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Pod Your Reef

Bringing the par


Saiyan

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You know that commercial? The one that goes “I want it all and I want it now.” That’s what keeps playing in my head when I think of lighting my reef. That’s why I bought the fixture I did. The outer orbit T5 with 150watt hqi 10k and 12 moon lights. To have it all. (I didn’t think I needed the 250watt. I was right. I didn’t need it. But it also looks like it wouldn’t have hurt.)

 

Well I hadn’t discovered the DIY LED world yet. Now having it all is a little different.

 

The reason I actually joined this forum when I did was because of the LED group buy. I knew I wanted some but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them yet. After a bunch of drafts in my head. I went from 4 separate sections that are dimmable in quadrants. (This is the ultimate goal eventually.) To where I am at now.

 

When I get my LED’s from Evil. I am going to install them into my outer orbit fixture. I will try to keep the lunar lights. At least the blues, but neither is really needed with the dimmable array.

 

I have looked closely at the fixture and there will be room for about a 6x6 inch heatsink on each side. The goal at this time is to fit 6cw and 6rb on each side and have both separately dimmable. This is a total of 24 leds added to the light. In order to get the heatsinks in there I am going to have to relocate the MH ballast to outside the fixture. DOES ANY ONE KNOW IF THIS WILL CAUSE ANY PROBLEMS FOR THE MH like flickering? I know the 250 lights have external ballasts so in theory it should be ok.

 

I will also replace all of the stock fans with high efficiency low db fans. I hope to get one or two fans on each heatsink as well as replacing the stock 80mm fan and adding two 40mm fans. Needless to say I will need a separate ps just for the fans. I am thinking some kind of PC fan controller. That makes me think for a second. LIQUID COOLING?!!!

WHOA! Anyway here are a couple of pics to help visualize.

post-43923-1244898890_thumb.jpg

post-43923-1244898898_thumb.jpg

 

The actual area that is between all of the bulbs and the edge of the fixture is 7 ¼ X 6 5/8. I would like to keep as much of the original plate as possible and whatever I do I will probably beef it up somehow when I remove the area for the heatsink to be mounted in. So I am thinking 6”x6” if it will work. Or 6x5 or 5x5.

 

If anybody made it this far I am just looking for some friendly advice and help not making stupid mistakes. Which will be expensive with what I am planning.

 

Also in the final fixture, I plan to run a 14k mh bulb. I don’t know what I want to do with the T5s yet as far as bulb selection goes and any suggestions for what would compliment the leds would be appreciated.

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Interesting. I'm assuming you are going to open up the areas where the moonlights are bigger to accomodate the heatsinks?

 

Providing that when you replace the fans you don't sacrifice flow too much, you should be able to keep temps on the LEDs reasonable seeing that you will be mounting the ballasts externally (shouldn't cause any real issues providing your wires aren't too long). This will remove a good amount of heat from the fixture. Use the "small" heatsink from HeatsinkUSA. It has higher fin density than the other sizes and will help a little here, especially with a fan.

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Yes Evil I will be opening the moon light area up. I figure as long as I leave about an inch around the edge it should still be strong enough.

 

I am hoping to actually increase the air flow quite a bit when I replace the stock fans. I am also looking into a fan that is able to display the temp of the air leaving the fixture. Cause you know, why not? And I am hoping to find a way to use the stock power connectors for the moon lights in the connection of the LED array. Any ideas? Do you think that it could handle it?

 

Thanks for the heat sink recommendation I will go that route.

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Those connectors won't be able to handle the current. I would look into something different.

 

Are you sure the fans on the Outer Orbit are 80mm? The Sunpods are 92mm and I think they would be similar. Maybe not though.

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Those connectors won't be able to handle the current. I would look into something different.

 

Are you sure the fans on the Outer Orbit are 80mm? The Sunpods are 92mm and I think they would be similar. Maybe not though.

 

I am not sure. 80mm was what I came up with while eyeballing it with a tape measure. I'll see what I can find in 92mm.

 

Do you know of any connectors that would mount in the same space and take the current?

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I am not sure. 80mm was what I came up with while eyeballing it with a tape measure. I'll see what I can find in 92mm.

 

Do you know of any connectors that would mount in the same space and take the current?

 

Make sure you measure the outside frame of the fan, not the bolt pattern.

 

I don't know of any connectors off the top of my head. You would probably be better off with a simple inline connector rather than a board mount. Molex usually has some cheap ones. Hell, even 4 pin PC drive connectors would work. Those are molex too, and are common as mud.

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Evil I have a question.

 

I bought 2 of the meanwell drivers. What I want to do is have the 2 sides of the fixture come on separately. I also want to have them both dimmable separately as well as by color. I realize this would be easiest with 4 drivers. How would I do it with 2? Can I use a pot of some sort in line from the mains to each string? Or will this screw up the driver? Then I would just use one driver for each side and use the pots to control color. Each driver would only be running 12 leds(6cw 6rb) so this should be only half of the load correct?

 

I saw someone do something similar to this to one of his lights. I thought it was cool and had asked him a few questions about it. He has the ballasts located externally without any issues and has high powered leds built in it as well.

 

hopefully this link works

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...p;#entry2248563

 

good luck,

 

Thanks for the link. I would like to see more of what he did with the ballast. No pictures in the link I followed. I'll look more later though.

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This is what I just thought of for the heatsinksHS. I will use the one evil recommended as close to 8x8 that I can get. This will be larger then the hole by far. I will then have the hs machined with threaded tabs to the right size & shape. Then I will screw a glass shield holder into place through the bottom plate of the light into the threaded holes on the HS. This will add the full strength of the hs to the structure of the light and allow me to put a flat o ring in place between the glass and the bottom of the light. The glass shield will look very similar to the MH one already on the fixture.

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Evil I have a question.

 

I bought 2 of the meanwell drivers. What I want to do is have the 2 sides of the fixture come on separately. I also want to have them both dimmable separately as well as by color. I realize this would be easiest with 4 drivers. How would I do it with 2? Can I use a pot of some sort in line from the mains to each string? Or will this screw up the driver? Then I would just use one driver for each side and use the pots to control color. Each driver would only be running 12 leds(6cw 6rb) so this should be only half of the load correct?

 

 

 

Thanks for the link. I would like to see more of what he did with the ballast. No pictures in the link I followed. I'll look more later though.

 

 

Are you talking about being able to dim the blues and whites seperately, and switch each side independantly, but only use two drivers?

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Are you talking about being able to dim the blues and whites seperately, and switch each side independantly, but only use two drivers?

 

Yeah. What I will do is connect each driver to an analog timer. Each driver will control one heatsink of lights. This is the only way I see to get the two sides of the fixture to come on at different times with only 2 drivers. Then hopefully I can use a pot in line to the blue string and one in line to the cw string and control the color that way. Can I do this and still be able to adjust overall brightness with the driver control? I will then follow the following schedule for lighting.

 

Surise - T5s ON

Early Morning - Left array ON

Late morning - MH ON

High Noon - Right array ON. 1 Hour all lights on

Early afternoon - Left array OFF

Mid afternoon - MH OFF

Evening - Right array OFF

NightNight - T5s OFF

 

Moonlights only for viewing purposes at this time. If I don't add them now I will keep all of the parts and add them later.

This will give different parts of the coral intense light for only short periods of time and move across the tank. Each portion of coral will only be in the brightest light for maybe 4 hours. And off with the dimmable nature of the leds This will be very adjustable. I am even thinking about adding a dimmable ballast for the MH while I am at it. Although I have already spent more then I should. Still if I can't add it now I will add it later.

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With only two drivers you only have two options. Either control the color temp for the entire fixture, or use them to shut off each bank. Can't do both unfortunately.

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So I need 2 more drivers. That's what I kept coming back to but I still had hope.

 

Since I probably wont buy 2 more drivers at this time I will wire the fixture so I can add 2 more later. I guess this will be 2 strings of 6 leds per heatsink, each string will be one color. Then I will be able to dim each array for now and can add color adjustment later.

 

Thanks for the help evil. It is appreciated.

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Thanks for the link. I would like to see more of what he did with the ballast. No pictures in the link I followed. I'll look more later though.

 

The pictures are in another link in the forum topic.

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Oh sorry about that. I feel like it would have helped with some of the stuff that you are looking to do (relocating ballasts and opening holes for the new leds). You could try pming him see if he'd be willing to send pics and answer any questions you may have.

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Got another question. Depending on what I run into when I actually cut my fixture. I may have to cut a hole above each hs and mount the fans directly above the heatsinks. I want to avoid this and keep everything internal if possible. If I can then I would mount the fans directly on the hs.

 

My question is. If I end up having to cut the top and I mount the fans in holes directly above the hs. Is it better to have them blowing outside air down onto the hs, or hot inside air out of fixture, or one in and one out? If I have two fans blowing air out of the fixture(straight up) do I still need a fan in the stock location or will it just cause airflow issues?

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I don't think you are going to need to go to this extreme. With the ballasts relocated, the fixture fan now only has half the heat to deal with. With only 6 LEDs on each heatsink, and using a high mass, high surface area heatsink with a fan, you should be fine.

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My worries come from some of the reviews I have read for the outer orbit fixture I have. I have read that the t5 ballasts in some cases have had short life spans and it was attributed to the internal mh ballast. So I figured even though I am removing it. I am adding more heat back. I would rather have overkill then not enough.

 

Also I want to get 12 leds on each heatsink. 6cw and 6rb. I figured that putting them that close together is going to make some heat. I know it is excessive but by how much? I guess it begs the question you've probably already asked. What is the closest you can put them together? Can you put them right next to each other? With what I am thinking I figure areas of high intensity light for short periods will produce more even colors and allow the corals to handle higher total levels of par exposure without bleaching. The mh will be part of the cycle and I figure will make the need of adding supplemental uv moot. Also I plan to acclimate the corals to this mod rather carefully both with low intensity and short exposure times.

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Even with 12 LEDs, your heatsinks are still oversized. 24 LEDs will put a lot less heat back in than was removed. If heat is an issue with the T5 ballasts, why not make them remote also?

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If I were to remove all of the ballasts from the fixture. Would I be able to go solidstate? On the fixture at least. Then I would cool the lighting box I am going to make instead.

 

I am completely ignorant on the reality of using high power LEDs and I am not sure what to expect both for heat and brightness. I just know the moonlights I have give a neat color and think the high power LEDs would be the same only brighter and adjustable.

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I still think you can get away with keeping the T5 ballasts in the fixture and just remove the MH ballast. While there will be heat from the LED setup, it will be much less than the ballast.

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