Show me your canopy DIY LED fixtures!
- Thread starter zero26
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LoJack
New member
its not really that bad, but my tank is 72X24 and there is one heatsink per opening of 24X24. Its more of spot light at the center of each opening lol.... and the reason being bc they are so tightly close together. If you already have all your goods, i would suggest either running them with 80* optics or maybe without just to see how much spread you get.
Here you can see how dark it looks towards the front and back... super bright in the middle of each 24X24 section
What if you just removed two rows of optics where the two heatsinks come together ... you'd still get penetration all over, but would have a little more blending between your heatsinks
MADtanks
Stix Anyone?
Lojack interesting thought.... i may give that a try. I am also going to mod my brace with clear 3/8" acrylic to minimize the shadow effect.
rrasco.... I am running 60* optics bc i wanted to make sure i had plenty of par all the way down to the bottom of the tank, I feel like i may be wasting some of that inthe middle of the tank, I mean I am hitting pretty much 200PAR at the sand torwards the middle of each Array. When i add the T5's or VHO not sure now lol, It will deff give the light a bump in PAR. So i may still spread the lights more on the C channel all the way across the 60" frame.
Right now im 2" on center between each LED' i think im going to adjust fire and switch it up to 3" on center between each LED, and use 20 LED's per C channel. Or go to 2.5" on center between each LED and squeeze in 24 LED's.
20 Per C channel i would use 6 total, to equal the 120.
24 Per C channel i would use 5 total, to equal the 120.
That plus adding 2 T5's or 2 VHO's to fill in the missing spectrum, should be more than enough.
if the tank was not so deep honestly i would go with some 80* optics and call it done but i really dont want to loose the output im getting right now but going with a wider cone. Hope some of my findings will help you guys out. I am like i said very impressed with the LED's and I use to have cree's XPG's in my old rig 48 total, and they colored up my SPS great! they grew my Purple monster from about 1" frag.... to now mini colony at 4" + and with the BL bringing the color back to purple from the bleaching it suffered(was all white) i can surely say that they are very capable of growing anything too!
rrasco.... I am running 60* optics bc i wanted to make sure i had plenty of par all the way down to the bottom of the tank, I feel like i may be wasting some of that inthe middle of the tank, I mean I am hitting pretty much 200PAR at the sand torwards the middle of each Array. When i add the T5's or VHO not sure now lol, It will deff give the light a bump in PAR. So i may still spread the lights more on the C channel all the way across the 60" frame.
Right now im 2" on center between each LED' i think im going to adjust fire and switch it up to 3" on center between each LED, and use 20 LED's per C channel. Or go to 2.5" on center between each LED and squeeze in 24 LED's.
20 Per C channel i would use 6 total, to equal the 120.
24 Per C channel i would use 5 total, to equal the 120.
That plus adding 2 T5's or 2 VHO's to fill in the missing spectrum, should be more than enough.
if the tank was not so deep honestly i would go with some 80* optics and call it done but i really dont want to loose the output im getting right now but going with a wider cone. Hope some of my findings will help you guys out. I am like i said very impressed with the LED's and I use to have cree's XPG's in my old rig 48 total, and they colored up my SPS great! they grew my Purple monster from about 1" frag.... to now mini colony at 4" + and with the BL bringing the color back to purple from the bleaching it suffered(was all white) i can surely say that they are very capable of growing anything too!
MADtanks
Stix Anyone?
I hear you man, i mean long as you wont have the LED's too high off of the water i thinky ou can deff get away with not having optics on some of the LED's. I was going to do the same but my fixtuer is about 12" from the water.... also if your tank isnt too deep then you wont suffer too much PAR loss.
Keep us posted!
Keep us posted!
MADtanks
Stix Anyone?
oh ok, did you get yours from ledgroubuy? they are the only ones i have seen so far that have the optics at 60* so far... im sure there are tons of others that sell them with 60* domes.
Yea man when i do go with the C Channel im gonna go about 3" on center, so that should put me in a good place to light up the entire tank. I know one tries to avoid other light sources but i feel like the T5/VHO will help fill in any missing spectrum
. Cool whites, and RB alone will not do it. I do have 6 Red's but they are too bight lol....
Yea man when i do go with the C Channel im gonna go about 3" on center, so that should put me in a good place to light up the entire tank. I know one tries to avoid other light sources but i feel like the T5/VHO will help fill in any missing spectrum
. Cool whites, and RB alone will not do it. I do have 6 Red's but they are too bight lol....
rrasco
Active member
I ordered a few CW, WW, pink, and true violet from Aquastyles to help fill in the missing spectrums. They also have 60* optics. I was not able to find any other suppliers for Bridgelux stars than those two...not at a reasonable price anyways, Digikey has some buy they are just as expensive as CREE. Since it is a new tank, I will be able to add a coral or two and see how they respond and leave all my important stuff under T5s until I have a unit that offers the spectrums I need. I didn't add any red because from what I understand the whites should offer enough red for the coral, could be wrong on that though. At this point, I am also leaning towards channel, it seems like the only logical choice to get the real estate necessary to spread these things out adequately.
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reef_guy81
New member
Pneumatic Cylinders !!! WoW.. I'd love to see them in action as well..
bmullikin1
New member
heres mine, led, t5 hybrid on a swing arm.
MADtanks
Stix Anyone?
Check out speedymetals bro, or you can also hit up HD, or Lowes for the 3/4" I will be running those(3/4") with my heatsink fans over it for cooloing. But at Speedymetals there is no min purchase, and they have diff sizes to choose from good place to purchase em, and its good price!
That looks pretty good man, can you get a picture without the flash to see how bring it looks? Looks good though.
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