Well I got my heatsinks today -- 20" long .... Did a quick cleaning and polished them up then removed the oil/grease and now just waiting for the thermal pads and the rest of the LEDs

there are before and after cleaning pics

here are some more pics of the heatsink with the thermal pads and LEDs --- just waiting until I recieve the rest of them

well here are 1/3 of them wired up and almost ready to go

this might be a dumb q but what is the purpuse of the heatsink on a led? i thought led did not give of that much heat. like i said i dont know much about the led setups so if this is stupid please let me know else wise.
mike

The semiconductor used inside of an LED is fairly temperature sensitive. If it is overheated, it can easily fail. Modern power LEDs are typically run at 3-5 Watts of power. Since the die in the LED is small, the relatively small amount of power being dissipated can quickly raise its temperature to a point where it will fail. The heatsink takes the concentrated heat source from the LED and spreads it out over a much larger area so it can be radiated off in open air. This keeps the LED cool and prolongs its life.

Sweet build, tagging along since I also have a 72g BF.

I like the starter motor for a car chillin' in the background, lol.

haha thanks -- I work for Ferrari and had most of my stuff shipped there

BTW it is a VW starter if anyone needs one haha

here is the newest update pic --- THE FIXTURE!!!!it works PERFECTLY!!!

nice set up when are you planning to fire it up ...what fixture did you use

hoping i can turn it on this weekend --- the only thing im missing is the reefkeeper but i will figure something out --- its from catalinaaquarium.com

so your heatsinks are 7x 20

yea and they slid right into the fixture - its a perfect fit

well things are wrapping up and coming to an end -- a couple more adjustments and connectors and it will be all done

What gage wire did you use to hook up the LEDs? It looks HUGE, I might be a little worried about that...

Nah. Looks fine. Good solder job too.

Your much more handy than I am. I really like your build!

well after i wired every single LED - 60 in total ... I kinda realized i could of went smaller -- I used 18 gauge and then the power wires were 22 gauge ... i really didnt want to re-wire the whole thing and i also hope it wont make a difference in the fixture ---- in the grey box you see is all the pos and neg array wires attached to a d-sub connector and then a svga cable from there to the "power house" all the drivers ... it will be attached to a reefkeeper to control everything ....

quick question do the meanwell drivers give off a lot of heat??? cause if they do i might have to change things around

They get warm. I would ventilate that box, and/or go bigger.

thanks evil! thats exactly what i needed to know

here are the final pictures....

did you mount any fans to this ..where did you hide your drivers ..looks great

fans are on the way --- i will have 2 40mm fans on the endcaps of the fixture blowing air thru it .. if you look at the first pic in the bottom right hand corner you can see a box .... that is where all the drivers are --- i have only one wire that runs from the fixture to the box that holds the drivers

Splashguard? Couldn't tell from the photos.

Nice job. Looks great!

are you happy with the thermal pads vs. srewing and thermal pasteing the LEDs? And do you feel that the number of LEDs is sufficient for SPS or clams?

no splashguard as of now --- we will see what happens down the road .... as for screws all i can say is time consuming!!! the pads were easy and they held very good even when i position a LED wrong to pry it off was tough --- so i do recommend the pads .... for SPS and softies its freaking BRIGHT!!! so i hope that it will work out ok ..... filling up the tank should come up in a few weeks hopefully ... if anyone will lend me a par meter i can get numbers for you too

How many inches apart are the LED's from each other.
Thanks,
Adrian

i was pretty exact to make them all evenly spaced so you might think im crazy but the first LED is .55 inches from the edge then each LED is 2.1 inches apart haha yes i used a micrometer haha --- and the rows are 3" apart from center

Ummm.... can we get some updated pics?... lol tank looks sweet... I think you should give it to me...

Nice LED build. Let's see some pics with water in that tank.

here is one with whites only --



also i got LEDs from GB3 of the LEDs and the blue ones are way off in color compared to the other ones a lil upset about that but i guess i will deal

will have more pics up soon and i still have to scape the right side of the tank