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First time help setting up LED for 10g reef


TFish77

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I am in the process of setting up a new led fixture for my 10g nano reef. I wanted to make sure I had all the required materials and good spectrum LEDs before I went ahead and ordered everything. I am going for a fully dimmable fixture with a day/night program included.

 

If you guys could let me know if I have all of the required materials I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Materials

~Makers CONTROLLER - Sunrise / Sunset controller for MakersDRIVER

~MakersDRIVER - Professional grade dimmable LED driver

Drive​r 1 C​urren​t: 1000M​A Drive​r 2 C​urren​t: 1000M​A

~ 6" MakersLED Designer Heatsink Kit - Professional Grade - Anodized

~ 6 CREE XT-E 3UP

Color​: 2x Ro​yal 1​x Neu​tral

~ 2 Deep Red - 660nm

~ 2 Exotic Hyper Violet LED - 430nm

 

I am not sure If I need a power supply or not. I am not sure if the dimmable driver will power the LEDs or not. Any tips would be great appreciated. Thanks.

 

I also attached a picture of my current setup with a HO T5 fixture.

post-83953-0-08121200-1395025432_thumb.jpg

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jedimasterben

The deep red and violet cannot exceed 700mA. I would consider using blue instead of red if you're not going for the full OCW stars, having two reds all by themselves will give you some disco.

 

The MakersDriver uses LDD, which are DC-DC, so you'll need a power supply, the smallest one is fine, but I prefer something higher quality and would choose a Meanwell HLG driver. They're more expensive and you've gotta buy them separately, but the quality is much higher and they're IP65-67 rated so they will last better being near water.

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Alright couple questions.

 

First off can I switch 1 red for a blue and still keep 1 just to be able to include even a dim hue of red?

Second, should I get a different driver/potontiometer combo for each color in addition to the sunrise/sunset controller?

Last, what size power supply do you think I should get to power my LEDs, the controllers, and a small cooling fan?

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jedimasterben

I would really stress to not use red by itself. It won't make a red hue, it will mix with the royal blue and will make purple. I would suggest to get an OCW star (which has deep red, cyan, and blue all on one star like the 3ups to prevent too much disco) or to switch both deep red for a single warm white, adding a couple of regular blue on top of it to keep the purple hue to a minimum.

 

Red LEDs are VERY overpowering by themselves, even when you have a lot of other LEDs in the array (and having 22x LEDs total, it might be a little much).

 

The way the MakersController works is that you manually set the channels according to the look that you want, and then the controller dims them up and down as if they were all one channel, so if you want to adjust any color it has to be with the potentiometers.

 

If you don't want manual control (and don't mind a less finished look), then you can use the Storm controller and Meanwell LDD. The LDD can handle up to 12-14x LEDs each, and are only ~$7.50 each. Coralux board is like $13.25 or so, and can hold up to five of the LDD, so you can run every color by itself and also add some if you want :)

 

The smallest from LEDgroupbuy is the 180w, but if you've considered the HLG, then you'd want the HLG-80H-48A. If you think that you'll be expanding your array any, then I would get the HLG-120H-48A, which can handle around 36x LEDs total. If you go with the Storm/LDD combo, then you'll need a 12v power supply to power the fan.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The deep red and violet cannot exceed 700mA. I would consider using blue instead of red if you're not going for the full OCW stars, having two reds all by themselves will give you some disco.

 

The MakersDriver uses LDD, which are DC-DC, so you'll need a power supply, the smallest one is fine, but I prefer something higher quality and would choose a Meanwell HLG driver. They're more expensive and you've gotta buy them separately, but the quality is much higher and they're IP65-67 rated so they will last better being near water.

 

If I decide to use the HLG driver instead of the makers, would I still be able to use the makers sunrise/sunset controller?

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jedimasterben

If I decide to use the HLG driver instead of the makers, would I still be able to use the makers sunrise/sunset controller?

The HLG is a power supply for the LDD, not a controller or driver.

 

Also, if I use this meanwell driver would I be able to wire up my own potentiometers and use my arduino to program my own sunrise/sunset processor?

That driver is 10v PWM, Arduino controllers are 5v PWM, so you'd need to find a way to increase the voltage.

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