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Coral Vue Hydros

The complete LED & Dim4Controller Led Guide


Deckoz2302

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Ok so here goes Im building this led setup for my tank which is currently the 6.6 fluval chi, although I have since decided to modify my original plans as im in the process of putting together a 25 3/4"l x 14w x 16h rimless tank to upgrade to anyway

 

Tools:

  • Drill press
  • Hand tap
  • 4-40mm Tap
  • Walton 4mm tap extractor
  • 20-40w soldering iron
  • Wire Cutter/Stripper
  • Tape Measure
  • Square

 

Other Stuff

  • Cutting oil
  • Thermal grease
  • Masking tape
  • Pencil
  • Sharpie
  • razor blade

 

Parts

  • LEDGroupBuy Dim4 Controller
  • 5A Power Supply
  • 3 Rapid Led Moonlight Drivers
  • 4.25 x 9" Heatsink
  • 4.25 x 4" Heatsink
  • 4.25 x3" Heatsink
  • 5 XM-L T6 Cool White 5200-8000k
  • 6 True Violet 420nm
  • 5 XP-E Royal Blue 445-460nm
  • 3 XP-E Blue 465-480nm
  • 4 XP-G Natural White 3200k
  • 4 Osram Red 660nm
  • 22 guage solid core wire

 

Anyway Ill start with some drilling and tapping and add as I go.

 

First thing first once you have your parts your going to want to decide on a lay out for your leds. Take your heatsink and masking tape off the bottom side to protect it from scratches and also to draw/mark on. Your gonna use your square/tape measure and create a symetrical line formation to place your leds on so they are all properly and evenly spaced(sorry didn't take pictures of this point). Once you create your lay out lay the leds onto the heatsink in theyre places and use your sharpie to make a dot on each side of the led..this will be where you drill. remove the leds and place them back in theyre labeled bags you wont need them for a while. Now your ready to drill(the way to pic the drill bit is find the screw to match the leds, then the drill and tap for the screw. I used 4-40mm screws with a tapered/cone head to push the leds down but not touch the solder pads)

 

Me drilling out some holes in my kitchen oooh lol

2011-10-24_19-04-08_580.jpg

 

Once your done drilling(Still more on this heatsink as i ordered more leds for the change of aquariums soon to 350square inches of surface area) This is what it should look like, minuse the screws lol.

IMG_20111024_193506.jpg

 

Now your ready to start tapping going 3/4 turn and backing out using cutting fluid

IMG_20111024_194516.jpg

 

Now don't be in a hurry like me and go breaking a tap

IMG_20111028_194211.jpg

 

Thank fully I had a walton tap extractor of the same size already :P

IMG_20111028_194243.jpg

IMG_20111028_200916.jpg

IMG_20111028_200954.jpg

IMG_20111028_201052.jpg

 

Now once your done tapping rinse the cutting oil off the heatsink and dry with a shop towel or paper towels and let sit for a while to ensure dryness. Next were going to take our leds and apply a small bead of Arctic silver grease to the bottom center of the led and then place the led on the heatsink spinning the led to spread the grease for maximum thermal transfer before screwing down

 

IMG_20111029_123604.jpg

 

Next will be soldering/wiring my refugium lights

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Once your Led's are screwed down and your prepping to solder take your razor blade and skim the surface of the solder pad with the edge of the blade to create some surface differences to kind of "suck the solder" to the mating surface.

IMG_20111029_212228.jpg

 

Then cut and strip your wire to size and lay/hold it into place

IMG_20111029_212504.jpg

 

Your now ready to solder. For a quick clean solder hold the tip of your iron on the top of the wire so that it pinches the wire between the solder pad and iron for about 2-3 seconds to bring the wire upto around the same temperature(tempurature being close to the same as the iron helps the rosen in the solder do its job to adhear to something other than the iron) Anyway once you've held your iron on the wire for a second or so take your solder and feed it over the tip of the iron quickly and the solder will melt and roll over the iron onto the wire and pad making a nice round solid solder. quickly remove iron after the solder rolls over the tip. If you wait to long you will burn the rosen in the solder and the solder will quickly suck itself back onto the iron.

2011-10-29_21-29-35_889.jpg

IMG_20111030_085538.jpg

 

Continue Soldering in a series, jumping from Positive to Negative each LED until you complete your string/circuit

 

These are my completed Refugium LEDs. Using Rapid LED moonlight drivers

IMG_20111030_085415.jpg

 

Here is one temporarily sitting over the stand behind refugium(along with the temporary 33w grow light lol)

IMG_20111030_090836.jpg

 

Next up...The main fixture design, wiring the dim4 controller, wire tucking, and fan install. Then the heatsink mount. Still debating wheather to do a open heatsink with aluminum shroud, or use a lampshade style reflective pendent...anyways more to come!

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Ok so for the pendant, Im going to be using this curved shelf arm I picked up from Lowes.

 

IMG_20111030_183835.jpg

 

The bracket on the end is going to hold a controller box so I can mount the light and fan controls right up front of the tank...if that makes sense. Wires run down center channel underneath.

 

Hopefully I can make this come together nicely

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Im still waiting on parts from ledgroupbuy.com :\ to finish the diy, but my fuge lights were a simple square layout, 4 leds two colors caddycornered from each other - 660nm red, xpe natural white 3200k.

 

the main fixtures lay out looks like so

IMG_20111105_112401-1.jpg

 

B=Blue

RB=Royal Blue

V=Violet

W=White

ML=Moonlights

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What Cree Led bulb are you using for your moonlights thanks! Also, I have been looking at adding violet Led's to my upcoming build and I am curious how they look under the tank. I cant wait to see pics of this when its done.

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Im using the rapid led moonlights leds, and here is a small update

 

i decided to goto home depot an get some lexan to protect the leds here is what the fixture looks like with what i have. I will be drilling holes on each side and a hole through the fins to route the wires out the back center. between programming the reef angel controller I've been coding, and putting a custom rimless tank together and this fixture im taking each a little slow lol so forgive me if I don't update soon as I am waiting on the rest of the leds and parts to arrive.

 

IMG_20111105_220344.jpg

IMG_20111105_220329.jpg

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For some reason I think I remember hearing that those moonlight LED's will not work with the DIM4 because that was my plan too. If you get that working with a strand of three moonlight LED's I would love to know since I am wanting to do the same thing. Thanks.

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I am not using the dim4 for moonlights, using a separate driver, how ever I can test it. Although it should work as long as you have a strand of 3 and you don't over driver them, dim4 puts out 500ma per channel, these leds are 350ma max, dim4 goes in 256 steps, 350/5 of 256 is 179.2 so I wouldn't go over that.

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Found this on the LED groupbuy website. Not sure if that means they will not work but food for thought.

 

Please note: If running LEDs directly you must have a series of 3 CREE XP or XM LEDs. Series of 2 or 1 will not work.

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Yes ill test them out when I receive the dim4 hopefully on Wednesday, once I receive the dim4 and rest of the leds ill gladly test for you and ill post pics of what each channel looks like and all together along with how to wire the dim4

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Milad LEDGroupBuy.com

Why arent you using the DIM4 for the moonlights? One channel will control 3 LEDs (XP/XM) series LEDs relaly well as moonlights.

 

Also couple things to note. The DIM4 you are receiving has 1024 steps. It also has two relays that turn on when CH1/CH2 or CH3/CH4 come online. This allows to connect a 10v relay switch which we should be carrying in a couple weeks that will allow you to go full darkness without timers on the drivers.

 

BTW your build looks great. Love the Lexon. Any reason you didnt use glass?

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I used separate drivers then the dim4 for the moonlights because the main fixture has 4 colors that I want independently controlled, white, violet, royal blue and blue. And that's cool didn't know aboiut the new dim4 stepping. And as far as glass I could have gone and got some saphire glass cut but I chose to use nonglare lexan(nonglare is on led side. So that more light passes through instead of reflecting back onto the fixture/out the sides. I will change over to saphire glass later however at the moment I used lexan so that I could create a drilling template for glass, lexan is 3 bucks, where a sheet of saphire would be 22, rather waste a couple lexan sheets(which I did) making a drilling template then replacing glass a few times.

 

The moonlights however I may tap into one of the channels possibly violet as buckpucks voltage dimming is backwards in comparison to meanwells. Meanwells dim 0-10v (0-100%) while buckpucks dim 10-0v(0-100% at 0v). so in essence I could have the violet channel be rising while the same voltage is lowering the moonlight on a buckpuck since voltage is opposite. My theory may be wrong but I'm going to test it out and see how it goes.

 

So basically with the relays you will be mixing the pulse width modulation from the dim4 with an analog signal on the relays to go lower then the minimum driver light up(meanwells dim to 15%)? Or the relays will control the driver power ons to negate the need of a timer to power on/off the drivers before/after sunrise/set

 

And thanks milad! Haha, hopefully I can hang the fixture and keep the asthetics of the rest of the bedroom in flow

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Milad, Deckozz is going to test out those cheap moonlight LED's from rapid LED on the Dim4 do you think they will work?

 

BTW, Deckozz where do you get that acrylic from?

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Milad LEDGroupBuy.com
So basically with the relays you will be mixing the pulse width modulation from the dim4 with an analog signal on the relays to go lower then the minimum driver light up(meanwells dim to 15%)? Or the relays will control the driver power ons to negate the need of a timer to power on/off the drivers before/after sunrise/set

 

And thanks milad! Haha, hopefully I can hang the fixture and keep the asthetics of the rest of the bedroom in flow

 

The relay will essentially connect to a AC plug that has a 10v relay that turns it on and off (we will have these up for sale soon). What it will do is when the channels go live, the relay for that channel will go live and turn on the driver.

 

Once we get some in, Ill let you know and you can test them out if you like and see if they will work for you.

 

 

Milad, Deckozz is going to test out those cheap moonlight LED's from rapid LED on the Dim4 do you think they will work?

 

BTW, Deckozz where do you get that acrylic from?

 

They should work, I don't see a problem with them other than the fact they cant go over 350mA (the dim4 can take them to 500mA so you need to make sure you set the DIM4 for less than that). The Bridgelux we sell for $1.99 will also work.

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Yea I will probably pick some up off you once you have them in. And cool that means I don't have to jruy rig a realtime clock to some relays since the dim4 rtc/channel light up will control the relays for driver powerons.

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Yea I will probably pick some up off you once you have them in. And cool that means I don't have to jruy rig a realtime clock to some relays since the dim4 rtc/channel light up will control the relays for driver powerons.

I like your design,waiting for more updates!

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Milad LEDGroupBuy.com
Yea I will probably pick some up off you once you have them in. And cool that means I don't have to jruy rig a realtime clock to some relays since the dim4 rtc/channel light up will control the relays for driver powerons.

 

They are up. Its just a basic 12V relay + relay socket. You would need at max 2 pairs.

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Sorry for the delay in updates I have been busy building the tank and stand and I'm in the process of wrapping the stand in red oak and staining a dark expresso, the tank is finished. I have all the components for the led fixture(except a few things I'm ordering tonight)

 

I will be using meanwell 48-60-27p drivers. For cooling I am using two fans from coolerguys with a autofan controller that cuts on at 87deg f and off at 80deg. I am also in the process of building a acrylic shroud for the heatsink and fans and painting the shroud black(I chose acrylic because I can make it seemless and paint it easier then aluminum).

 

The fixture will be hung over a custom 25 gallon high, 25 3/4l x 14w x 16h

 

Here is a picture of where I sit at the moment, I will update as soon as possible and I'm sorry for the delays. I have a problem with doing more then one thing at a time, work on one project a few hours then do another.

 

IMG_20111120_185329_edit0.jpg

 

The door on the front will be seamless(no handle just a unvisible tab at the top) and the sump will be slide in front for easy removal for cleaning every few months. My goal is to make a seamless stand similar to the mr aqua cabinets so it looks as if the stand is just a stand, the only give away will be the overflow box on the right side of the tank.

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