Okay so I am finally starting to document my LED retrofit project for my Red Sea Max 130D. It has been moving along very slowly as I have been very limited on time. So here is the basic info with some pictures. I know I could have gone cheaper in many areas, I really don’t need a touch screen for my Arduino, but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Parts List
Quantity Part desc Unit $ Total $ Vendor
LED Supplies
13 Cree XRE Q5 LEDs Royal Blue $8.69 $112.97 www.ledsupply.com
17 Cree XRE Q5 LEDs Cool White $7.10 $120.70 www.ledsupply.com
5 1000 mA 3021-D-I Buckpucks $17.99 $89.95 www.ledsupply.com
2 1W UV leds $9.00 $18.00 ebay
1 350mA 3021-D-I Buckpuck $17.99 $17.99 www.ledsupply.com
6 Buckpuck Wiring harnesses $2.99 $17.94 www.ledsupply.com
40 Cree 60 degree Optics $0.80 $32.00 ebay auspicious.e store - Taiwan
1 20" X 5.75" wide heatsink $50.00 $50.00 www.heatsinkusa.com
(small plus 8")
1 PSupply -120 Watt 5A 24V $18.00 $18.00 Ebay
1 AC/DC12v 1000mA Power Adap $15.00 $15.00 Radiio Shack

PIC Controller
1 AVR for directly burining chips $34.00 $34.00 www.mouser.com
1 Ardiuno Duemilanove $26.00 $26.00 www.liquidware.com
1 Touchshield screen $175.00 $175.00 www.liquidware.com
1 Doubletall Extender shield $18.00 $18.00 www.liquidware.com
1 Screwshield wings
(screw terminal blocks) $9.00 $9.00 www.liquidware.com
1 DS1307 RTC Module
with/56bytes mem $19.00 $19.00 www.sparkfun.com

Electronics
1 bag of 50 #4 screws stainless steel $10.00 $10.00 ebay
1 64 - Plastic #6 washers $8.00 $8.00 Lowes
6 220uf 50V Capacitor $0.60 $3.60 www.mouser.com
3 40/40/5V 4.7K bias transistor (FJN3309R) $0.04 $0.12 www.mouser.com
1 Various PCB mountable 6A terminal blocks $10.00 $10.00 www.mouser.com
1 Prototype Boards ProtoBoard-3U 1 sided $10.78 $10.78 www.busboard.us
2 DC Power connectors $4.00 $8.00
1 Artic Silver thermal compound $7.00 $7.00 www.newegg.com

Fans
2 Rosewill RFX-120 120mm pwm Case Fan $8.00 $16.00 www.newegg.com
2 120mm fan covers $3.00 $6.00 www.newegg.com
Other
1 Carbide tap & die $15.00 $15.00 Lowes
1 2" 90 degree 24" Aluminum Piece $10.00 $10.00 Lowes
1 1" wide Aluminum Piece $8.00 $8.00 Lowes
1 Red Sea Max replacement hood $98.00 $98.00 RSMax

Services
1 Machine Shop countersink cuts for
fans in heatsink $40.00 $40.00 Local machine shop
1 Anodizing aluminum $35.00 $35.00 Local company

Still Need
1 Project box to fit Arduino $10 $10.00 ???

Grand Total $968.05 Ouch!


After searching around for three weeks, I finally found a machine shop that would do the cutting for countersinking the fans. After that, I had it anodized and dyed black. I had drilled some larger holes and actually used high heat glue to glue in some mounts to raise the fans slightly about the heatsink and mounted with screws. This should allow the fans to pull air from between the fins on the heatsink. I plan to mount a heat sensor on the fans and use a small controller board to pwm the fans. Because I intend on using 6 buckpucks and want to utilize interrupts on the Arduino, there is not enough interrupts for the fan as well, so I am just keep it off the Arduino. Not a big deal.

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I have a drill press and used a stencil I made in Cad to drill holes.

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To make 6 buckpucks work on a Duemilanove, I am combining 3 Buckpucks to work on one PWM output, so I needed some bias transistors (could have been a transistor and a resistor together, but they make them together for 4 cents each.) Will post a simple to read diagram later.

I am actually using a LCD TV power supply that is external and looks like a laptop power supply. That puts the power past 18” from the buckpucks and therefore will put in capacitors on each buckpuck. All of this circuit will be on soldered on the proto board utilizing some screw in terminal blocks. That will allow me to replace the buckpuck if needed. (I will post pictures, but have not started soldering the circuit)

By far the most time consuming effort was making the heatsink fit into a stock RSM hood. I used various pieces of aluminum that I bought from Lowes. I did not anodize these aluminum pieces, but painted them with high heat resistant black engine enamel. Since I really do not want them to conduct heat, it should work out fine.

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Need to get it in gear and start soldering!

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More to come...

Oh yes, the Arduino. Can't wait to get back to the programming which is realy my stronger area. I bougnt an AVR so I can directly burn the logic to the ATMEL chip. I am going to write an AVR library with command that can be used from the Arduino code.

The basic idea I have is to include a database of locations where reefs are common around the world. I have the data tables on sunrise, sunset peak afternoon sun intensity times, etc... I want to make to make this so if I want to mimic the great barier reef, Cozumel, Grand Caymans, etc... I just select the area of the world and the logic does the rest. I will use the sunrise times to slowly ramp up the intensity to about 80% (which will be my max intensity) to that areas particular time in the afternoon for max sun intensity and then slowly ramp it down based on the sunset times. Just will take a little code for calculating the intervals. I will also put in various time zone choices for those of us landlocked and wanting to match respective time zones in the US. Going to start out small and will add onto the database after I get the initial logic up and running. I will addon another section to directly set the sunrise time (to peak intensity), sunset time(ramp down to moonlights)

To clarify, the times for the various reefs in the world will be used for the season of the year and calculate the times for ramping up and the sunsets, but will have to justapose to fit into the current setting on the real time clock. (I'm sure no one wants thier light running all night on an australian time zone!)

Once this is up and running. I will try a lunar schedule.

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Definitely following this one. Looks like its going to be a very clean build!

It is taking far too long to get it done. But I woud rather take my time and get it right rather than hurry and throw a POS together.

I am relunctant to put this out here as it is not complete, but hereis a graphical look at how it should be wired. (and yes, I know I did not put in all the power on the buckpucks below on the drawing and that the 350mA buckpuck for the UVs will have its own power source, they will be hooked up with capacitors on each like the buckpucks above, bu not sharing a PWM output, so no bias transistors are needed)

I basically ran out room on the drawing and got sick of crossing lines using Visio... It gets the basic idea accross...

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Looking nice. Can't wait to see it finished.

I have a couple more photos that would not fit on original post:

Top of the hood with vents (yes I scratched the hood knocking it over in the garage!)

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Cut the internal metal heat shield & painted black. The heatsink footings fit in the spaces cut on the sides. The proto board will mount on the remaining metal piece in the middle.

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I will say that the heatsinkusa heatsink is a tight fit in the hood. Ideally, if I could have located a heatsink for a reasonable price that was not over 1" thick would have been easier to work with.

can your machine shop mill it down?

I have it so it fits now. Those fins are really tough to mill down because they are aluminum. My original thought was take it down 1/2 inch, but the machine shop said it would bend the fins and possibly ruin the heatsink and was not worth it. It takes quite a bit of time to correctly mill down the fins w/o bending them. A CNC router would do a better job, but CNC time is really expensive. I really don't want a $250 heatsink...

On the other hand, there likely won't be any heat issus with that large of a heat sink with two 120mm fans. The guys at Nanotuners have a CNC router, so I am interested in what heatsink they come up with for the RSM retrokits.

There is no question that the HeatsinkUSA units are overkill 99% of the time, but better safe than sorry. The thermal studies that Chris was able to do on the heatsinks for the other retros helped him get the height down quite a ways without sacrificing performance. I'd say you could easily see half the thickness of what you are running currently. Bigger is better though

if you make one about 800$ cheaper let me know

You could easily cut out $400 on my project by buying a character LCD instead of a touch screen, dump the ATMEL AVR and just use a USB cable, and do the anodizing yourself. I also bought a new hood so I could leave my MH retrofit hood alone. I sometimes get a little carried away. But hey, I figure that I don't get to go scuba diving or fly fishing very often any more, so this is hobby that I enjoy quite a bit, so the extra "toys" make me happy .

So thiis is very doable for around $600 which I do not see as that bad for LEDs considering I bought 24" Coralife Aqualight 2X96 250MH just after they were released for $650. That was 3 years ago.

You will likely find much lower prices on a lot of LED lights next year. Just won't see many that include sunset & sunrise with controllers.

Can I ask a potentially controversial question here? Spark has to promise not to take it the wrong way though....I don't want him to think I'm badmouthing this design or anything. Frankly it's way beyond anything I could fab I'm just used to asking very critical questions in IT, and sometimes it comes off the wrong way in a forum, but it's not meant that way.



Ok, here goes. What does that have anything to do with keeping LPS/SPS, etc? Case in point, the best reef tanks I've seen are running Metal halide, and I've never seen a dimmer switch on a metal halide. Maybe moonlight cycles, but seriously. They have two modes; on/off. Same with T5's, except some people stagger the tubes.

Why is it that most of the LED designs I see here seem to have a mandatory requirement for dimming? If I spend N-dollars trying to deliver X-lumens with LEDs, and find I need to dim them 40% because it's bleaching my Acros out, I've just chucked part of a paycheck in the trash. So, it seems like we're spending a lot of effort on circuit design, but not a lot of time calculating how much PAR we actually need?

OK, I'm done. Beat me at will

Coming along really nicely, touch screen part is very interesting but I am sure it can be done much cheaper and there are other dev boards out there at reasonable price. I myself half way though finishing off coding my touch screen controller but using NI and LAB VIEW software to code the whole thing. Pain in the backside but hay,,,,,, this is what DIY all about!! Wish you all the best and look forward to see the progress,

I'll answer this part.



The price doesn't vary much from enough light to more than enough light. I'd rather have the capability for more light than I need, instead of wishing I had more. One way you can look at it is that running a higher output LED that is typically more efficient, you are using less power to create the same amount of light, so technically you are saving even more money I know, lame, but it's true.

NP. certainly a valid question.

The dimming is not a requirement at all. In fact it would be much easier just to hook this up to a timer and be done with it. People were obviously keeping reef tanks just fine before MH came around as well. I already have a 150W retrofit with 2X18 PC I put in my RSM. It does a great job, but creates too much heat. The way a MH bulb works really does not lend itself well to dimming and that is why you probably have not ever seen it.

I actually went to the source on PAR and # of LEDs for the tank - Evil!

You certainly don't have to have dimming and for me it is a preference. I currently turn on the PC's for sunrise and sunset on my RSM and then switch on the MH for daylight. BTW... I am an IT Director for a big corporation. So I know IT pretty well. I like messing around with projects like this. It's a hobby, so I do not consider it throwing paychecks in the trash.

the big deal with dimming is the ease of acclimation to the lights more than anything else. that way there is no more eggcrate screens etc like when you switch to halide. if done prop it also adjusts color temp too.

while nowhere near necessary to have your light follow great barrier reef weather patterns, it certantly is BAD A$$!!!

I am just trying to make the interface as easy as possible where the lighting patterns are preset to what you would find in different reefs (and time zones) around the world. Once the logic is done, it is just a matter of adding onto the database (or just flat file data in this case). The programming will take some work, so I just have to take the time to knock of the rest of the project. It will start out small with about 7-8 choices and add on in the future. I know it is kind of a novelty... but wanted to do something a little different than what you see on the market and in the diy projects.
somthing like these choices:

1. Great Barier Reef
2. Red Sea
3. Cozumel/Caribbean
4. Cayman Islands/Caribbean

1. CST (sunrise/sunset)
2. PST (sunrise/sunset)
3. MST (sunrise/sunset)
4. EST (sunrise/sunset)

I think the easiest way to deal with the data is to use an SD card and get a reader to hook onto the Arduino. Then you could feasilby load data onto the card from a PC and just drop it int the slot. I know it can be done, but will have to do some research on how to read from those devices.
And I fully admit that all of this is overkill. I cannot help myself. My name is Spark and I am a nanoholic....

"Hi Spark. You are among friends here"

It all started about 5 years ago with a 24G JBJ NC that I retro'd a 70W MH. Then an Oceanic 30g Cube with 150MH build. An Aquapod, NC6... I quickly found myself hanging out with the wrong crowd at the LFS. Moved up to a 55 cornerbow an RSM with 150MH retro and now chasing after LED's. LOL...

[quote]On the other hand, there likely won't be any heat issus with that large of a heat sink with two 120mm fans. The guys at Nanotuners have a CNC router, so I am interested in what heatsink they come up with for the RSM retrokits. /quote]

First off Spark, you and I have been here since the old days. Its good to see us old schoolers still fartin around.

As you know, with the RSM, its a different approach than other all in ones, since the top part of the hood isnt the main structure.

We are working on some heatsink designs for the RSM that should be completed in the next few months.

The Heatsink USA heatsinks are awesome, but since there is sometimes pocketing and hole drilling for standoffs/mounts, we chose to go with the milled approach. The lower profile heatsink also allows us to put the heatsink into the bulk airstream.

I learned a long time ago in my HQI studies that sometimes less is more. In the early days, even my PC retros had up to 6 fans to try to keep things cool. Once we got with the program that pressurizing the canopy/plenum was the only way to go, we unlocked the secret to these nanos.

The RSM will surprise you tho. When configured with 150w HQI + 36PC, they run surprisingly cool with the 2 stock fan locations. Of course, in this configuration, we are cross ventilating the HQI (somewhat controversial, but we've seen little indication of poor results).

FRIGGEN AWESOME RETRO MAN!!!

Yes, I remember the old days when Shao-Lin (Jeremy) was doing NC24 MH retro's at the same time I did mine!
My biggest challenge with the RSM is getting the optics for the side LEDs to stay on the Cree's. They snap on easily, but also pop off just as easily if they hit anything. They tend to knock into the raised edges a little. I sadly did not think of that when I spaced out the LED's. So I may have to utilize some high heat glue to keep them on the LED's. If I had another 1/4 inch, it would not be an issue. As it sits now, they are pretty close to the window with just a little clearance.
Anxious to see what you can mill up on that cool CNC router you have!

We always try to scope out / bring in talent. Jeremy is now flying satellites for a living!!!

HQIs are one beast. I feel some promise in the new G12 format that Ushio and others are coming out with in Nov. We should have some interesting products along those lines. Theres only so much you can do with an HQI tho.

LEDs and their controllability is what makes them leagues ahead of other lighting tech. Damn Orbitech!!!

Those must be the small HQI bulbs that are coming out soon...

Well you know why I want LED's is because the entire heat issue with MH. The window on my hood now is a little worped from the MH incident I had while gone on a business trip and the cross fan mysteriously disconnected. Good thing for the thermal cuttofs! I had too many wires bunched together and it dissconnected. I would prefer not to torch the house and family while I gone on a trip!

I am running the MH now without my chiller. The fan went out and now I getting a friend to recharge the coolant. So it stays at 79 with hood up at the first notch. Goes to 83-85 with it down.

Also, I just like the sunrise and sunset capabilties of LED's. MH just is not suited for dimming.

Does not look like many companies are lining up to pay Orbitech for use of thier patent and are just putting out LED lights with no controller.

Going to be following this one. It looks great so far. I have a RSM and really like how the whole system looks. I just converted to MH and have an open top. The tank lost a lot of its form factor. Good luck with the build.

Been looking at the possibility of going LED with my RSM system like your doing. My biggest concern would be that the leds will give full coverage over the whole tank. The window on the max is so small are you sure the leds are going to reach the whole tank?

Very, very interesting.

We used a very simple approach to the same retrofit. There are some photos on our Facebook page of our version of the RedSea Max hood and finished tank.

Essentially, our version was an all on or off light (similar to the original functionality of the hood) that retained the built-in timer and moonlights. We used a pair of 40W AC/DC drivers to power 6 strings of 6 Cree XR-E's. Our customer wanted an extremely blue color (for acans, chalices and brains, primarily), so we used a ratio of 2:1 royal blue to white.

Please feel free to take a look around our facebook page or website.

Good luck with your build.





I forgot a couple of other pics:

Wow, I missed your post. Looks very nice! I like the square and round LED PCB boards. I can see you are using the LED driver from the RSM for the moonlights...along with the timer & relay.

I actually changed my desing slightly and decided to put 4 cool white Rebel Tri-Stars down the middle row (surrended by blues). I know I won't be able to crank them up since they give some pretty high PARs directly below the LEDs. I will limit those to about 60-70% and see how it goes. I aslo am using a couple lower power led strips for moonlights that can be PWM controlled. So now I have 25 RB & Cool White Cree's and the 2 UV's. The ratio will be less than a 2 to 1 with the rebels.

My time has been limited, but have all LEDs mounted, soldered, and tested. I also switched to using 3 Meanwell eln-60-48P so I could push more LEDs in a string. The trade off on time has been with farting around trying to double the 5V PWM signal from the Arduino. The electronics side has been somewhat of a learning experience for me, but am getting acquiring a lot valuable knowledge along the way!

Hopefully have this thing finally done very soon.

Awesome ! Can't wait to see your project up for show .