Who has the PAR meter?

[Runner]

Who has the PAR meter? And can I meet up and get it somewhere by Saturday?

I will be working on my LED fixture this weekend and should have it ready to check out early next week. I'd like to get the PAR meter to take some measurements so I can see just how good this things are. I can have it back to whomever needs it at the swap.

 

[planejane]

I believe Eddie does.

 

[cee]

I have it. If you want to come to Clinton I can probably meet you somewhere. Actually, for me I didn't find it particularly useful, so I won't be needing it back anytime soon.

Dave

 

[Runner]

Thanks, Dave.

 

[Runner]

I took some measurements of my 24G nano. With two 3-month-old, 36W PC bulbs, I have roughly the following PAR readings from 4" to 6" below surface (and a couple on the bottom). In the middle and 4" to 5" down, I had a high of 130 PAR. In the bottom off to the corner I have about 50.

I have started on my LED fixture and plan to post a comparison after I put it in place. Here is an image of what I have done so far -- drilled/tapped and anchoredLEDs to a heat sink with 4-40 nylon screws, put in thermal paste under LEDs, and soldered on all the wiring. I tested the main 12-LED circuit (6 white, 6 royal blue) today and it worked great. I also have 4 individually controlled royal blues for morning/evening effect. I'll have to see the color before I decide to leave those on during the normal running of the other 12.

 

[Steve W]

Where did you get the LEDs and if you don't mind me asking how expensive were they?

Steve W

24 gallon nano

 

[Runner]

I got a bunch of stuff from rapidled.com ...but I did get other things (like the silver thermal grease and nylon 4-40 screws and the 24 AWG stranded UL1007 wire from Amazon). I'll do a write-up on everything once this is done. The tricky part is yet to come -- making a hood insert from a sheet of acrylic for my nano.

The Cree XP-G white LEDs are $7.59 each and the XR-E royal blues are $5.75 each. If you buy just the LEDs, you can probably find sites out there that are cheaper, but I think the guy that runs that site is an RC hobbyist who hangs out in the DIY forum and puts out the stuff that works for reef tanks.

I did the "12 Ultra Premium DIY Kit", but got some stuff I didn't use. It came out to about the same as if I would have bought the LEDs and the driver, though. The best thing about that site is that you can order a pre-drilled and tapped heat sink. It costs about $12 more than a regular heat sink, but I destroyed $15 worth of drill bits and taps trying to get the hang of doing it myself.

 

[macclellan]

The tricky part is yet to come -- making a hood insert from a sheet of acrylic for my nano.

That's the part I was gonna ask about - curious to see what you come up with.

 

[Engloid]

The best thing about that site is that you can order a pre-drilled and tapped heat sink. It costs about $12 more than a regular heat sink, but I destroyed $15 worth of drill bits and taps trying to get the hang of doing it myself.

A little too late now, but if I knew that was the part giving you problems, I could have helped you out with it. I've been doing metal work for 20+ years. I can honestly drill a countless number of holes in even stainless steel...with one sincle hole saw. Tapping? If you have the right type of tap, you could have tapped all of those holes in less than 2 minutes. :beer:

 

[Runner]

I would have taken you up on that. I have another heat sink that might become an LED fixture in the future. My specialty was soldering the wires and LEDs -- I helped pay my way through college doing that (and building instrument and communications cables0.

 

[Engloid]

just let me know if I can help. I can show you some tips and tricks that you will find to make it much easier in the future.

 

[Steve W]

I will be very interested in how this turns out. I have thought about using LEDs and almost bought a set when my first MH went out a few weeks ago, but was concerned because I couldn't find any direct comparisions of the light output of the LEDs so I wasn't sure how many I needed. If this works out for you I may try this myself.

Steve W.

 

[Runner]

The next full day I get I plan to do the final install -- could be a few weeks. I'll try to do as much of the acryllic work now as I can so that I minimize the down-time. After I pull out all the old PC electronics, I'll have a rough time going back. If somebody has a small 24" or less light I can borrow to ride through a day or so without light, let me know.

 

[planejane]

YOu should have seen all the new LED set ups at MACNA.......awesome stuff. Prices are high but seem to be trending down. I love mine, just wish I had gone with 2 smaller fixtures instead of 1 large. Plasma lighting looks like the new rage.