the foam at a slow but steady rate. I have not purchased more corals or own any fish still due to the LEDs constant failures, I've been hesitant to add anything. I miss when the output was twice as high 2 months ago. I'm afraid to replace all the LEDs and waste more money.