Build Advice 40G AIO

[dbk07]

Hello,
Long time lurker finally posting after going through numerous threads on these forums. I have a 40G Br that I turned into an AIO and after looking at the full spectrum thread wanted to go DIY route with the lighting. Here is what I've come up with as far as LED choice:

4-Nichia NW
4-Luxeon M RB
4-OCW
8-HP

Decided on the Nichia and Luxeon after reading they were better than the Cree xt-e.

Now the way I did the AIO design was to put the sump area along the length of the tank. So the actual display area I'm trying to light is approx 36x12x16. Is this selection going to be alright?

[jedimasterben]

Good choice with the Nichia and Luxeon M. The XT-E doesn't hold a candle to them, especially the white LEDs. The royal blue Luxeon M gives more output than four XT-E.

 

You can skip the red in the OCW, just use some blue and cyan.

[dbk07]

Thanks for chiming in Ben. Instead of OCW I'll go with 4 each of blue and cyan. As far as drivers are concerned, am I right in thinking 4 LDD should do it?

NW on LDD 1000
RB on LDD 700
HV/BL on LDD 700
Cyan on LDD 500

So I was thinking that on a 18" heat sink i could get away with two clusters arranged something like this.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[jedimasterben]

I would not keep the blue and violet on the same channel if you're looking for more tunable color. Two of those clusters won't be great over a 36" space IMHO, you will have more shadowing. I would do four individual clusters in a row. I did this on my 80g (48x24x16) and it helped a LOT with getting end to end coverage from left to right, but being 24" deep I really needed more than one row of LEDs, so I fixed this for my new light which should be coming in a couple of weeks

[dbk07]

Do you mean 4 clusters of the above layout? If so I would have to double up on the number of LED used.
Going by the suggestion on LEDGroupBuy maybe I could use 4 3x3 clusters of

1 Cyan
1 Blue
2 NW
1 Luxeon RB
4 HV

That should give me a 14k ish look right? With either layout, how would the driver for the hyper violet work out. 16 HV on one 700mA LDD doesn't seem quite right. Oh and Merry Christmas

[jedimasterben]

No, separate the LEDs into four clusters lol, making four clusters of that would rival the light I have over my tank now, which is much larger lol.

 

Full on it should get you in the 12K neighborhood. You can run up to 13x HV on one LDD, so you'd need to split it into two. Good thing they're cheap to add, not like the ELN drivers everyone use to run, $30 was a hard pill to swallow to run just a few LEDs lol

[dbk07]

Oh duh haha. Scratched my head at that one. Something along the line of this maybe? Should I double up on the whites? Other than the layout I think I'm pretty much set in what I want to get.

1- LDD 1000mA
3- LDD 700mA maybe 4 if i up the amount of HV
18" MakersLED heatsink
Storm Controller
5UP LDD board
250w power supply should be enough right?

All my posts are nothing but lists lol, but I'm a newb still learning so I just wanted to get as much sound advice before I commit.

[jedimasterben]

Having one white and the equivalent of four royal blue will be pretty blue, even with the high CRI of the Nichia. I'd probably use two of them per Luxeon M and then dim to suit your look. I would just get all LDD-700, I doubt you'd see the need to run the Nichia at 1A.

 

The 180w power supply is all you'd need (all of your LEDs at 700mA will only use around 90 watts), but I would consider using a better quality power supply, such as the Meanwell HLG. They are more expensive, but they're also waterproof and far higher quality. You'd want the HLG-120H-54 (this would also allow you to run all four Luxeon M on a single LDD).