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Cultivated Reef

Another NC 28 LED Retro


willp2

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After months of plotting and scheming I finally was able to build my LED retro for my Nano Cube 28CF.

 

My mission was to keep it as simple and quite honestly as cheap as possible.

 

The parts:

12 Blue 3W 90 degree SemiLED 200lm

12 Cool 3W 90 degree Cool White SemiLED 200lm

4 Sure Electric 3W Drivers http://www.sureelectronics.net/goods.php?id=1035

1 Old Dell laptop power supply

556 based PWM for dimming

2 potentiometers for dimming

Thermal tape

3/8 inch aluminum plate / heat spreader

 

I miscalcualted when specing this all out and didn't realize that I need a couple more drivers or a bigger power supply to drive the LED’s at the full 700ma. So at the moment the best I can do is 350ma. So I'm currently running 4 drivers with 6 LED's each. I'll be adding a couple more drivers soon.

 

I wanted to see how this would do heat wise with just mounting to a plate and no external fins. I am still running a couple of quiet fans in the hood so there is good air flow across the plate. At full power after a couple of hours its around 115f in the hottest spots right on the heatsink and quite a bit less everywhere else. I’ll probably add some U channel to the back to get some more surface area when I add more power later. BTW - that plate looks filthy in the pics. It was actually quite smooth and clean but I was working outside and the overcast sky made the picture turn out odd.

 

The Sure Electric drivers are nice little units. Built nice and work well. I ended up stuffing them in the compartments in the back of the hood, that's not shown in the pics below.

 

So running at 350mA, ***EDIT*** My orginal PAR numbers were based on a quick measurement in one spot at the end of a long night. Tonight I had to pull the lid to move around some of my wiring as I ran out of time when I originally put it together and things were a bit sloppy. So I took the opportunity to remeasure my PAR numbers.

 

Tonight after spending some time cleaning the glass on the splash shield under the LED's and taking measurements all over the bottom I averaged 130 PAR across the sand at 350mA or about half the rated power for these LED's.

 

Then I added some 60 degree optics and I got a 287 PAR average across the bottom.

****

 

Not bad for $150 bucks, eh? Should be even nicer when I add the extra drivers and push the LED's to 700ma.

 

****

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See if you can spot the mistake(s) in my wiring :lol:

 

 

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I am very glad I made these dimmable. I'd hate to be stuck with the color of all the lights on all the time. The blue is pretty strong and makes the tank look a bit purple at full power. I've seen this on other tanks and now I realize that this is likely a setup that couldn't be adjusted. I just back off the blue a bit to dial in the color. I find myself changing it slightly thoughout the day to match the lighting in the room. More white during the day more blue at night.

 

Now to start thinking about automating a light cycle.

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I actually had them made to order as part of a larger LED purchase that a friends company was doing.

 

Tonight I had to pull the lid to move around some of my wiring as I ran out of time when I originally put it together and things were a bit sloppy. My originally PAR number was just me dropping the PAR meter on the bottom at the end of a long night.

 

Tonight after spending some time cleaning the glass on the splash shield under the LED's and taking measurements all over the bottom I averaged 130 PAR across the sand.

 

Then I added some 60 degree optics and I got a 287 PAR average across the bottom.

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I should add in case it isn't clear from what I said above, I am still running at half power on these things. When I get my new drivers in a couple of weeks I should be able to bump up output quite a bit.

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Very nice Will! PAR numbers without optics are good. Guess with optics you are going to have lots of spots and will be too much for higher corals in the rocks

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that can be solved by only using optics in area's where higher light corals would be or over rocky areas. were these the 90 degree angle ones from your second order or the wide angle first order?

 

im interested to see what they do at 1w 350ma.

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These are the 90 degree models and these numbers were at 1W 350ma. So I am looking forward to testing again closer to 3W.

 

I didn't really like the look with optics, but I do like that option of using them in just part of the tank if needed.

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keep them right where they are 160 on the sand on a 18" tall tank is perfect imho. its a little high for most softies but its good for lps and zoas what more could you ask for? any idea on the par at say 8" and 12"?

 

wouldnt mind coverting the frag tank to a single led pendant on a light mover compared to the 2x250w halides + t5 actinics.

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keep them right where they are 160 on the sand on a 18" tall tank is perfect imho. its a little high for most softies but its good for lps and zoas what more could you ask for? any idea on the par at say 8" and 12"?

 

wouldnt mind coverting the frag tank to a single led pendant on a light mover compared to the 2x250w halides + t5 actinics.

Thanks. I am going to add the addtional drivers so I can drive them at full power, but I doubt I will. What I do want however is to have the flexibility to run at the light levels I want and be able to mix the color the way I want. Running everything full, you get what you get color wise.

 

I haven't taken any other PAR measurements. I need to rig up some way to hold the PAR sensor at different heights. Since this thing has an enclosed hood its hard to do anything but measure the bottom.

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  • 5 months later...
Nice thread. I'd like your input on the LEDs you used and the sure electronics drivers. Can you clean out your PM inbox? Thanks

Thanks, I appreciate the comments. Things have come a long way since then actually and its doing great.

 

I just cleaned out the inbox so fire away.

 

-Will

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  • 1 year later...

Thanks for the interest. Been away from the forum for awhile as I've been traveling like crazy for work.

 

The Lighting and tank continue to do great.

 

I replaced all the internal drivers and electronics with this setup last year and am loving it

 

My DIY LED Controller

 

That cleaned up the hood a lot, so there's basically nothing in there any more other than LED's and fans. While I was in there I put a big, quite 120MM fan behind the heatsink to move a little more air. Don't think it needed it, but there was room and I already had power there so why not.

 

I absolutely love combination of the LED's and the controller. Having the gradual and color skewed ramp up / down on the lighting has made the whole tank seem somehow more alive.

 

On the LED front, I've had a bunch of different SPS at different levels of the tank and all glowing like weeds. Enough so that I've been able to pay for all my supplies upgrades and new corals from frags traded to my LFS for the past year. So I have to say thats been a big success as far as I'm concerned.

 

Only problems I've run into are from my own neglect when I was away for work. Other than my own lameness it looks and performs like a champ.

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