supplement pasthrough led lighting.

Following the ideas from other posters, this seemed like a small project for my 12g jbj nano. i wanted to leave the stock dual 10,000k bulbs in there stock location, so clear lexan was used to allow the front flouresent bulb to shine through without blocking its light. the lexan is fitted with 68 - 10,000mcd led's, 18 in which are 470nm 6000mcd blue led's driven at there rated 3.6 volts. the pic taken with the lamps on has been stepped down with the digital camera for sake of luminence. i carefully aimed these to cover most of the tank bottom and are incredibly bright. so much so you cannot view them directly without squinting your eyes and blowing up your retinas.

i purchased all the led's via ebay in bulk at 27 cents each, the 1 amp transformer was a item i keep on hand around 6 dollars and a 3" x11" piece of fragged lexan around a dollar. This mod really makes a difference in coral color and gives better shadows where i want them (due to the point source of the led's) and gives off a MH like shimmer.

where in the world did you get those LEDs???

how about a FT shot with these leds running

LED"S from ebay store "best hong kong" and are of a good quality.

Very nice idea and built clean, you should have a talk with nano-customs and see if everyone could get these for their cube.

Main PC Lighting off and just the led lights on, taken with Canon digital. settings: 1/60, F2.8 iso100 "flourescent h" white balance. no flash. the photo you see is very close to to whats seen with the naked eye.

looks great. Probably the best representation of a LED product ive seen.

if interested, lmk what you want to charge for them.

Chris

any chance of getting a lux/par meter in there? I like how you accurately stated that this is a "supplement". It needs to be understood by the general forum population that, quoting supernip "The purity of spectrum is the beauty and teh curse of LEDs".

Good job dga. Ive always respected your advice and think your mods are top notch.

Chris

no lux meter at my test bench. while the cost of the above model i made is not high, probably around 10- 15 dollars, there of coarse is considerable man hours involved to reproduce it or something similar to it and would probably make it cost prohibitive. but then again make an offer, i could be persuaded. other factors to consider, i am not set up to receive paypal accounts thereby money order and checks would only apply here, and some lead time would need to be set aside as i would need to order more voltage supplies from my supplier.

i cant find wut you bought on ebay could you give me a link plezz

Wow, good stuff! Think I might take a stab myself (hope to do half as good a job!), but may put a few of the 420nm "black light" LEDs in there as well. One of the departments here at work has a PAR meter, I'll "borrow" it once parts show up and I get everthing soldered together.

This is the eBay seller you used, correct?

http://stores.ebay.com/besthongkong-Dot-com

Kudos again,

Henry

Originally posted by cuncator

Wow, good stuff! Think I might take a stab myself (hope to do half as good a job!), but may put a few of the 420nm "black light" LEDs in there as well. One of the departments here at work has a PAR meter, I'll "borrow" it once parts show up and I get everthing soldered together.

 

This is the eBay seller you used, correct?

http://stores.ebay.com/besthongkong-Dot-com

 

 

That is the company i used. if you want true blacklight effect, you will need less than 420nm. that wave length would be a deep blue. a good "nm" number would be around 395nm for black light wave length. i put a 395nm in a 3 cell flashlight and is great for lighting up my king crimson blacklight poster and my wifes underwear.

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Wasn't thinking about a real blacklight effect, but that actinic bulbs peak at 420nm and 460nm. I might jury rig some together with some switches and experiment with different numbers of white, 470/460nm, and 420nm LEDs. Although a few 395nm ones might give some cool visuals...

Thanks for the interesting idea dga; to the soldering iron!

that is very cool.

should have got luxes

Originally posted by charlie___T

should have got luxes

As in Luxeon LED's?

The luxeons wouldnt allow for passthrough though, right? Plus theyd need heat sinks..

How are the LEDs holding up? Im assuming the cooling of the fans are keeping them cool enough..

Chris

no difference in heat with the added LED's. none burnt out and i dont expect them to for at least 100,000 hours. (there rating at the specified load and current). Luxeons would work but for even distribution u would need several, including heat sinks for each one thereby adding a considerable amount of heat to dissipate. and if using luxeon stars with the heatsinks attached there would be blockage depending on the quantity used.

Sounds good.

You know your stuff, so i know its a good mod..

Let me know if interest is sufficient enough for you to market them on my site or elsewhere.

Chris

dga,

How did you wire it up? Any simple diagrams handy?

thanks,

Minh

I will punch up a simple diagram tomorrow and post it here.

wait, are you using this as your main source of lighting? are your coral happy with it?

That is a clean LED lighting setup. I ordered LEDs directly from BestHongKong.com last month instead of going through Ebay. For a couple of extra dollars they will send the resistors & board to mount the lights. I was really excited about LED lighting until I read through this forum on Reef Central, after that my enthusiasm has waned. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...7&highlight=LED

I think the great job you did on your lighting might help me re-start my LED project.

Rick

Originally posted by Babycakes

wait, are you using this as your main source of lighting? are your coral happy with it?

No. This is not the main source of lighting. As the title of this post states, "supplement" as in addition to my existing main lights which are stock jbj nanocube dx versions. 2 24 watt - daylight/actinic bulbs. the picture in this post shows only the "LED's on" "main lights off", for reference