Has anyone ever looked into these? I was thinking of trying 2 of them over my 10 gallon QT tank.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=226934

Bright as hell, but yellow. How would you add blues in to overcome so much white light?

Maybe I could just coat the glass with Blue Film .

Don't make me come back there...

Actually I was just going to use it to QT new fish and maybe throw some GSP or mushrooms in the tank. Would I really need a lot of blue to balance it for growth and health or would it just be for looks? Could just try some cheap 1-3w blue LED from ebay

How would these fair over a refugium where you can get away with a yellower color tone?

They would work really well. At $40 each, plus drivers, power supply and heatsink, that's an expensive fuge light.



2200lm is a little overkill for a QT tank. You could use it as is without any additional blue. Cheap Prolight LEDs would be a little more cost effective, as you wouldn't need many.

Whuh??

nm

205f was when he pushed the output to 4000+lumens and 500mA beyond the rated max current.

And you should be able to do the same with 6 XP-G. or 2 SST-90. Not bad for the price but I would rather have the other options out there.

I actually stumbled across these as I was looking for a led to try to replace the bulb in my projector. Just out of curiosity does anyone know what the brightest white led is that is affordable. I don't mind overdriving. The BrightLux are a little large for what I need and they have no Lens' for them

Doesn't get much smaller than that for that kind of output.

Holy cow, Someone actually makes lens' for these. All the way down to 24 degrees.

Just saw these too. What kind of a heatsink do you think would be suitable for these. I'm actually thinking of buying one to play around with it. But how could you cool it effectively? The guy on the candle power link was using a peltier unit starting at -1 C and it ended up being 96 C after he over drove it by 500ma... insane... Was actually thinking of using these as an grow light for indoor bonsai. Any thoughts?

http://www.newark.com/bridgelux/bxra-c4500...rays/dp/60R6542

Big, and fan cooled. Shouldn't be too bad if you aren't overdriving it.

Right now I'm using 4x450 lumen Bridgelux on my nano with 60 degree optics, and they work great. At 1400lumens I'm having no problems with some starter SPS frags. Tank is bright as hell, and cheaper than if I went the XRE / buck route.

In regards to color, Bridgelux Cool Whites are roughly the same color / bin as WG/WH Crees.

Here's a 5000lumen Bridgelux

Math comes out to about 94 lpw, which is pretty darn good. It's not up there with XPG's and high flux XREs, but it does the job. Bridgelux pushes a lumens per dollar advantage.

It's the forward voltgaes that are screwy to deal with. That 5000lumen monster wants 25 volts, which is awkward to set up. If the array used closer to 24volts it would be one awesome MH killer coupled with a 24volt supply and no need for regulation.

I didn't check the thermal resistance requirements for a heat sink but a foot square brick from Heatsink USA would be my minimal guess. Obviously if you have a tight thermal contraint Cree solves the problem much better.

Hi,
The minimum forward voltage according to the data sheets is 23.4 volts and the typical is 25V. This is according to their data specs sheet:
http://www.newark.com/pdfs/datasheets/Bridgelux/RS_Array.pdf

What would be the difference at running at the min voltage? Just a lower output? or less efficiency?
I was thinkng that maybe this driver could run it
http://ledsupply.com/lp1040-24-c1670.php
And if you run it at it's max rated this would suffice (probably run 2 of the 5000lm ones off of this driver in parallel?)
http://ledsupply.com/lp1090-24-170.php
I really can't find better ones that are easily available.

HOwever i'm a little confused as to the meaning of maximum peaked pulsed current in table 4 of their spec sheet. It says "Bridgelux recommends a maximum duty cycle of 10% when operating LED Arrays at the maximum peak pulsed current specified" does that mean only to be run @ 90% off 10% on while run at 4 amps? i.e do not run it contantly "on"?

Also with rregards to blasterman's minimum heatsink recommendation, is that being actively cooled or passive with teh 5000 lm one?

This company definately is making bright LED's with more bang for the buck.
And where are you finding lenses for these bad boys?

hmmm
Just read http://bridgelux.com/assets/products_portf...tricalDrive.pdf
They don't recommend connecting in parallel because of voltage hogging

Actually you could probably do 4-6 on a 1 ft^2 heatsink before the required fans started to get too loud, one would work on a good computer processor heatsink. Unless you were talking about passive cooling in which case one, maybe two on a 1 foot square.

cptbjorn, is that for the 450 lm ones or the 5000 lm one? I don't think a computer sink with a fan would suffice for the 5000lm one? i'm gonna have to crack open my heat transfer book ><

That's for the big one, most decent processor coolers can handle 50+ continuous watts pretty easily and I think something like this should do it. Main thing to look for is that there is a big enough spot to mount the 50mm square LED package.

if youre looking for space effeciency with the 5000 lumen one i would probably go with the peltier unit, if you have the space to give go with a bigger heatsink

it's so bright just the picture of it hurts my eyes.

You need an even bigger heatsink when you use a peltier; TECs are only useful if you want to cool something below ambient which would have no significant benefit with LEDs.

hmm, sorry i guess i misunderstood how they work

Ah ok that sounds good! Thanks for the reply. This would be a super reasonable price. Only thing now is finding a driver that would be suitable for it. Anyone have any suggestions?

Did you find any promising drivers?

Still looking . Masybe i'll e mail bridgelux and ask if they can recommend any

I would try Bridgelux first and see what they recommend. Again, the goofy forward voltage requirements are the biggest handicap with these things. Personally I'd rather have a couple monster Bridgelux over my tank than a horde of XPE / XPGs because the big emitters more closely replicate the physics of metal halide point sources. Just personal preference.

As for optics, there's two ways to deal with Bridgelux. If they're the smaller emitters like I have, then you can just use regular 60degree acrylic dome optics, and shim them up with 1/4 wood strips and some super glue. Works perfect.

For larger Bridgelux the solution is less obvious, but actually simplier. Just use a polished reflector sold for T5 or metal halide retrofits. They focus light just as well as optics, and you can change coverage by bending them a bit. When I first started messing with Bridgelux the limited optics can me initial frustration, but then I mounted some 3x3" mirrors at 45 degrees next to the emitters, and realized how easy it was to solve and did a palm plant.

Awesome thanks for the tip. The reflectors instead of lenses would make sense, I was thinking of this too since the viewing angle on the 5000lm one is 120 degrees.
I was looking on the newark site and came across this driver series
http://canada.newark.com/jsp/search/browse...orynumber164267

more specifically somthing like this could be used to drive 2 of them in series:
http://canada.newark.com/xp-power/dla120ps...iver/dp/52R2638

and for driving one:
http://canada.newark.com/xp-power/dla75ps2...iver/dp/52R2655

I would just spend $20 extra and get one that drives 2 lol.
With 2 of the 5000lm i'd probably be looking at spending $300

not including the heatsinks... if computer heatsinks work then it shouldn't be too much more expensive.

I haven't contacted bridgelux yet.

Even if you had to get a larger heatsink, you could probably get a decent sized one for like $40 from heatsinkusa. Also I can try to find the links for the optics I found for these if anyone wants. Never did get pricing on them though.

Uh, no. You need a heatsink about 10" square by my estimates. Only the largest passive computer heatsinks can be used with 400-800 lumen Bridgelux.

Shame meanwell doesn't have a 24.5 volt fixed driver or something. They're cheap enough to just have one drive each emitter.

5000 lumen cool white Bridgelux should match a 14k or 20k 250watt Metal halide in terms of growth.

Too bad you cant use These.....

I took a minute and compiled a list of the available Bridgelux emitters from Newark. Again, nothing against Cree (they are the standard), but Bridgelux simply presents some options for bigger tanks.

The two emitters at 12.7 and 12.8 volts would be good candidates for doing a simple, fixed voltage array off a 12 or 24volt supply. That's a scary amount of white LED light on the cheap. Actually, this is the way I ran them for awhile. Obviously you can run them off a current regulator at common values (350mA, 700mA, 1000mA) but then their voltages get in the way with more than one in series....grrrr.

I have a stack of 18.5 volt laptop bricks, and the 16.2v / 2200 lumen beast looks like an ideal match. My favorite reef store has volunteered on of their SPS frag tanks so we can test it out vs their MH.

BXRA-C0360 350mA 13.2v 400lumens
BXRA-C04020 500mA 9.5v 450lumens
BXRA-C0802 700mA 12.7v 880lumens
BXRA-C1202 1050mA 12.8v 1320lumens
BXRA-C2002 1500mA 16.2v 2200lumens
BXRA-C4500 2100mA 25.4v 5000lumens

Awesome! WIll be waiting to hear the results.
I myself just ordered the following:

Two of these (they are on back order with expected delivery on the 24th of March):
http://canada.newark.com/jsp/search/produc...jsp?SKU=60R6542

This for the power supply:
http://canada.newark.com/jsp/search/produc...jsp?SKU=52R2638

and two of hese for heatsinks (I calcualted the thermal resistance values and these should keep it sufficiently cool wiht fans):
http://canada.newark.com/jsp/search/produc...jsp?SKU=15J9645

Lighting a basketball court, or using them on your 75gal? :-) The only drawback is you're going to need some serious actinic or blue LEDs...unless you're just going for raw PAR, which there's nothing wrong with.

Lesee....your math look good. Plus, that sink has really closely spaced fins and this means it works best with active cooling.

Again, one dirty and efficient way to get around the optic issue with Bridgelux emitters is use reflectors or mirrors. I recently used a couple 2x3" hobby mirrors epoxied with wood shims at 45degree angles to the Bridgelux. Worked frikken awesome. I then glued some clear acrylic panels to the top of the mirrors to act as a splash shield. This gives a more 'metal halide' 'ish looking light pattern and different than the look of more smaller emitters and optics.

And pictures of this beast when it's built are mandatory :-) You could do some spot welding with that power supply.

Lol. It's going to be used for growing bonsai indoors, and various other garden herbs and veggies perhaps.
If i were to use this over an aquarium i'm pretty sure a few t5 actinics would serve the same purpose instaed of breaking the bank for cree royal blues.
I will definately try out your reflector suggestion for this.

I mounted a 1200 lumen Bridgelux array on the light bar of my Fluval Edge last week.

Half of a CPU heatsink fits under the hood and I'm driving it with a 24VDC power supply, along with 2 MR11 LEDs.

Corals are THRIVING! They weren't looking this good under the 20W CoralLife 50/50s Compacts.

Pictures here:http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e150/NYCSKP/Fluval/
Fluval Edge LED Pics

Distribution could be better. I'd recommend a longer heat sink and maybe 3-450 lumen chips.

QUOTE (blasterman @ Mar 2 2010, 12:36 AM)

I took a minute and compiled a list of the available Bridgelux emitters from Newark. Again, nothing against Cree (they are the standard), but Bridgelux simply presents some options for bigger tanks.

The two emitters at 12.7 and 12.8 volts would be good candidates for doing a simple, fixed voltage array off a 12 or 24volt supply. That's a scary amount of white LED light on the cheap. Actually, this is the way I ran them for awhile. Obviously you can run them off a current regulator at common values (350mA, 700mA, 1000mA) but then their voltages get in the way with more than one in series....grrrr.

I have a stack of 18.5 volt laptop bricks, and the 16.2v / 2200 lumen beast looks like an ideal match. My favorite reef store has volunteered on of their SPS frag tanks so we can test it out vs their MH.

BXRA-C0360 350mA 13.2v 400lumens
BXRA-C04020 500mA 9.5v 450lumens
BXRA-C0802 700mA 12.7v 880lumens
BXRA-C1202 1050mA 12.8v 1320lumens
BXRA-C2002 1500mA 16.2v 2200lumens
BXRA-C4500 2100mA 25.4v 5000lumens

oh i think i know what those herbs will be

updates?

Still waiting for the LED's to arrive , they were on back order supposed to arrive march 24th.
ETA was pushed back to April 4th . Got everything else though.

They're here! I'll be trying to put everything together this weekend. Couldn't find screws small enough that were self tapping to screw the LED's down at home depot or rona, so i'll be using thermal epoxy
here they are with my finger for size comparison:


Here's the roughed up "fixture" arrangement i'm thinking about:


And here's some things I'm going to try and grow *crosses fingers*... the one on the left i screwed up since i snapped the branch while trying to wire it ( we''l see how it recovers, if it does at all). The one on the right is a rosemary.


I know this isn't reef related. But consider this a test . In total these 2 are going to put out 10k lumens of light (5k each).

I will be building the fixture today and will post pics later on when it's finished.
LED wiring and testing will be done tomorrow or day-after.

Ok so I just did a test with the LED's all wired up.
These things are mother****in' insane. made a short video of it in another post. Here's the link to it:

if u cant fine any drivers high enough u can always wire drivers in parallel.
700mA + 700ma + 700mA = 2100mA. (voltage stays the same)

for 75lm/watt thats very good especially for a high power LED.

u got the coolwhite 5600k temp right?

Here's the link to the thread i started. I think these deserve some attention :

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=232539


lol already got the driver to drive these . thanks for the tip though. I was wondering if that could be done.
How would that work with PWM drivers though? would all of them have to have pwm? If i could find a driver with PWM that could drive the model a step down from these they would definately be going over my aquariium!

Try the Mean Wells. I just build a warm-white based lightbar with Bridgelux 402s, and the selection of Mean Wells was immense. Many combinations to choose from.

My only irritation with Bridgelux over reef tanks is the lack of corresponding blue emitters than can keep up. I'm finding that a large Bridgelux combined with smaller 3-watt Blues doesn't look quite right and is difficult to even out. I asked Bridgelux, and they don't seem interested, even though a basic blue emitter is simplier to fab.

I'm testing some 20-watt blue Satistronics, and hoping these might compliment the Bridgelux.