T-5 LED combination and Comparisons.

[TropTrea]

The current plan is either a 3 or 4 bulb fixture with 1 or 2 Blue+ and 2 True Actinic bulbs.

The problem with the 1 neutral white to 2 royal blue is that different LEDs and different manufacturers have different outputs and spectra. I prefer to use a mW/lm ratio to determine the colour balance.

For example, one BXRA-0950-B Neutral White @4000k puts out 1150 lumens at spec. A Luxeon M 450nm puts out 4200mW at spec. This means 1:2 W:B gives me a mW/lm ratio of 7.3mW/lm. To determine the relevant ratio for your recommendation, we must find the ratings at spec (typical radiometric output/luminous flux at test (700 for this example) current):
Luxeon ES Rebel 440nm @700mA - 1120mW
Luxeon ES Rebel 5000k @700mA - 200lm .

There is one other big thing to consider iand that at the different color temperature of white LED's you have different ratio especialy between red and blue.

So with a 6,500K White you have a lot of blue to start with and very little red.
with a 4.500K White you have a fairly balanced amount of red and blue
with a 2,000K White you have a lot of red and very little Blue.

With most White LED's the green spike is very close where there is not a big difference. This is why I prefer the 4,000K to 5,000K LED's because there is just enough red in them that they do not need any red puplemental LED's and a little white brightens the tank up considerably.

Overall your ratio idea would change drasticly as you changed the color temperature of your white LED's. Looking at my all LED tank I have roughly 800 lm's of neutral white leds, and 12,750 mw of blue LED's. so the ratio is closer to 15 to one. If I were using 6,500K LED's I would probably be happier with a raio closer to 1700lm of cool whites to 10,000 mw of blues for a ratio of 1 to 6.

But the final color is personal preference. Some think I'm too Blue others think I could use more blue. So untill you see your results and live with them for at least 2 weeks then you will know what you truely want.

Anyone can float numbers around and unless you know exactly what you want in the end they will mean very little. Remember with the T-5's your also adding lums to your tank as well as blue light so these number would not be as conclusive for you.

 

[Tripwyr]

But the final color is personal preference. Some think I'm too Blue others think I could use more blue. So untill you see your results and live with them for at least 2 weeks then you will know what you truely want.

This is why I am building a 24x24 tank to test the fixtures (and be a frag tank) before I build the larger 72x24 tank. It will allow me to tweak the fixture before the final design on the larger tank.

Anyone can float numbers around and unless you know exactly what you want in the end they will mean very little. Remember with the T-5's your also adding lums to your tank as well as blue light so these number would not be as conclusive for you.

Yes I know. The more sources I get information from, the more capable I am to interpret that information for my own use.

 

[TropTrea]

Just read another interesting article.

<http://www.allledlighting.com/author.asp?section_id=3031&doc_id=559618&f_src=allledlighting_sitedefault>

I like the line where it clams that tthis year we will hit the 500 lums per US dollar range and next year we should hit the 1,000 lums per US dollar range. This breaks down our ability to light up a 120 gallon tank for less than $30 worth of LED's. Sure we have the added cost of heat sinks and current regulators but it will still be a big savings.

Taking a look also at the expected level of 164 lums of light per Watt means that our electric billis will be fraction of they are with just T-5 lights today.

 

[Tripwyr]

I can't see the article link, is that just me? If so, could you PM it to me?

 

[shelk]

Decided to run a 4x 54w fixture with 2 blue+ 1purple+ and aquablue special

what's the best way of complmenting this with LED's and how hard is this to DIY?

 

[CrazyEyes]

I thought about doing this since I have a spare t5 light. I thought about making a floating canopy which will house my 32 led setup and 2 24" t5ho bulbs. My only problem is, I'm trying to decide what would be a good look. I have 14 RB, 8 NW, 6 Blue and 4 Violets. Any suggestions as to what t5 bulbs might make everything look really good?

 

[TropTrea]

Decided to run a 4x 54w fixture with 2 blue+ 1purple+ and aquablue special

what's the best way of complmenting this with LED's and how hard is this to DIY?

The Do it yourself LED's can be extremly simple. Or they can become as fancy as you want to make them but remember the fancier they are the more thought you need to put into it.

For a majority of LED builds you can simply use 1" X 2" Channel alumnium. Unless your going very high wattabe you do not need any fans with this.

When your purchasing LED's you want to purchase Star Mounted LED's that rell varry in price from $3.00 to $7.00 each. These LED's are rated by maximium current in ma's and maximium wattage. The higher the wattage the brighter they will be. 3 Watt LED's are usualy in the $3.00 range and 10 Watt LED's are usualy closer to the $6.00 range.

Power supplies are also very simple. They are all pre assembled and basicly need only hooking up. For selecton go by the max current rating of the LED's you will be using. This is usualy 700ma, 1,000ma, 1,500 ma, or 3,000ma. You want to select a current equal to or slightly less than your LED max rating to get the brightest effect. But you can also run at considerably lower currents when the maximium brightness is not required. As far as selecting the Wattage rating take the wattages of the LED's you will be driving and multiple that by the number. As an example 12 5 Watt LED's will need a driver that can handle 60 Watts.

The next determination is what you need in total wattage. For most applications on tanks 20" to 24" tall 2 Watts per gallon is a good starting point, if your using all LED's. With the T-5's you can estimate they are putting out roughly 2/3 of the light per watt. So if you had a 120 gallon tank with all LED's you would want about 240 watts. Since you also have 216 watts of T-5 lighting you can subtract 2/3 of that or 144 Watts, so you only need to supplement with about 96 watts of LED lighting. Remember this is very rough and will varry by your color selection of both the LED's and the T-5 bulbs, as well as the corals you want to keep. But it should work fine with 80% of the most popular corals.

 

[TropTrea]

I thought about doing this since I have a spare t5 light. I thought about making a floating canopy which will house my 32 led setup and 2 24" t5ho bulbs. My only problem is, I'm trying to decide what would be a good look. I have 14 RB, 8 NW, 6 Blue and 4 Violets. Any suggestions as to what t5 bulbs might make everything look really good?

The first few thing is what is the size of your tank and the wattage of the LED's.

Looking at your LED's you have basicly a 24 blue to 8 White ratio that is roughly 4 to 1. I like a 3 to 1 ratio using Neutral White's which have more green and red in them than what you are using. Therefore for your T-5's you want at least one bulb with a strong red spectrum like the ATI Purple Plus, or ATI Coral Plus, Fuji Purple.

From the info given I would probably start out with a pair of Coral Plus bulbs as they have a strong red spectrum in them and would help balance out your total lighting without getting overly white or overly blue.

 

[CrazyEyes]

It's a 40B, no optics, 4" above the water. The blues, royal blues and violets are 3w, the neutral whites are 5w. 14 Royal blues, 6 blues and 8 whites so it's just over 3:1. I know red LEDs or lights in general help algae growth. Will I worry about algae growth with those bulbs since they have high red spectrum?

 

[TropTrea]

It's a 40B, no optics, 4" above the water. The blues, royal blues and violets are 3w, the neutral whites are 5w. 14 Royal blues, 6 blues and 8 whites so it's just over 3:1. I know red LEDs or lights in general help algae growth. Will I worry about algae growth with those bulbs since they have high red spectrum?

Well I have several 40 Breeders on LED's alone. Coral colors are fantastic but most people tell me it looks too blue for there taste. The tank with the best coral growth as the following LED's.

Driver one running 14 hours per day. 30 watts at 700 ma. 2 Violets, 4 Royal Blues and 2 Blues. Actualy they are using a total of about 16 Watts since they are running at 700ma and for them to use 3 Watts each I'd have to use a 1000ma driver.

Driver 2 running 11 hours per day 30 Watts at 700 ma again. 2 Cyan LED's 4 Royal Blues and 2 Blue LED's. Again these are 3 Watt Chips but I'm only running them at 700 ma so thhat is another 16 watts roughly.

The final driver is running 8 hours per day and is a 1050 ma 30 watt driver. 6 Neutral White chips, and 4 more Royal Blue Chips. These are running at 3 watts each so they are right at the max of 30 watts.

So total for my 40 Breeder is 64 watts which I can get away with because it is a shallow tank. There is only 18 watts of white lights and 46 watts of blue chips so the ratio is 2.55 to one.

The only thing I dislike about the set up is that I would like a little more light between the blue and the cyan. I had run only 4 Neutral Whites for a while but thought it was a slightly overly blue look. The 6 almost makes it overly white in my eye but most people think it is still strong on the blue.

The other thing I palyed around with are various Violet chips. Some kust turned everything pink and others were so dimm I might just as well not a violet. The best I found were sold by Rapid LED that I got last November. Note I got some from them about 18 months ago and they caused the worst pink tint of any.

Note if your running the 5 watt whites at 1500ma then your ratio is 1 to 1.5. If your running them at 1000ma then your ratio is 1 to 2.5. Either way you have over 2 watts per gallon that is more than enough for a shallow tank like a 40 breeder.

 

[CrazyEyes]

I think your tank is the one I originally designed light from then decided to add a little more white and to be honest with you, I would have been fine with 4 xp-g NW's instead of 8 because the whites even at 20% are so bright and, I kind of wished I would have not gotten the Violets. They're cool when they are on by themselves but I feel like it was probably a waste of money. I'm not running any optics and the fixture is like I said, about 3-4" above the water. I was just tossing up the idea of going with some 90° optics, I guess I'll see when I get everything dialed in all the way.

 

[TropTrea]

I think your tank is the one I originally designed light from then decided to add a little more white and to be honest with you, I would have been fine with 4 xp-g NW's instead of 8 because the whites even at 20% are so bright and, I kind of wished I would have not gotten the Violets. They're cool when they are on by themselves but I feel like it was probably a waste of money. I'm not running any optics and the fixture is like I said, about 3-4" above the water. I was just tossing up the idea of going with some 90° optics, I guess I'll see when I get everything dialed in all the way.

Don't go with optics on a shallow tank like this. I had them initialy and had a lot of the diso dance floor effect. You need the spread of the light from each of them to even everything out. Now if you raised your lights higher it will work with lenses but not when you have only about 18" from the LED to the substrate.

As far as the violets go, a little violet does help some growth and some florescense. Unfortunatly Royal blues prduce close to no light below 440nm and there is some florescent proteins that need light at 420 nm to activate there glow. It is when you get UV that are 420nm or below that start giving you a negative return. So you need to watch what UV's you get.

 

[CrazyEyes]

Well, I wouldn't call them UV's but they are the violet UV's that Rapid sells. Im still not sure what brand they are I know they're not CREEs or Luxeon.

 

[TropTrea]

Well, I wouldn't call them UV's but they are the violet UV's that Rapid sells. Im still not sure what brand they are I know they're not CREEs or Luxeon.

Yes the big 4 LED manufacturers do not make a high output LED. But there are several companies in China that do. It is an extremly small nitch market for them and outside of high cost medical use it is not realy a profitable product. The ones being sold now and least for the last 6 months by Rapid seem to be the best. They can also run up to 700ma while most of the others are limited to 500ma. Some people like another UV LED sold by a company banned from Reef Centeral but it would not surprise me if this is the same LED.

A while back there was a thread on just near UV LED's. And someone ran about a dozen suposedly different ones on a spectro graph. In reality he found they all matched either one of two different paterns. So it is my suspicion that there there are only two really out there.

 

[dwolson2]

I'm posting more or less becuase I am going to have to wait to read this until tomorrow and I don't want to have to search for it. LOL
I've had the idea of t5/led combo for a while, but never tried anything. I have a 2' cube right now, with one radion. I would like to make a new housing that would hold the radion and 2 t5 bulbs. But I want it to look ^&)()(*& hot, since its a rimless tank. Any pointer would be great!

 

[shelk]

Been reading all i can on the subject, and finally it's starting to look like something that is not so impossible to do on a DIY, still need lot's of help though

lets start by picking up the leds, using 2xblue plus 1 purple plus, 1 aquablue special

on the other thread you suggested 6 royal blue and 2 blue and 2 violet running on 2 watts
and the other fixture with 6 royal blue and 6 neutral white running on 2 or 5


1st question, what is the differnce on the blue and whites between running them on 2 or 5 or in between? i mean visualy

2nd should i use lens on the leds or no lenses?

3nd what brand should i be looking for, and any suggestion where to order the leds?

thanks in advance

 

[TropTrea]

1st question, what is the differnce on the blue and whites between running them on 2 or 5 or in between?

Brightness. Led's ratted at 4 Watts can getneraly be driven between 200ma and 1,500ma with the difference being how bright they will be. By running them at 1,500ma your saving money by needng less LED's and at 200 ma you spend more on the build but save a litte on the electric bill. They are slightly more effecient at lowe wattages.

2nd should i use lens on the leds or no lenses?

If the distance between the LED and the substrate of the tank is less than 20 inches I do not recomment lenses. As the distance increases yes then Lenses do help concentrate the light. On short distances lenses can cause a disco effect as the collors cannot mox smoothly .

3nd what brand should i be looking for, and any suggestion where to order the leds?

thanks in advance

Different people will suggest different brands. The three top brands are Cree, Phillips, and Bridglux USA. Be cautious of the Bridglux China. I personly prefer the Cree's As I found I can mix and match them very easily on the same driver if I pick LED's with the same ma rating. They will actualy allow you to go as hich as 10 watts per emitter.

As far as vendor shop around there are multile companies selling the same thing and every week a different one might have the best price.

 

[shelk]

14x http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-cree-xt-e-royal-blue-led/
2x http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-cree-xp-e-blue-led/
2x http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-uv-led/
4x http://www.rapidled.com/solderless-cree-xp-g-neutral-white-led-1/


is this what i need?

what's next on the shopping list?

 

[TropTrea]

If you can solder you can save yourself a little money but that is a good starting combination of LED's Only would pick up 6 of the whites so you can tune it to your personal taste with either 6 Neutral Whites or 4 neutral whites.

You also need drivers. Shop around for these as found almost a 100% price difference between vendors.

Your 2 Blue LED's and 2 Violet LED's can run at a max of 700ma. So I would these 4 LED's as well as 4 of your Royal Blue LED's for the pre dawn to post dusk lighting. For a drive for them I would use Either a Meanwell LPC-20-700 or a LPC 30-700. You will be running at roughly 17 Watts on this circuit so the 20 Watt driver will work fine and is less expensive than the 30 watt driver. But the LPC-20 series is not stocked by sa many vendors.

This leaves you with 10 remaining Royal Blues and 4 to 6 Neutral Whites to run up to 1,500ma. If you run these at 1400 ma you can run you can run 7 of them on one LPC-35-1400 or you can run 12 of them on one LPC- 60-1400. I would get one each of these Drivers and run the Royal Blues on the LPC-60-1400, and I would run the 4 to 6 Neutral Whites on an LPC-35-1400 driver. Both of these drivers would be connected to the same power plug so you ran them as your mid day lighting.

As far as your T-5's are concerned the Aqua Blue Special might brighten things up a little to much some peoples taste in the dawn to Dusk mode. You can either go with a Coral Plus, another Blue Plus, or even an Atinic here to replace it depending on your personal taste in color.

The other think you need are heat sinks. I have found that 1" X 2" channel Alumnium works ideal for this. You do want the LEd's spread apart by at least 4 1/2 inches between them to allow good heat dispensation. I pick them up from a local metal supply house and usualy find what I need in there scrap bin. You want to space these out ith at least a 1/4" gap for air flow between them. These peices should be as long as your tank.

The last two items are wite and thremo athesive to munt the LED's to the alumnium rails. I have found the following is the best for this.
http://www.rapidled.com/arctic-alumina-thermal-adhesive/
Finaly for wire I like to use 18 guage multistranded wire. Available from any electronic supply store.

 

[shelk]

http://www.rapidled.com/24-led-plug-n-play-retrofit-kit-dimmable/

can i do it with this kit?

6 royal blue, 2 blue 2 violet on one driver
6/8 royal blue 6/4 neutral white on the other driver