jamescstein Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Purchased a used nano-glo with the intent of swapping out the leds with red/blue. So I've gotten the used nano-glo and was pleased to see it actually uses standard looking chips. I say looking since I have no real clue. There is nothing inside the case save the 4 chips, lenses, wires, a metal plate that I assume is a heat sink and magnets. No driver. The wall wart puts out DC 350mA at 10..20V. I'm thinking I have a couple of options. 2 relatively easy and 1 I am not sure I can pull off at all.\ Option 1> Just replace the 4 6500k white leds with LED Groupbuy Deep Red http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/exotic-deep-red-660nm/ I suspect I'll need a beefier power supply to use those. Option 2> Replace the white leds with a mix, 1 Cree XP-E2 Red, 2 Deep Red (660nm) and 1 hyper violet 430nm. Though the way the nano-glo is mounted they'll be spread out and not 'together' at all. Option 3> Get some of the Cre XP-E 3-up chips, replace the 2 of the leds on them with deep reds and keep one of the blues. Or even replace the blue with hyper violet or red. This option would be the best but hardest I think and probably well outside my technical abilities. I can solder but I have never re-flowed anything. Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 Hey very cool dude! I have one lying around for when I change out my refugium light. You think reds grow more chaeto? Link to comment
jamescstein Posted June 30, 2015 Author Share Posted June 30, 2015 Hey very cool dude! I have one lying around for when I change out my refugium light. You think reds grow more chaeto? That is what people say. Most Turf Scrubbers now use red/violet mixes. I now have 2 nano-glo's so I was going to mod one of them and do some measuring. Link to comment
HarryPotter Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 That is what people say. Most Turf Scrubbers now use red/violet mixes. I now have 2 nano-glo's so I was going to mod one of them and do some measuring. Ill wait and see your measuring then! Mines BNIB so I don't want to mess it up haha Link to comment
jamescstein Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 Just did my water change Cheato trim. I know have 25g or Cheato in my inTank basket being basked by my stock Nanoglo 24x7. I'll let that go a couple of weeks and see how much grows. Incidentally, the 'ball' of Cheato weighed 52g when I pulled it out and trimmed it. I typically cut it in 1/2 every 2/3 weeks. Wifes yellow tangs love the stuff. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Wound up going with http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/deep-red-660nm/ They light up but they flash. The LED's I took off the Nanoglo look identical other than the fact that they have a yellowish phosphor coating. The powersupply says 10-20v and my LED's come to 9.2v. Are they flashing due to too much current? Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 The powersupply says 10-20v and my LED's come to 9.2v. Are they flashing due to too much current? Constant current drivers flash when they do not have enough forward voltage. The minimum of the driver is 10v, the maximum is 20v, so your LEDs need to be between that. At 350mA, the deep red chips pull about 2.2v, so you're 1.2v below the driver minimum. The white LEDs used in the stock fixture pull at least 3.4v each at the same current, so their voltage is plenty to keep the driver working. Add a single violet in the middle of the fixture and it will all work. http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/exotic-hyper-violet-led-430nm/ Link to comment
jamescstein Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks that is what I thought. Didn't think the other leds would draw that much more power but they must. So now I need to decide violet or just another deep red. Since this sits less than an inch from the chaeto I am not sure having the violet in the middle like that will do anything more than the red. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks that is what I thought. Didn't think the other leds would draw that much more power but they must. So now I need to decide violet or just another deep red. Since this sits less than an inch from the chaeto I am not sure having the violet in the middle like that will do anything more than the red. You want the violet. There is a very large change in growth in almost all macroalgae going from all red to a mix of red and blue, and another increase for changing the blue to violet. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted July 19, 2015 Author Share Posted July 19, 2015 Trying to figure out how I am going to mount a 5th led. I think I need to cut a hole in the nano-glo, glue a lens over/in the hole. The original leds are sitting in lenses of some sort. I just need to find a lens and an led that goes with it and hope it all lines up well. UInfortunately ledgroupbuy hasn't answered me on whether I can get a lens that fits that led. I did trim my cheato ball today. 47g before I trimmed it so I grew 22g of chaeto in about 2 weeks. Maybe in another 2 weeks I'll have the reds/violet up and running so I can switch over and see what I get. Link to comment
Waboss Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 That's pretty cool. I might have to open mine up now and tinker. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Well I finally finished this. I'll install it this weekend and see how it goes. Drill a hole for the light... I'd recommend NOT using a wood spade type drill bit. They don't cut round holes in plastic well. RTV High Temp silicone in a lense Solder in the 430nm chip, yay no more flashing All back together.. Seems my lense for the blue is a much wider angle than the ones on the reds.. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 That's actually good, you want it to be wide, otherwise it will cause a hotspot and can actually kill the algae in that spot Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Spade/paddle bits work better in plastic and acrylic when you run them backwards. More of a scrape than a cut, and it doesn't grab the plastic. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Spade/paddle bits work better in plastic and acrylic when you run them backwards. More of a scrape than a cut, and it doesn't grab the plastic. Hrmm.. not sure why I didn't try that.. ah well. It didn't make a huge mess. Link to comment
Mr. Clownfish Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Do you know where I can find these replacement led chips? I have a nono-glo and one of the LEDs went out. Link to comment
Marc.The.Shark Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Thats pretty awesome, great work! I had a crappy red/blue chinese screw-in 15 watt over my cheato for a while & definately saw an improvement. Let us know how much more growth you get in a 2 week period vs the white chips. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Do you know where I can find these replacement led chips? I have a nono-glo and one of the LEDs went out. pay for shipping and I'll send you all 4 of the white chips I removed. Link to comment
Mr. Clownfish Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Never mind I'm dumb I think I might go with 2 of the red and 2 of the whites Link to comment
Mr. Clownfish Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 pay for shipping and I'll send you all 4 of the white chips I removed. On second thought I might buy yours from you just to fix the one I have. How much would shipping be to 99004 and how would we go about doing this? I'm not really familiar with paypal or anything like that. Link to comment
reefinnewb Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 Any idea where I can buy that wall wort? Link to comment
jamescstein Posted October 27, 2015 Author Share Posted October 27, 2015 The one that came with the Nanoglo? Maybe from JBJ but you'd have to call them I can't find anything online. That said, http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/PDA006A-350S-R/993-1225-ND/3679875 should work just fine. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted November 9, 2015 Author Share Posted November 9, 2015 First week with the new leds.. 27g of cheato grown in a week. So it is growing more. The 'burns' are back, so it may be a little bright. Right now i have the ref light on 24/7. Going to go another week that way then trying alternating time with my main lights. I did discover that my spare Current USA controller will control/dim the nanoglow. So I will probably hook that up next week and try having some downtime for the cheato. Link to comment
jamescstein Posted November 29, 2015 Author Share Posted November 29, 2015 Lots of 'cooked' chaeto and 'cooked' slime algae this time around. To be fair though life got in the way and I've only change filter floss and a little water for the past 3 weeks. I haven't pulled the basket up and looked at or messed with the cheato at all. Cleaned it as best I could, pulled out the cooked part and reset. Hopefully I'll get back in there next weekend. So far though it looks like it might be a little too bright, probably need to put the light on a timer. It's been running 24x7. Link to comment
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