Hi all,

Since I finished the LED retro on my xcube26 I have been really impressed with the vibrant colours, coral growth and amazing shimmer so after much planning and advice (thanks evil) I have decided to start a bigger project and upgrade my 75g to LEDs.

I know this is nano-reef.com and this tank is not a nano but I thought it was appropriate to post this build thread here as its where I got all the advice from and I would like to share it with the other members but MODs please delete the thread if its a problem.

The tank is a Fluval Osaka 320 and measures 48"(L)x18"(W)x24"(H) and is currently running 4 x 54w T5's. The rock is arranged in 2 "islands" so the plan is to have one array above each island and Im hoping this will give a nice unique lighting effect as well as reducing the cost a little as I will be using less LEDs than if I were to cover the entire tank. each array will have 12 CREE XR-E R2s and 12 CREE XR-E Royal Blues giving a total of 48 LEDs. These will be fitted with 60 degree optics.

The LEDs will be cotrolled by an arduino which will allow automatic dawn/dusk as well as monitoring of the heatsink/led temperature. The Arduino will also control a small LCD screen allowing me to veiw usefull info such as temp and the current intensity of each colour of LED and there will be a joystick allowing me to set the time etc. Luckily, someone I work with has kindly done most of the work for this and its almost ready to go.


I have made some drawings of the design I would like to follow.

Light fixture in dark oak to match the cabinet. The panels on top will be made of metal grille to allow enough ariflow



Heatsinks/Fans: 2 heatsinks on each side. They will be closer together than in the image. There will be enough space to add a third heatsink in future if required.



Centre/cotrol box: The centre of the fixture will house the buckpucks, wiring and aduino etc.



LCD Screen and joystick



Underside.




Photo of arduino, LCD screen and other components.

Nice little LCD board. What's the board in the middle?

Its a prototype board with the battery, RTC chip, crystal etc.

Heres a drawing of all the parts for the automation side of the project that the guy working on the arduino put together:-

Don't know if I would rely on the reference voltage from the Buckpuck to power the Arduino. It's not a fixed 5v output, and it only has 20mA capacity. If all you were powering was the micro, then maybe. Once you start adding sensors, RTC, and a display, that reference voltage isn't going to cut it.

We are going to be using a seperate 9v power supply for the arduino.. must have forgotten to correct the diagram.

Excellent. Shouldn't you be working?

probably shouldnt you?

Guilty

I can't look at this thread without %$%&&$# in my pants.

dont you like the design?

wow i wish i was capable of building a controller like that!

Me too, Im lucky someone else is doing this for me and I will be able to just connect it to my array. I dont think the electronics are very complicated, Its the code behind it that seems to be the most complicated/time consuming part. Once its finished I will be able to just connect a laptop to the arduino and use a front end he has written to upload new settings (via an excel spreadsheet).

Once its finished we will post all the details of the components and the code so it shouldnt be difficult to copy.

i thought there would be lots of picture of the build and finish product and on the tank with happy corals....but i am disappoint

You will have a bit of a wait for that unfortunately. I will be ordering the parts this week and It will be at least a month or 2 before its finished but I will post loads of photos of the build as I go.

Does this PSU look ok?

24V PSU

Im planning to use 2 so each one would run 2 1000mA and 2 700mA buckpucks and 4 fans. If Ive worked it out correctly this adds up to 3.4A@24V plus the fans which shouldnt draw much.


PS. I wont be buying it from the place in the link as Ive found it much cheaper elsewhere... just posted the link for the info.

CHEAT!!!


Should be ok, but watch the max current at 24v. The power supplies I have seen like that have a lower output rating at 22v and 24v. Based on that spec sheet, it's max output is 90w, which is 3.75A at 24v.

Dave_uk,

I bought that very same power supply for my system (arduino controlled pwm dimmed buckpucks).

It works very well, the only thing i'd advise is that Maplins may be high priced, but don't go too cheap either and get a poor power supply that will fry itself or worse £££'s worth of pucks!!

If you do go down this route, then you will need the filter capacitor between the psu and the buckpuck inputs, because the leads are long and the induction (inductance?) in the long leads fries the pucks; I learned this the hard way

I think the 90w is incorrect and referring to another model as further down the page soemone has asked what the output is and the reply from maplin is "The item will support any item that runs off the following OUTPUT VOLTAGES: DC15V/16V/18V/19V/20V @6Amp and 22V/24V@5Amp max"



The cheaper PSU's Ive found are exactly the same (maplin branded) but half the price.

I wasnt aware of the capacitor requirement between the psu and buckpuck. At whta cable lenght does this become needed?

I'd be interested if you could forward me a link to the cheaper psu's in case I add a 3rd channel to my led's!


If you check out Page 5 of the datasheet below, it says the capacitor is required for leads of greater than 18". The maplin charger lead on it's own is about 24" - 30" before you add any of your own connections!
Buckpuck Datasheet

The capacitors are only about a quid from maplin's. I added the capacitors to each of my pucks by soldering them to a vero board, I then used the vero board to split my power supply parallel to my buckpucks, as per below:

Now Im worried.. I just checked the length of the PSU cord on my pico array and its about 3-4 feet long

I'd be happy if it hasn't blown yet! It probably never will...

My pucks had a bit of history, ordered two from Cutter with my XR-Es, and they both ran 4 XR-E's fine from the power supply during testing; but got quite warm; as soon as plumbed in the last two leds and upped the supply voltage to suit the 6 off leds the first buckpuck fried. I figured it might have been a dud puck, so I tried the other one - fried!

I ordered two more buckpucks and added a cap to each terminal. Both pucks now run all 6 leds and run cooler.

So I can't definately prove that it wasn't a bad pair of pucks that blew of their own accord, but I do know the system works a whole lot better now with the caps in!

Ordered the LEDs, drivers, heatsinks, fans and power supplies today. It all came to just over £550 which im pretty happy with. All thats left to pay for now is the case and some connectors etc. Im dying to get started now.

Wanted to comment on this because it's been somewhat of an aggravation of mine in reading these LEDs threads.

One thing I hate about fluorescent lighting of any kind (PC, T5, etc) is the tendency to light every square inch of the tank with the same uniform lighting. While this is kind of a subjective thing and varies with the size of the tank, I personally find it bland. I mean, how many thousands of reef tank pictures have we run across showing a few chunks of live rock, half a dozen corals, and 70% of the tank bottom nothing but substrate. But, the tank owner is lighting every square inch of it producing an environment that if we were honest for once looks like plastic reef replicas under a shop light.

IMHO, the best looking (+30gal) tanks from an aesthestic perspective tend to be the ones running a lot of LR, and contrasty lighting concentrated in specific areas of the tank; typically the middle. So, I agree with the OP 150% on this and glad the issue was brought up. With the incredible versatility of LEDs I would certainly prefer showing a bit of imagination and concentrating light in specific areas based on where he plans on higher stacks of LR. Again, this is obviously something easier to do with a bigger tank than a smaller one.

Also, you guys are missing a cheap and reliable source of 12volt current, and that's computer PSUs. I can get a new, 500watt computer PSU for $20, and many of us have old computers lying around with functioning ones. I have a commercial installation using a 400watt PSU I scrounged from a computer, and LED runs are in excess of 100feet. If the PSU dies in a few years, so what...I throw another on for free. That's 20+ amps of 12 volt for free -vs- a laptop supply that's not cheap and can't go near the current load. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for the comments Blasterman. Im hoping this does turn out looking good as I too like the idea of spotlighting the important area(s) of the tank for a bit more of an unusual look. Whether or not it will end up looking the way I am imaginig it though is another matter . I must admit though that my reasons for doing it this way are partly for cost too as it will be about 30% cheaper than covering the entire lenght of the tank in LEDs.

Im not an expert but I think the issue with using computer PSU's is the low voltage. Most people are using at least 24v power supplies as 12v would not drive many LEDs and would lead to having to buy a lot more drivers. For example, my array of 48 LEDs runing 24v PSU's will require 8 buckpucks running 6 LEDs each. If I used a 12v PSU each buckpuck would only drive 2 LEDs meaning I would have to use 24 buckpucks. Laptop power supplies are a slightly better option as a 19v one could drive 4 LEDs per buckpuck but depending on how many LEDs you need to use it may still work out cheaper to buy a 24v PSU.

I wonder if you can connect 2 psu in series and get +24v 800watts. I stack them at work, but there 600v industrial power supplies, to get 1200v.

Lovely setup.... I think you should consider placing a small fan over you buckpuck and power supply since it does get quite hot too. From you design I cant see any plan to keep these parts cool, juts a thought.....Good luck

You can. PC power supplies are as "clean" as a good dedicated switching power supply. They are cheap and plentifull though. Get a power supply with multiple 12v rails and you should be able to tie them in series for the same effect. Depends on how the grounds are isolated though. I haven't messed with them enough to say for sure.

I will be either adding a fan to the centre section or covering the top in mesh or perhaps both depending on how hot it gets during testing.

Small update:

I now have all the parts except for the LEDs and Fans. Im very impressed that my buckpucks arrived on Tuesday morning after ordering them on friday.. Well done LEDSupply.com!

I thought while I was waiting for the LEDs I would make a start on the heatsinks so here they are. Just finished drilling them and i managed to only break one bit The extra holes on one of the heatsinks are not a mistake, they are for attaching a temp sensor... honest



Next step is to tap the holes. I think this is going to keep me busy for a while as it took me over an hour to tap 20 holes in my last array and now I need to do 98

I will need to make splashguards at some pont. Any suggesgtions on how thick the acrylic needs to be to not bend under its own weight and not block too much light?

Each peice will be about 20" x 8" and will be supported on every edge.

Also, is extruded ok for this application or do I need to use cell cast?

Got all the holes tapped today.. what a PITA! WD40 was a real help though.


Anyone got a suggestion about the splashguard ^^^

Considering the width of your fixture, you could get away with 1/8" depending on how frequently it's fastened to the fixture, if not permanently bonded.

I cant bond it to the fixture as ive decided to use ply wood. but it will be resting on a lip on all edges. Does it matter if I use extruded acrylic or should I go for cell cast?

Cell cast is a lot stronger and more scratch resistant.

ok, thanks. I will order 3mm cell cast.

Watching ur thread closely with much interest. I'm designing and planning for my 5 feet tank.I'm wondering what are the spacing between ur LEDs and each group of 12 LEDs. Do you forsee any spot light effect where certain area will be dim?

Great thread.

Cheers
JC

The LEDs will be spaced 2" apart and the heatsinks will be next to each other so in effect there will be 2 groups of 24 LEDs.

The idea is to highlight the 2 piles of live rock and Im hoping the spotlight effect will give a nice look to the tank but I am allowing enough space in the fixture to be able to increse the number of LEDs by 50% if I need to.

Just curious, in ur opinion the group of 24 LEDs with 2" spacing will be sufficient to light up how big a space?

Cheers
JC

It will depend on which optics are used. I will be using 60 degree optics which wont give as intense a light as 40 degree optics but will give a better spread. Im hoping the 2 24 LED arrays will give good coverage on each side over each pile of rock with dimmer areas in the middle and at each end but until I test it I wont know how good (or bad ) it will look.

Yaaaayyy!!

My LEDs arrived this morning. Looks like im going to be busy for the next week or 2.

Looks like I spoke too soon

I started testing the LEDs tonight and it looks like cutter have shipped the wrong ones. I ordered R2's WC bin which is what I orderd for the last array but the ones they have shipped appear to have a much lower colour temperature. I had a R2 WC left over from the last batch and I have tested them along side each other and the new ones are much more yellow. I dont see how these would be any good for lighting a reef tank.

Anyone else had similar problems?

Here are some photos. I took them with a camera phone and I couldnt capture the LEDs well but you you can see the colour from the light beams.

WC bin from last order



LEDs that arrived today

They may be the more common WG bin. We all use those with the Q5s. I personally like the slightly warmer tone on the WGs. I actually kind of like the neutral whites in some instances. Gives a warmer, deeper tone to the tank. The cooler color temps make everything look more washed out. WCs are about the limit I would use.

Is there any way to tell what bin they are?

They look very yellow to me. I would estimate around 4000k but I could be way off.

Not by looking. Contact Cutter and see what their pick list was.

I just got a reply from cutter:-

"Please return the LEDS and we will replace with the R2 WC which we have been
out of stock of so we replaced with a similar type."

Ive emailed them back asking what type/bin of LEDs they sent and Im hoping they are something that I can use as it would be a pain to have to send them back and wait for replacements.

GRRRRRRR!!!!!

I thought I would get on with wiring up the royal blue LEDs while I wait for cutter to sort the whites out and would you believe it... the power supplies I bought are faulty.... Both of them with different faults!!! One just flashed with no output and the other has a broken jack.

I think I must be jinxed

I just popped in to maplin and they had some 150w 24v psu's on sale for £39.99 so I bought 2 of them which means I can get cracking with the build tonight (at least the blue part anyway) I'll just have to get my money back later on the dodgy ones. They were a bit more expensive than the other ones but I will be able to run 50% more LEDs if I need to in future without having to buy another power supply so its not all bad.

Bummer. Lets hope this trend doesn't continue. Look at the bright side. You ended up getting better power supplies anyway