not sure what to do...i am setting up a 1-2 gallon reef vase. I am going to put either a 70w mh viper on it or some sort of an led. am am gunna be doing all sps, and want results. any suggestions?

Good Luck!!!

Can anyone shed some light (no pun intended) on the difference between frosted and ripple LED optics? I did a few searches but didn't really come up with anything.

Finished soldering and initial testing. Officially have a working set-up! 8RB XRE and 4NW XPG and its a go. Never would have imagined that much light could come out of those. Ridiculous.

Big thanks to Evil, Dave, Blaster and Hans for the help! Works exactly like you said it would!

Hi, thanks for the answer. I'm thinking about choosing 48xCREE XP-G R5 LEDs for 18x4 array. If I decide to add a few blue ones, how many do you think would be enough? If I decide to use blue ones as a moonlight would it be a good idea? Also, I would need to connect them separately from white ones (separate driver?).
I have a question about drivers. All I'm thinking here is 4 x ELN-60-48D (which are out of stock). Is there another choice of choosing some different driver(s) option?
I decided to "hang" them 3 inches from the water. Would I need some lenses here?
Thanks again for the input.

Part number? If they truely are 25 degree lenses, then you are going to have to mount the LEDs extremely high off the tank. Rebel lens options are not that great for anything wider than 45 degrees.


Light is the least of your concerns in an sps tank that small. LED is the only practical way to go with a setup this small, without having a ton of heat and evaporation issues. You wouldn't need very many LEDs over a tank that small to light it up. Use neutral white and royal blue LEDs, and you should have no trouble keeping sps color and growth, provided you can keep your water parameters in check.


There isn't much difference. Rippled lenses tend to have slightly wider angles with a softer edge.


Glad it's working for you.


Maybe 9 blues down the center will be enough. If you aren't using a controller, using those blue LEDs as a moonlight will be tough. You need to drop the current down quite a ways so they don't interfere with any photosynthetic processes at night..

There shouldn't be any need for lenses with this set up.

We (Nanotuners) are out of stock right now on the ELN-60-48D, but there are other sources that may have stock.

Thanks Evil!

Part No. is OPC1-1-WIDE at Digi-Key. I purchased three of them for testing as well as three each of http://ledsupply.com/10209.php and http://ledsupply.com/10196.php along with this lens adapter http://ledsupply.com/10732.php

I'll have to play with them to see what works since I purchased the LEDs and mounting stars separately and had them re-flowed by a friend.

The Dialite lens is actually 40 degrees. Still pretty tight for our applications.

Need some input on this little rig. Lets say I have Royal Blues and some True Violets on a meanwell ELN 60-48D driven at 1000mA. The True Violets has a max of 500mA. If I do this is ok? All LEDs in series but the true violets in parallel hoping to reduce mA down to 500

That is correct.

Perfect I know you told me before about this but I wanted to make sure I got you Thanks

Do you think any fuses should be used with this?

I personally don't think that fuses are worth the effort. The LED will cook quicker than the fuse would blow under high current.

great. Thanks man

Just wondering, The buckpucks can only run 6 LEDs with a forward voltage of 3.5v or 21volts
any thoughts on running 7 of the XPGs with a forward voltage of 3.0 = 21 volts

Im interested in a dimmible diy led controlled by a pwm controller for my 14 gall bc. 1)- is the 60-48P able to drive only 6 xp-g's or 6 RB crees or is there a smaller driver I could use. 2)- do you think 12 white/12 rb's would be too much light for my little tank? Kevin

Should be fine as long as you keep the total foraward voltage below 22v (24v with the 2v overhead for the Buckpuck).


6 XP-Gs is really pushing it. 6 XR-E/XP-E royals is not always easy to do either. If you want to use Meanwells, then look into the ELN-30-27P. Buckpucks are still an option for only 6 LEDs too.

For my 20L AIO, 24 x 12 x 12 display area:

This http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-54/24-...mium-LED/Detail with their 4.25 x 16 heatsink?

or

this http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-71/20-...mium-LED/Detail?

or something else?

thanks.

Neither really, and not because they are a competitor of the company I work for. 16 LEDs in an 8x2 array is more than enough for that area of coverage. The 4.25x16" heatsink isn't a bad choice though, and would work for what I'm suggesting.

Thanks. Had a feeling it should be a bit lower. I actually got them to quote me for an 18 LED kit, which should be good it sounds like. What optics do you think? I guess that depends on height above the tank...

Right. Anything up to 8-10" off the tank shouldn't need optics at all. 80 degree optics can help control light spill without increasing light output too much, but it will increase. There are other ways to reduce spill/glare without resorting to optics though. I don't like to recommend using optics to control that, unless the mounting distance works in the optics favor.

Cool, man. I appreciate the help. Optics come with the kit, so I'll probably get 40 or 60 degrees so that if in the future I decide to suspend the fixture higher above the tank I can. Thanks.

How high off the tank should would y'all guestimate I should hang an array with the following specs?

I'm building a canopy for this and don't want to under or over build it. I want the canopy as thin as possible, but I don't want a huge spotlight beam in my tank with dim surroundings.

Tank--- 23"X23" footprint. 31" deep.

LEDs--- 26 Crees, 1:1 w:b (for a planted tank, I'm sure this will be plenty of light).

Heatsink: 8X12, active cooled. This was a used heatsink I got for a good price, hence the odd size. This will also help with color blending.

60 degree optics.

Thanks for the reply. I know it was a couple months back, but have been busy so LED fixture was put on hold. I am building the front and back rows to be able to angle the LED's toward the center of the tank to minimize light on the front and rear glass. Any good sources for XP-G optics?

With a small heatsink area, you are going have to have it mounted at least 6" off the water to not make the spotlight look too noticable. At that distance, you will cover about an 18"x14" area by the time the light hits the water, if you get the LEDs all the way to the edges of the heatsink.


We (Nanotuners) have 40 and 60 degree optics for XP LEDs, but there are other sources too.

Thanks Evil, that's about what I was thinking on the heatsink. 6" is very doable.


Now, regarding the ELN P models.

I have a long 10g tank (36X9X8) that I'm setting up soon and don't need to run my LEDs full blast.

Have I read that there is an Arduino that puts out 0-5v, ready to use on the Meanwell? I'm sure I can get all the current I need from 10-12 XPG if there's 5v going into it, I can probably get 600-700mA by fiddling with the SRV2.

My intent is mainly to light a planted tank, but I also want to see just how much current we can get from a 60-48P model by using the 0-5v, keeping things as simple as possible.

If this is the case, how do I know which Arduino I need? And what would I need to provide it to work other than a potentiometer?

Thanks!

Matt

I just purchased a Cadlights 50g 24" x 24" x 20" deep to upgrade my Nano Cube LED . I am really thinking about doing this myself but I am also considering an off the shelf unit which possibly may not be suitable for the tank even though the seller says it's perfect. I definitely want to go with a dimming feature. Question is, what size heat sink and how many leds would you recommend for this tank as a DIY? This is the on the shelf unit I am considering. http://www.reefconcept.com/catalog/product...roducts_id=2584

First off, all Arduino's are 5v output. If you want to use a simple, temporary method to get started, just use a 6v cell phone charger. I'm sure you can find one around the house.

To get the Arduino to work with the Meanwell, you need an external switch. A FET works well here, as it's self biased, and you only need to apply current limiting resistors to the gate and source (IIRC). Even those aren't really necessary in reality, but it's safer to use them. At that point, you need to supply a higher current voltage source than the Arduino can supply with the output pin, so you might as well go all out and supply it with a 10v regulated source and get full range out of the driver. 5v pwm may not give consistant results. For pwm to work, there needs to be two voltage thresholds. One to signal on, and the other to signal off. Those voltages are usually 0.25-0.5v from the voltage limits. In this case, below 0.5v will signal off, and above 9.5v will signal on. The driver will still work to a degree at lower voltages, as it's averaging the input. Using 5v pwm to control the driver may not give the most expected results.


If everything they say on the site holds true, it should be a decent fixture. It's a little on the pricey side though. You can get a US built AquaIllumination Sol fixture for over $200 less, and will have more control options. For that tank size, I'd see if you can get a set of the optional 70 degree optics to make it a little more usable over a larger area.

If you want to build something yourself, a 6x6 array would work nicely. Space everything 2" apart, and get the heatsink sized accordingly. You won't easily be able to find a single heatsink that size, so be aware that you may have to stack two heatsinks side by side.

I want to know the minimum led requirement for growing sps under led in a 12" cube? would a par 20k bulb suffice?

would a 6 led setup be too much for a jbj picotope? i wanna make a diy led for my jbj and if everything works fine do a system for my 55gal. i wanna get a 4x9 heatsink with staggered blue and whites in a 3x2 pattern,but im afraid it might be too much and burn everything up.

You'd be fine if you got a dimmable driver. A dimmable buckpuck would work fine in your case, I believe.

I have a ADA tank that's 24x 18x 18. I'm going to be building an led light for it. I was going to use this heat sink 4.25 x 23" and it holds 24 leds? will that be enough for me to have a mixed reef? and what degree optics should I use?

24 leds is enough for the tank and I would go with 40 or 60 optics

Technically, you need only one LED. Your placement of said sps coral would be extremely limited, but it would grow. Same principle applies to the PAR30 lamp, just over a larger area. These are spotlights, and should be treated as such. You most certainly can keep sps under a lamp like that, but you have to be aware of the limitations. If you want to have sps anywhere in the tank, then you would need to DIY it, or use more PAR30's.


A 3x2 array would work fine. Your chosen drive current is what will potentially bleach coral, not the number of LEDs you place over the tank. For a tank that small, there is no need for drive currents more than 700mA, and getting a driver that is dimmable would be in your best interest. Buckpucks work nicely for this size array, as redfishsc mentioned.



Fill it up with 24 LEDs, but no optics. Get 80's if you want to control spill slightly, but they aren't necessary from an intensity standpoint.

Thanks guys,and what about my 55g tank. its a cube so its 30" long 18" wide and 24" deep. would a 24 or 36 LED be ok? i want to make sure i get enough PAR to the bottom,right now i have a 250w MH on the tank.

36 LEDs in a 12x3 array should be more than plenty. Now, that number is to cover the surface area of the tank. By itself, that won't put you into 250W MH PAR territory. Going to 48 LEDs won't either. This is a basic principle that many people are missing again. Set up the array to cover the surface area of the tank, then use either drive current and/or lenses to raise PAR levels. For this application, you will need 60 degree lenses to put you where you want to be.

thanks alot,makes sense now. on my pico build ill be getting 6 leds,which dimmable driver should i get?

^ I think for the moment, a Buckpuck is the only thing that can reliably drive 6 LEDs and be dimmable.

As a side note, I just wanted to corroborate what Evilc66 said about 60 degree optics. I have easily hit 250w halide numbers with 26 LEDs (at 1,000mA) and 60-deg optics. The light spread might have been a bit bigger on the halide compared to the LED array (esp. if I had a LumenBright reflector) but not really THAT much more of a light spread.

I'm trying to figure out what kind of power supply voltage and amps I need for 6 3w Cree LEDs on a wired buckpuck. I figured out 24vdc 2.5A power supply should be sufficient, am I right? If not is it too much or to little?

Power supply
http://stores.ebay.com/Hootoodeals/_i.html...;_sid=944423775

hi guys

I know Mean Well LPC-35-700 driver can run 1 string of 3x3W through 12x3W LEDs in series at 700mA and LPC-60-1050 can run at 1050mA.
I dont know if I can mix different type of leds.
for example
- Cree XP-G neutral white and XM-L cool white using LPC-60-1050
- Cree XP-E royal blue and Luxeon rebel cool blue and XR-E cool blue using LPC-35-700

Just got an email that AS is getting in the Aqua Illumination fixtures. I am SO not a DIY'er so buying a fixture is really my only option.

I tried doing a search for reviews and all I'm getting is from last year. Did they upgrade these new ones? Would this be adequate (but pricey!) for a standard 75 gallon? Trying to do my research on LED's but I have to admit I'm a little lost with all the jargon.

Any input would be helpful

Hi,

I'm thinking of getting the Nanocustoms 3.6 LED Fixture for Fluval Edge (54w LED) unit for my Fluval Edge. They give you the option of arranging the 3 strips of 6 LEDS as all blue, all white or 50/50. What arrangement would you recommend?

Thanks,

Donald

seems like 18 LED's would equal to way too much light, i have 12 in my Edge and i've had to dial down the dimming.

my 2 cents ( par with the U.S. $ )

Hi Reefers!!!

How are you Mr. Evil? It´s been a long time since my last visit to nano-reefs!

and you Red..are you ok????

So after this long time I finally put my led fixture to work...

I don´t have my own thread..but I will fix that as soon as possible!

just a couple shots:http://www.ipaq.org.br/vb/showthread.php?91813-Minha-calha-led-3w....passo-a-passo

Questions: How can I do to join the evil´s led fixtures list????

Best regards and sorry for my terrible english!

D.

I'm here... and doing well . About to send off a bunch of LEDs (or more specifically, LED combinations) for spectral analysis, so this should be interesting .


But to add pics to Evil's thread, just post a reply. Keep discussion to a minimum--- just tell us briefly about the fixture and post pics .

That's more than enough. If your Buckpuck is 1000mA, then you only need a 1000mA (1A) power supply. We typically oversize the power supply to reduce stress, so 2.5A is more than enough.


You can mix and match any LED in the same string, provided that they all can handle the current. You just need to make sure the total forward voltage of all the LEDs is within the range of the driver. Not all LEDs have the same forward voltage at a particular current, so keep that in mind.


The last hardware upgrade was a while back when they went to XP LEDs, and then they released the Sol Blue as another color option. They released new firmware recently that allows for more control, and more features.


We are working on making some adjustments on that one. Like senoufu mentioned, that will be too much light on a fixed output driver. We are working on transistioning over to the new TRP drivers that we are now carrying, and all fixtures will end up being dimmable.


I'm doing all right bud. You?

If you haven't done it already, just add some pictures and info, and/or a link to the DIY LED Project List thread stickied here in this forum. Your link didn't work, so I'm not sure what you are up to yet

Just a basic question:

I have 3 fans 12V 0.180mA...and 1 power suplly 12V 0.780mA...Can I put this 3 fans in parallel????

thks

D.

180mA x 3 = 540mA = safe.

180mA x 3 = 540mA = safe.

So how do you feel about the fixture in general? What do you think about mounting 2 parallel for a standard 75?

For off the shelf LED fixtures, it doesn't get much better. Sure, there are other fixtures that offer all kinds of whiz bang features, but the price reflects that. The AI fixtures are about the best balance of price and features, while still cranking out lots of PAR.

I'd probably mount them inline, rather than parallel. At least in my head, it makes sense to have the bulk of the light running along the length of the tank.