MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I plan on keeping some zoas,shrooms and maybe a hammer. Would 2 x 3ups , 1x OCW and 3 hyper violets be enough light? I already have them installed and they look ok but a bit on the dim side by eye. Im ok starting over if this is a horrible mix. I just had them hanging around collecting dust. Link to comment
xiaoxiy Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 That should definitely be enough light for an Edge, although the hood may in a sense "limit" your light spread. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 Ughhh I screwed up one of my 3 ups. I broke the connector and it pulled up the pad with it. Anyway here is what it looks like with one of the 1x 3up, 1x ocw and 3x hyper violet. I f you look at the last picture you can see the broken connector, also in my OCW but I was able to salvage that one LOL. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 Well time to have surgery on my esophagus. Hopefully that goes well so I can play with my lights a little more LOL. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 Hope it goes well! Thanks all went well. The plan for tomorrow is to make a real heat sink at work. Does a heat sink need to have fins on it or can it be a an aluminium block say 3/8 thick with some fans mounted on it. I know that heat is conducted and releaed better bwith a conventional heat sink but would a block works as well? If so that would make this build much easier for me. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 back at it today. I managed to fix my 3 up led by lifting a couple of the pads and re-soldering. Not the cleanest solution but it does have me back up and running. I also added a 4th violet and 4 strips of Flex FIRE LED`S. The flex fire are real bright for smd`s. I do not plan on hooking them up right away but they are installed just in case I ned more coverage. I doubt I will need them but its nice to have options.Here is what it looks like right Now. I also made a slash shield that needs to be installed and some clean up needed on the wires. But not bad for some lunch time work. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 back to the drawing board. Its obvious just how much a proper heat sink is. I made a mounting block out of 3/8 aluminium and attached my leds. Not a good way to remove heat at all. Well it sort of is because it gets hot as heck but with the fans off I could barely touch it and that was only at 50% light output. I guess I need to go dumpster diving and get a real heat sink or I could be in trouble. On a good note the lights look great. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 4, 2014 Author Share Posted April 4, 2014 I got a little time on my fixture this afternoon. I was able to stay with the Aluminium plate (heat sink) for now. I simply installed 2 real quiet fans directly over the plate. It keeps it nice and cool up to 80% power for over an hour. Chances are if it stays cool for an hour it should maintain the temp. I also installed a temp sensor on the plate(heat sink). I did this as a fail safe. If the heat sink gets above 150f the lights will dim for 20 minutes. If the temp does not lower in the 20 minutes the lights will dim even more. It will repeat this loop to help cool just as a back up. I also managed to rebuild my drivers with better fets. They stay cool even at full power. This part of my build is important because of the structure of my driver housing. I tried to make my housing match the back of the tank. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 The heatsink fins are so you have more surface area to dissipate heat. Heatsink usa is always a viable option if you need a heatsink but can't make one on the cheap. Jelly of your programming skills btw. wish i could make a sensor like that for my heatsinks. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 8, 2014 Author Share Posted April 8, 2014 The heatsink fins are so you have more surface area to dissipate heat. Heatsink usa is always a viable option if you need a heatsink but can't make one on the cheap. Jelly of your programming skills btw. wish i could make a sensor like that for my heatsinks. I cut a piece of heat sink this morning and hopefully I can attach it later this after noon. Its probably not the best heat sink but it`s better than just a piece of stock aluminium. I was thinking about just drilling through my bar stock and attaching it direct will that work. As far as my code it works but im not crazy about it. Im using lm35 as a temp sensor. It does not seem steady. I can the temps bouncing all over the place. Below is some code that Im playing around with for my fan. I may use this. int fan = 10; // fan pwm connected to digital pin 10 int fanintensity; int pin = A0; // analog pin temp sensor int tempc = 0,tempf=0; // temperature variables int samples[8]; // variables to make better precision int i; void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); // start serial communication } void loop() { for(i =0;i<=7;i++){ // gets 8 samples of temperature samples = ( 5.0 * analogRead(pin) * 100.0) / 1024.0; tempc = tempc + samples; delay(250); } tempc = tempc/8.0; // better precision tempf = (tempc * 9)/ 5 + 32; // converts to fahrenheit Serial.print(tempc,DEC); Serial.print(" Celsius, "); Serial.print(tempf,DEC); Serial.print(" fahrenheit -> "); tempc = 0; delay(250); // delay before loop if (tempf>130){analogWrite (fan, fanintensity=255);} else {{analogWrite (fan, fanintensity=128);} } } Link to comment
Horerczy Posted April 8, 2014 Share Posted April 8, 2014 You mean just putting the piece you made against the aluminum plate you're using? That should work just put some thermal grease or adhesive between the two for all the little imperfections. That code is mostly gibberish to me. I'm used to the old if then programming and stuff from like ragnarok online. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 9, 2014 Author Share Posted April 9, 2014 Apparently the code is gibberish to me as well. It does not work the way I want LOL. Anyway I secured the plate to the heat sink and ran the lights for an hour at about 50 % with good success. Obviously a simple plate is not effective for many leds. I just need to secure my fans and dress up the wires a little and my fixture will be done. I dont think I will be doing anything super fancy with programing. A simple timer with fading is all I need. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 9, 2014 Author Share Posted April 9, 2014 almost done !!! I just need to seal some of the gaps because of how close the fixture is to the water. I ended up taking out the strip leds and replacing with 3 white 3watt leds I had hanging around. When I get some time I will replace these with cree`s NW. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Use those new Nichia Neutral whites that Milad says have 90cri. http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/nichia-neutral-white-high-cri-led-4500k-90cri/ Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 the price is right.. you know anyone who has tried them yet? Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 the light is now over my tank. I think it looks great but I do want to look into the Nachia`s. The last thing to do is add my RTC to my Arduino and program it . I migh use my old code from my 10g build to get started. The picture below is at about 45% or so. I dont need the whites for brightness but more for white coverage. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 the price is right.. you know anyone who has tried them yet? Nope. I'm the big multichip Guinea pig so someone else needs to be the single chips Guinea pig. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Nope. I'm the big multichip Guinea pig so someone else needs to be the single chips Guinea pig. well I went ahead and got 3 of them. Ill keep you posted on how they do. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 15, 2014 Author Share Posted April 15, 2014 added an adjustable side shield. This will allow me to raise or lower my fixture and also keep it in place. Not the best looking fixture but it does not look horrible either. I need to run only the current whites and take a couple pics and repeat the test when the Nachia`s come in. Here it is today.All led`s set to 45% power. Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 17, 2014 Author Share Posted April 17, 2014 Playing around with some temperature code. This will allow my fans to come on at a set temp and gradually speed up as needed to help cool. When things get cooler the fans will slow down and go off at a min temp. I need to do more bench work to get it smoother but right now it seems to work well. Other guys using an arduino should give it a tray and see if it works well. int fan = 10; // fan connected to digital pin 10int fanintensity = 0x80; int pin = A0; // analog pin A0 temp sensorint tempc =0,tempf=0; // temperature variablesint samples[8]; // SAMPLESint i; // temperature variablesint iTmpDelta;int iTmpLoopCount = 0;int iLastTmp = 0;int iTmpFd; // Use these to set your temperature operating rangeint iTmpSetPt = 120; // Set pointint iTmpLowLimit = 80; // Low limit // This is the minimum speed (DAC) to be applied to the fanint LedBoxFanLowLimit = 0x80; void setup(){ Serial.begin(9600); // start serial communication} void loop(){ //************************************************************ TEMP SETUP. for(i =0;i<=7;i++) { // gets 8 samples of temperature samples = ( 5.0 * analogRead(pin) * 100.0) / 1024.0; tempc = tempc + samples; delay(250); } tempc = tempc/8.0; // better precision tempf = (tempc * 9)/ 5 + 32; // converts to fahrenheit delay(250); // delay before loop //************************************************************* TEMP CONT. if (++iTmpLoopCount >= 5) // Only do this once every 10 seconds (5 x 8 x 250ms) { // Print the current temperature Serial.print(" Celsius: "); Serial.print(tempc,DEC); Serial.print(" Fahrenheit: "); Serial.print(tempf,DEC); // Reset the delta adder iTmpDelta = 0; // The first derivative delta/time gives us a direction iTmpFd = tempf - iLastTmp; // Below low limit - self levels at 0x80 if (tempf < iTmpLowLimit) { // Fan is fast and temperature is low so slow it down if(fanintensity > LedBoxFanLowLimit) iTmpDelta = -8; } // In range or above else if((tempf >= iTmpLowLimit) && (tempf < iTmpSetPt)) { if (iTmpFd < 0) // decrease cooling iTmpDelta = -8; if (iTmpFd > 0) // increase cooling iTmpDelta = 8; } // Above upper limit and cooling is on so increase it else if (fanintensity < 0xff) iTmpDelta = 8; if (iTmpDelta != 0) { fanintensity += iTmpDelta; fanintensity = _max(ElBoxFanLowLimit, fanintensity); // Set to max of 0x80 or new speed fanintensity = _min(0xff, fanintensity); // Set to min of 0xFF or new speed } iLastTmp = tempf; iTmpLoopCount = 0; analogWrite (fan, fanintensity); }} End Loop Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 18, 2014 Author Share Posted April 18, 2014 got the nichia`s in yesterday and installed them this morning. I started at a real low pwm value just to see what these things can do.Holly crap are they bright. I have 3 of them to help give coverage because of how the fluval edge is made. I ended up setting at a real low power level. Im probably only using about 20% power right now but thats plenty for this size tank. As a matter of fact I may even lower it more. My older white leds were set at 100% power and did a good job all the way down to about 75% (pwm). IMO this is seems to be a good light. By the eye the color looks good and when mixed with my other leds (ocw,3up,and violets) I get a real nice blue color. With my driver setup and arduino I can program them to give a wide array of colors but the windex blue works for me. Below are a few pics. old white leds at 100% new whites at about 20% new whites mixed with existing led`s Link to comment
Steensj2004 Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Badass man! Killer build! Link to comment
MOJOEJOEJOE Posted April 18, 2014 Author Share Posted April 18, 2014 Badass man! Killer build! thanks it`s been a fun project. I really need to add my clock to the arduino for time keeping. Im already sick of manually turning the lights on and off LOL. The clock is built and ready to install, code is done I just need to get a little time to finish it up. Link to comment
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