T-5 LED combination and Comparisons.

[TropTrea]

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

Yes if they allow you to pick the LED's in the kit you want. However if you go to LPC drivers, soldered stars, and piece out the system you would actualy spend less. With the kit you will need to also add a controler or an added 10 volt power supply and pots to adjust the LED's. This will add another $20.00.

But the big variable is how you run the heat sinks and what you get for price on them. I know if ran two rails of 1" X 2" channeling and could not get them off the discount bin they would run me roughly $40.00 from the discount bin aboit $12.00 and going with comercial heat sinks almost $100.00.

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

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.

What are your thoughts on dimmable drivers? I see the ones you recommend are all not dimmable.
Thanks
Mark

 

[TropTrea]

What are your thoughts on dimmable drivers? I see the ones you recommend are all not dimmable.
Thanks
Mark

Yes you can go with dimmable drivers. But in most cases you will end up running them at 100% after a while. The only real advantage is if your running a controler where you want to gradualy turn up the lighting but I do not think that is cost effective and outside looking cool it is of no real benifit compared to the added cost.

On a 75 to 90 gallon build your talking about adding roughly $45.00 in driver cost, plus the controls for another $30 to $300 dependent upon dependent on how you control the dimming. I like to keep cost down as long as I'm not skimping on making my corals happy and showing off there color.

 

[imtheoneforyou]

Thanks for the info as questioning myself about leds. I've heard of bleaching of corals as some are way too bright...

 

[TropTrea]

Thanks for the info as questioning myself about leds. I've heard of bleaching of corals as some are way too bright...

Regardless of the lighting source if the lights are causeing the bleaching it is an excessive amount of light in the red part of the spectrum Especialy light in the 680nm range. Some people use cool white LED's for this reason since they produce no light in that range. I prefer using the neutral whites as fewer are needed to brighten up the tank. You also want some red light especialy in the 620 nm range. There is also reports of bleaching from excessive near UV light especialy that around 380 nm. Unless you get specialy LED's in that light range LED's produce less light under 400nm than any other light source.

The weakest links with LED's is roughly at 440 nm and again around 500 nm. This is where I think the blue plus T-5's help termendiously.

 

[shelk]

Yes if they allow you to pick the LED's in the kit you want. However if you go to LPC drivers, soldered stars, and piece out the system you would actualy spend less. With the kit you will need to also add a controler or an added 10 volt power supply and pots to adjust the LED's. This will add another $20.00.

But the big variable is how you run the heat sinks and what you get for price on them. I know if ran two rails of 1" X 2" channeling and could not get them off the discount bin they would run me roughly $40.00 from the discount bin aboit $12.00 and going with comercial heat sinks almost $100.00.

Sorry for beeing so annoying but, i'm really starting on this led thing, why would i need the controler or the extra 10 volt power supply in this situation?

 

[TropTrea]

Sorry for beeing so annoying but, i'm really starting on this led thing, why would i need the controler or the extra 10 volt power supply in this situation?

You do not need the controler or the extra 10 volt power supply unless you want to have dimming capabilities. I personaly think it is an unnecessary option, especialy when you run the LED's on three circuits. With the three seperate cuircuits you hace a predawn to Post dusk where your running roughly 15% of the light, then a dawn to dusk where your running 45% of the light, and finaly the mid day where your running at 100% of your light.

If you go the route of the controler you can slowly turn the lights on in 5% steps of roughly 20 steps between no light and full lighting. Some people like the more gradual increase and are willing to spend big money to get this. Other people over build there fixtures with the capability of producing way to much light and they need to un there lights only at partial power or they will bleach out there corals.

Not overbuilding and planning the right color combination will make the fixture simpler as well as less exp[ensive. The only reason I put the controler options and dimming options here is bacuase someone asked. It is just an added bell or whistle, the same as digital read out and probably a half a dozen other unnecessary things you can add to your lights.

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

A year later and what are the thought today on a system like this? Has anything come out that would make this a better system?
Thanks
Mark

 

[usingthejohn]

Radions only
View attachment 289344Radions and 4x54w t5

When all lights are on I notice deeper colors and more polyp extension.