jedimasterben Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 You still need a 36" fixture? I can send you mine Any chance you can just slap the nano box led's on their too? haha ! You should just sell a service! I do, but again only if you are also providing proper ballasts. Adding in LEDs, heatsink, wiring all those up, etc, is not something I'm too interested in, as that will take pretty significant amount of work. Link to comment
farkwar Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 You still need a 36" fixture? I can send you mine Any chance you can just slap the nano box led's on their too? haha ! You should just sell a service! Tam, Are you going to do this? If not, I can send him one or two of mine if Ben still needs. Ben, do you still need these? Second, what would be the better ballast. ATI non dimmable ballasts(PA), or the eBay HEP group ballasts? They are about the same price. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 They are the same ballast i believe. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Tam, Are you going to do this? If not, I can send him one or two of mine if Ben still needs. Ben, do you still need these? Second, what would be the better ballast. ATI non dimmable ballasts(PA), or the eBay HEP group ballasts? They are about the same price. ATI uses HEP SI218-UNI ballasts, the same as you are seeing on eBay. I've got half of the bulbs broken in already, only doing 50 hours on each, it's close enough for what I'm doing with them. Link to comment
farkwar Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 Cool, thanks. PA has Geisemann tubes on sale, for pretty good price. Think ill just get $176 worth of ballasts and tubes. Why don't I want dimmable ballasts, again? Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Cool, thanks. PA has Geisemann tubes on sale, for pretty good price. Think ill just get $176 worth of ballasts and tubes. Why don't I want dimmable ballasts, again? Dimming lowers bulb life. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Cool, thanks. PA has Geisemann tubes on sale, for pretty good price. Think ill just get $176 worth of ballasts and tubes. Why don't I want dimmable ballasts, again? Be advised they are the old D-D Powerchrome Giesemann bulbs. The newer ones are quite a bit better in output. I'll hopefully have more on that later. Link to comment
farkwar Posted January 23, 2015 Author Share Posted January 23, 2015 Dimming lowers bulb life. I cant find a vendor for it. Solves that.Besides mixing PWM and 10v analog with one device is problematic. Be advised they are the old D-D Powerchrome Giesemann bulbs. The newer ones are quite a bit better in output. I'll hopefully have more on that later.Ok, purchase on hold.Thanks for the hand holding. Link to comment
farkwar Posted January 24, 2015 Author Share Posted January 24, 2015 You still need a 36" fixture? I can send you mine Any chance you can just slap the nano box led's on their too? haha ! You should just sell a service! I would really like to do a build with Daves V3 pucks. If you're serious, I might be plied with 18 year old Scotch to put one together for you. I was going to just use LEDs over my big tank Im putting together, but it looks like the tank has to be bigger(120XL over just 120). Will most likely do the hybrid with 6 Radions and the 8x Coralvue. Im going to cover the metal housing with mahogany/rosewood veneer and brass piping/inlay. Link to comment
Arce Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Anyone remember the angle of the lenses on the stock leds? Curious and cant find any specs. Link to comment
Halo_003 Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 So did anyone rip out the LEDs and replace them? Over summer I think I might do it to mine. 3-4x Nanobox pucks should be fine. Also, what ballasts should I be looking at buying to replace the stock ones? These? http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-HEP-Group-Electronic-Ballast-EVG-SI218-40-UNI-for-T8-Lamps-18-to-40-watt-/201290368107?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eddd7446b I assume it would take 2. With the Nanobox pucks, where would the driver and controller go? I would absolutely love having a controlled LED setup. If I can run T5's with it, even better. My assumption is the driver would be mounted inside like the stock one and that the controller would be external somehow? Edit: This might be a totally ignorant question, but what exactly will replacing the ballasts do for me? If it extends bulb life, I'm sold. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Those are good ballasts, yes. I don't know how much clearance is in the fixture, but you should be able to house basically everything internally. If you use a controller such as the Bluefish Mini, you can have the first four channels control the LEDs, the fifth channel activate a relay to turn on the T5 ballasts, and then the sixth channel to activate the fans on the LED heatsink. I have yet to see anyone post photos of the insides of one of these gutted, beyond what Horerczy did here: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/353003-coralvue-t5led-fixtures-100/?p=4876784 The 'heatsink' (it isn't a heatsink, it's just a bar holding the MCPCB on) is not usable and will need to be replaced. I'm not sure why everyone is waiting on everyone else to do something. Just start tearing it apart, make a game plan, and get on it Link to comment
farkwar Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 All in good time. If you need a reputable, inexpensive vendor for HEPGroup ballasts, PM me. I found one. They only take checks though. I haven't wrote a paper check in like 12 years. Had to order some just for this. Now that I think about it, I should have just got a cashiers check, duh. Had to go to the Post Office and buy a stamped envelope, don't use those anymore either. The tank just showed up today, huge. Glad I bought the 8x. And the controller for the T5s is not out yet. Against good advice I'm getting dimmables, I want to try them, for experience if nothing else.. Worst case, I just have them straight on to 100%, or straight off to off. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 I don't see those Hep ballasts having any trouble fitting seeing as the fullham workhorse 5s fit in there with an LED driver about the size of a HEP ballast and a small fan PSU as well. If anything I think you could make more room in there. Enough for the nessesary Ballasts, a Bluefish Mini, and a full compliment of Meanwell LDD Drivers. Heck if you put all the ballasts under the reflectors (one of the Fullhams is under a reflector in my 8 lamp so I'm certain HEPs can fit there) then you can put a fairly tall heatsink in there. Lots of top to bottom clearance in the central channel. Link to comment
farkwar Posted February 19, 2015 Author Share Posted February 19, 2015 http://www.digitalaquatics.com/archon/ Looks like they are available. Or maybe not http://www.digitalaquatics.org/store/pre-order-archon Link to comment
Halo_003 Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 Maybe I'll just send mine to Dave lol. Sounds pretty complex, the most I've done LED wise is built a simple 1 channel pendant with some 3ups for my Betta. (Unless we get a picture guide up before then.) I would do mine now but I have to set up the actual tank first. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 19, 2015 Share Posted February 19, 2015 I don't have a tank for my light yet. probably going to be a frag tank light when i actually have my own place.As far as modding this light it's as easy as can be really where the T5 ballasts are concerned. The old ballasts just need to have their wires clipped then take those wires and strip a small amount to slip into the push button terminals of the new ballasts.Everything else isn't as simple but I can make it pretty simple.First a Meanwell HLG Power supply with an appropriate wattage rating would be necessary. Get a male and female three prong replacement piece (like this) and put the male end to the input and the female to the output (leave the ground floating or get a seperate wire to go in common with the other ac grounds. Just don't try to make the AC and DC grounds common). Plug the old LED power plug form the juction box into the HLG's output (might want to find a way to keep these from accidentally seperating but I don't think it will be a problem). Pop open the light fixtures junction box real quick and take note of the color of the wires leaving the terminal strip to the old led driver in the fixture in the event they are the same color you want to get a multimeter and set it to diode or ohms resistance and check for continuity (we'll cover this later if you need to ask about that). Cut the old driver's input wires and strip back a small amount. These will be for your LDD board or similar drivers (such as Reef LED Labs drivers or O2Surplus drivers) power supply. The fans power supply can be switched out for a more capable one if you so desire and would be ideal for powering one of the more popular PWM controller options out there. Of course the Reef LED Labs controller can be run of the HLG instead but which controller you go with and drivers is really more of a how much are you willing to spend and what kind of controller do you want thing. Personally I would go with either the RLL controller or the Bluefish mini since they are both wireless so you don't have to make a place for a physical interface. I'm sure someone else can chime in more complete instructions. Link to comment
Halo_003 Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 I don't have a tank for my light yet. probably going to be a frag tank light when i actually have my own place. As far as modding this light it's as easy as can be really where the T5 ballasts are concerned. The old ballasts just need to have their wires clipped then take those wires and strip a small amount to slip into the push button terminals of the new ballasts. *snip* Thank you! Thinking about it some more I probably will give it a shot. Though it might be a tad bit overkill lol. I'll have 4x36" T5's and 4x Nanobox Pucks to cover a Mr Aqua 12 Long. What I may end up doing is using 2x ATI Actinics and 2x Coral+ to help reduce PAR. This would also help by giving me a more natural white light I think. The plus side is if I ever upgrade the light will be fine lol. If I go with the Bluefish Mini, how do you control it? With a phone or tablet? Control from my iPhone 6 would be cool. Link to comment
Horerczy Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Phone or tablet. Both should work. As far as the ballasts goes I'm port sure they're both seven wire ballasts so it's simple clip and switch. If I'm not correct on that (pretty sure I'm right though) a couple wires just get spiced in different directions. That said the wiring diagram for a hep ballast it's in the ballast so it's easy to make sure you have it right. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Thank you! Thinking about it some more I probably will give it a shot. Though it might be a tad bit overkill lol. I'll have 4x36" T5's and 4x Nanobox Pucks to cover a Mr Aqua 12 Long. What I may end up doing is using 2x ATI Actinics and 2x Coral+ to help reduce PAR. This would also help by giving me a more natural white light I think. The plus side is if I ever upgrade the light will be fine lol. If I go with the Bluefish Mini, how do you control it? With a phone or tablet? Control from my iPhone 6 would be cool. More than likely the outer two bulbs will be physically over the sides of that tank, I wouldn't even bother wiring them in, especially with a 9" depth. You'll have to raise the light so far above the tank to not burn your corals to death that it will just be unwieldy lol. Bluefish can be controlled via iOS or Android. This is how you wire the HEP ballasts: Keep wires 1/2/5/6 less than 7 feet. You have to use 18AWG 600v rated solid wire. If you don't have any, you can get it here, less than $7 for 25', lots of colors to choose from : http://www.mcmaster.com/#8428t4/=w08jy8 Link to comment
NanoFever Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Is there anyway to wire the mini into the t5 for on off functionality with the fans? Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Is there anyway to wire the mini into the t5 for on off functionality with the fans? Kinda sorta. The mini outputs 3.3v at a maximum of 4mA. You'd need to find a relay that activates with 3.3v and uses around 3mA. Link to comment
NanoFever Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 So something like this would work? http://www.ebay.com/itm/3V-Relay-High-Level-Driver-Module-optocouple-Relay-Module-for-Arduino-brand-new-/390867886316 Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 So something like this would work? http://www.ebay.com/itm/3V-Relay-High-Level-Driver-Module-optocouple-Relay-Module-for-Arduino-brand-new-/390867886316 As long as doesn't pull more than about 3mA. You'll more than likely need to use something like O2Surplus' SCW circuits to activate a 5v SCW. Those will only sink about 3.3mA and the SCW will output 5v and capable of up to 1A. Link to comment
NanoFever Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Hmmmm...any commercially available that you know of? I am not that good at this. LOL! Link to comment
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