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my led build 24 bulb over a 40 breeder


gabe_j

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hey guys so after trying out the Mh route i've decided i wanted leds so after a lot of research i took the dive. so here's what i got. 24 LEDs 12 rb @ 975 mw and 6cw & 6nw @ 1500 currently I'm running the rb at 100% and the whites at 50%. I've left 12 blank spots to add in some blues down the road.

 

the prep work on the heat sink was a good sanding on a granite slab to keep flatness then cleaned up on 3 grades of emery cloth and a final polish with aluminum billet polish before the center punch marking/drill & tapping then adding in .0625x45deg lead in chamfers. I got a bit excited working in a machine shop lends itself to over killin most projects like this.

 

I totally forgot this rig is lighting up my 40breeder mixed reef

 

 

centerpunched.jpg

 

centerpunchcloseup.jpg

 

drilled.jpg

 

dutchman.jpg

 

tappedandchamfer.jpg

 

image.jpg

 

image-1.jpg

 

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all blue

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all white

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both all on

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mixed to my liking

9-2.jpg

 

thanks for looking if anyone wants a mh i've got one for sale its a 250 watt with icecap e-ballast, reflector and 3 bulbs 10k, 14k, 20k for $150 i won't be needing it any more.

 

 

-Gabe

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Looks good man, mind some close ups of the coral? I'd like to see what kind of color the blues pull out of them.

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Looks good! Love the driver box.

 

I love LEDs but there has to be a way to

Bring out more of the red/warmer colors!

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It looks good. I am looking into something like this. How did you mount it over the tank and do you have a shield of some kind between the water and leds? How much was the total cost for this light?

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Dude I split the neutralwhites and coolwhites 6/6 it's plenty red I just had them turned down.

 

There isn't anything really between the LEDs and the water other than 8" of space.

 

The whole kit was $285, $50 for extras at radio shack, $5 for some pots, and $5 for extra wire

 

I didn't have a multimeter and a soldering iron so that cost me

A little

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  • 2 weeks later...

Are you getting good enough light with 24 leds? I am thinking of switching my 250 watt halide to leds to cut heat and energy but can't see sinking almost $500 in 36 leds. Thanks

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  • 2 weeks later...

enough... yeah it's plenty is the color blend perfect no. the whites are significantly brighter than the blues I'd say right near the 12-14k look if that's your flavor great personall I like it a little more blue 18-20k would be nice so I'll be adding the extra blues when I get a chance. so I'm building a few kits for the locals to fund it. but it's plenty bright with no optics on the whites

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bensanders

And why is the far left LED (sixth picture) screwed down differently (a different 'bolt pattern' if you will)? I'm guessing because the blue LED was getting in the way?

 

ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS GABE

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What size heatsink is that?

4.25x23

 

So you just put optics on the blues? Why is that?

i wanted the blues to penetrate deeper since they are only running at 975mA and the cw/nw are running at 1.5mA so that extra power going to the whites is the only reason i don't want to focus the whites any more intense. atleast for now. i do plan on getting 12 blues that would also be on 60° optics. if i put optics on the whites i'd probably not go any more narrow than 80° since i want some good blending on the whites.

 

And why is the far left LED (sixth picture) screwed down differently (a different 'bolt pattern' if you will)? I'm guessing because the blue LED was getting in the way?

ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS GABE

actually i was being a lazy bastard and using my screws to tap the holes slowly in a failed effort to skip a step and i broke a screw... twice. see there i answered you. lol i even took a picture of the broken screw.always tap your holes and be sure to use tap magic of some kind if not you'll bind the gummy aluminum and strip the hole or better yet you'll break the tap. and when your using a 4-40 tap its pretty damn small so you cant really fix it other than making sure its flat on the surface. so yeah moral of the story is dont be lazy.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 8 months later...

Time for an update eh?

 

How are the LEDs doing? Color spectrum still good? Any additions/subtractions or adjustments?

 

I'm probably going to attempt an LED build for my 40b soon (to replace a MH) and yours probably has the least # of LEDs I've seen for a 40b build...

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oh yeah I've upgraded this... alot. I've since added the "full spectrum upgrade" now its also running 6 true violets, 2 660 nm red,2 cyan, and 1 cool blue. I've got to make a housing for this light, but other peoples builds come first lol. I've got about 3 lights I'm building right now. After those are done there are 2 more I need to work on, and then I'll finally have a little bit of time to rearrange my current bulb placement to its final resting spot. probably going to be 4 clusters of 9 all dimmable channels. on a 8x24" heatsink. with 2 built in fans temp controlled. but yeah all has been going well if you need any advice or just an oustide opinion feel free to ask.

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Great! Thanks for the update. To be honest I followed the LED tech very closely a few years ago (I live like 3 miles from Evilc66, though I haven't talked to him much in a while) but a lot has changed.

 

I'm tired of replacing MH bulbs as they're pretty $$ and I'm flat broke right now... So I'm thinking of building an LED array. I like the bridgelux 3W ones from www.groupbuy.com. I'm still doing some research as to their PAR values, but they have a lot of color options as well. I may have to just order a few of each color that I can experiment with.

 

On that note, I don't mean to hijack your thread, but if you don't mind (it has to do with LEDs) could you check out my youtube video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amFbr0Vyo0

It's for the www.ledgroupbuy.com contest. Please "Like" it on youtube for me!

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for a 36 bulb you're looking at a spending a good $600-900 depending on how you want to set it up. you can go super basic and get it done alot cheaper. but it gets old fast. trust me. if you can swing it spend the money once and do it all out. it'll pay itself off soon enough. good luck, i'll check out that video later i'm at work and they blocked youtube

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Haha funny how that is... I usually spend a few minutes here at work on the forums as well... They block youtube though as well...

 

Hmmm... So you've invested such an amount eh? I'll have to look into it. Note that I'm not particularly set on keeping SPS in my systems. I'm quite happy with softies and LPS... So I'll have to do some more research to find out ultimately how much I want to drop on this light.

 

Another thing I need to do is compare the Bridgelux LEDs to the CREE ones... I noticed you used CREE... One thing I like about them is that you can really drive them hard (1500mA!!!). I think the Bridgelux 3w are maxed out at 700 or so.

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