Jump to content
Top Shelf Aquatics

help with diy leds


stealshot

Recommended Posts

I am upgrading my lighhts in my 24g jbj nano cube with diy leds. I am going with six three up stars from steves. Six violets and four ocw from ledgroupbuy. I plan on using ldd drivers two 1000ma for the rb and nw and two 700ma for the violets and ocw. Controled by a strom contoler.

 

Need help with three things

First how to pick a power supply.

 

Second I want to use the stock hood. So what size heat sink do I need.

 

Third how would I arrange the leds to get even coverage in the tank.

 

One more question would this be enough light for lps.

 

Thanks for the help fellow nano-reefers

Link to comment

First off, thank you for calling them violets, and not UV. You have no idea how much that irritates me :)

 

I don't think I would bother with 4 OCWs. 2 will be plenty. I also don't think you will need to run the whites and blues at 1000mA. Dropping to 700mA will allow you to mix up the LED colors on each channel. By that, I mean that it's a good idea to put the turquoise on the royal blue channel, as the two will work well together. I would put the green and red on separate channels (moving up to the 5 channel board and an additional driver won't cost much more), as they can make dramatic differences in the appearance of the light.

 

As for the power supply, the voltage needs to be greater than the forward voltage of the longest string, in this case, the royal blues. 12 XT-E roayls at 700mA will have a forward voltage around +/-36v. The LDDs need 3v, so your requirements are for +/-39v, so you might as well use a 48v supply. The current for the supply has to be greater than the currents for each driver added up. If you go with 5 700mA channels, then you will need a power supply with greater than 3.5A capaticy. It's an over simplification, but you will never run short on available power.

 

Look around at some of the BC29 builds, as well as the BC29 retro kits from RapidLED. They will have the heatsink sizes dimentioned. Honestly, you might as well just buy the heatsink from Rapid. All the mounting holes are already there.

 

As for arrangement, you don't need to worry about coverage. Just arrange for best color mixing. For that, split the LEDs into two equal groups, and cluster the LEDs around the OCW. Space each cluster apart so they are about 6" apart on center.

 

This setup will let you keep anything you like.

Link to comment

sorry i was unclear im not using cree three up stars im using luxeon es three up stars from stevesled would you still run them at 700ma.

Link to comment

My mistake. Same thing applies. There's a 90% chance that you will be turning the output of the 1000mA drivers down a fair bit, so why not just use 700mA drivers that will allow you to combine other colors that have a 700mA limit?

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...