neanderthalman Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 radio shack digikey other electronics suppliers A regulator is a little black "chip" that looks like a transistor, just to help you find what you're looking for. The LM 317 is a good regulator, I've used them in the past. Link to comment
Coyote Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Yes, in your case with a supply of 15V, the LM317 will be perfect. You can find it in any electronic shop, it's a very common component. If your supply was lower (~13-14V) or if you want to implement a pwm dimming of your light (sunset, clouds), the mic29152 would be better but harder to find and more difficult to wire... By the way, these regulator cost only a few $ Link to comment
coolwaters Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 i hate radio shack... do u know if i can get them at Frys? i'll still check it out sometime this weekend. i think i'll be getting the LM317 thats rated at 1 amp. (the LEDs output isnt very worth it at 1.5 amps) so i can use one LM317 for each series? looks like the royal blue has a better effect at 4v. Link to comment
Scucci Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 I've been working on building an LED hood for my 10g, I have 50 18,000mcd whites and 50 13,000mcd blues... My problem is I don't know exaclty how many to use. I know I can't... well I could... but I know I shouldn't use all of them because jets would start landing in my front yard if I did use all of them. But what do you thinks a fair number? Right now the corals are under 2 55w pcs and I'd like to take it up juuuuuuust a notch. The lighting I have now is fine... but replacing the bulbs gets expensive over time and LEDs last a looooong time. Anywho, so somewhere in there was my question about how many LEDs to use... Oh, also thinking about building a dimmer circuit for night to dim the whites over time, then the blues (minus an array that stays on for moonlights. But that's down the road. Link to comment
Coyote Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Scucci: forget your 100 led you will not do any good with them. as a rough estimate, you would need 700+ of such led to replace your actual 2x55w... in terme of lumen 1 K2 led produce as much light as ~30 18000mcd 30° led. I've designed a 24 K2 leds spot to replace my former 2x65w fluocompact lighting so this is 30x24=720 led coolwater: don't forget to get a good heatsink for your LM317 as it will dissipate around 2W Link to comment
coolwaters Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 u have to make sure that the LEDs are dimmable. some Luxeon LEDs arent. i had 64 5mm LEDs on a 3g tank and its suxed...most i'll use it for is blue supplements lights... i got a nice cpu heatsink with a fan so the heat thing is in the past =p and my power supply is come up nicely so i just need more bulbs lol. Link to comment
Scucci Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 So, you're say that 24 (I'm guessing 50/50 so 12 and 12) end up being about the same as 2 65watters... Okay... after some searching here's a revised list of parts... lemme know what I'm missing. For the PS... I'll figure something out. 10x http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...LIGHTING2353274 5x http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...LIGHTING6757439 5x http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...LIGHTING6790471 And the real spots of either the Apollo or K2S lenses from http://led-spot.com/p_luxeon.shtml Back on the right track? The reason for the 2 different blues was for the different nm values of them... but I'm sure that's the way to go. Link to comment
coolwaters Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 20 LEDs running around 4v should be more then enough. u just need to get the power supply down now... for that many LEDs its best to go with a computer power supply. 250 watts or something. make sure u have a lot of regulators. the right kind Link to comment
Scucci Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 20 LEDs running around 4v should be more then enough. u just need to get the power supply down now... for that many LEDs its best to go with a computer power supply. 250 watts or something. make sure u have a lot of regulators. the right kind I don't really want too much more light than I already have. I just want a little boost... something like the 2 55w pcs + a couple percent. And cost is something I'm very picky about, so if 20's more than what I'm looking for, and 15 would do... then I'd rather have 15. What regulators would you recommend? If you have a Mouser part # that'd be great becaues we order everything like that from Mouser. Actually, a part number from anywhere would be fine, I can find the equiv in Mouser. Thanks for all the help. Link to comment
coolwaters Posted June 30, 2007 Author Share Posted June 30, 2007 mouser looks like a great site to buy stuff from. i tried looking for a 1 amp LM317 on there but no luck. can anyone help me with that? Link to comment
coolwaters Posted June 30, 2007 Author Share Posted June 30, 2007 on digikey i found some 1amp regulators but dont know which one to get... can i get some help? LM317AEMP/NOPB LM317AEMPX/NOPB LM317EMP/NOPB or are they all the same? Link to comment
Scucci Posted June 30, 2007 Share Posted June 30, 2007 Oddly enough, I don't see a 1A on the Mouser site... I have the catalog around here someone... gonna dig it out tomorrow... the catalog's a little easier to read sometimes. But yeah, great company, really fast shipping and pretty reasonable prices. I used to order flash chips from them all the time when I was converting my old gameboy games into flash carts. lol Apparently when you order from them a few time you get the catalog for the next 5 years or something. Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 1, 2007 Author Share Posted July 1, 2007 i might go to Frys 2morrow to see if they have any regulators... i bought a 60w Xitanium LED driver. which is going to be perfect for wat im doing. since its 5 amps max can i use a LM317 regulator to bring that down to 1 amp? can a LM317 handle 12v 60 watts and 5 amps? my goal is to make a 40 watt worth of LEDs for my 3.5g tank. lol (thos ricordeas better love it =p) Link to comment
LEDfreak Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 13 Luxeon III stars inside the factory nano cube hood. No heat beautiful spectrum (a bit too bright though) LOL Oh and turned on Link to comment
strangelove Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 13 Luxeon III stars inside the factory nano cube hood. No heat beautiful spectrum (a bit too bright though) LOL Oh and turned on Now that's an awesome build looks clean and fits right into your stock hood beautifuly. No heat from your lights is the way to go. Good Job What is your cost breakdown and can you describe how you built it? Also lets see how it looks like in your tank, make sure you adjust your camera settings so people can see what they really look like, and not how the camera takes pictures. So adjust your white balance and ISO settings on your camera. Let us know what your experience with these lights are. Once again awesome build. Link to comment
Scucci Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 Now that's an awesome build looks clean and fits right into your stock hood beautifuly. No heat from your lights is the way to go. Good Job What is your cost breakdown and can you describe how you built it? Also lets see how it looks like in your tank, make sure you adjust your camera settings so people can see what they really look like, and not how the camera takes pictures. So adjust your white balance and ISO settings on your camera. Let us know what your experience with these lights are. Once again awesome build. I'mma agree... that's very clean. Did you just use the built in fans on the hood for cooling? Noticed you didn't use an lenses either... Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 2, 2007 Author Share Posted July 2, 2007 13 Luxeon III stars inside the factory nano cube hood. No heat beautiful spectrum (a bit too bright though) LOL Oh and turned on whats your power supply? and the wattage that your array outputs? looking bright doesnt really mean its "bright" I'mma agree... that's very clean. Did you just use the built in fans on the hood for cooling? Noticed you didn't use an lenses either... yeah its a great setup. lenses arent needed in this case. if u have like a clam or SPS coral i'll help if u get one of thos 10 degrees or smaller lenses aiming a it. im waiting for my supplies to be shipped to me so when they come i'll start.. Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 2, 2007 Author Share Posted July 2, 2007 since my AD adapter is already 15v and 1 amp do i need a voltage/current regulator for it? i was planning to get a KIA7812 Type Voltage Reg 12V -1 Amp for my 12v adapter and for my LED driver to get it down to 1amp. can i use that regulator? and a few 7815 - 15V Regulator 1 Amp IC for the 15v 1amp adapter if its needed. its true that AC adapters arent regulated and can fluctuate? so it needs to be stabilized by a regulator? btw whats the difference between negative and positive regulators? Link to comment
strangelove Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 i might go to Frys 2morrow to see if they have any regulators... Your best buys are always at Fry's Man that store just drives me bonkers, I get stuck in that store for hours, just looking at everything under the electronic sun. Can't believe the other day I was looking at vacuum cleaners making comparisons on accessories, VACUM CLEANERS!!! that's something for my wife to ponder on! Then I started pondering getting a solar panel array to charge a battery array to power my tanks, then I ended up loading up on rechargeable batteries and picked up a LED flash light for $40!!! spent a couple hundred bucks, ON BATTERIES AND A FLASHLIGHT... well some ink cartridges too. Fry's is like a vortex for your wallet. Their slogan should be, "Be afraid, be very afraid." Link to comment
Coyote Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 on digikey i found some 1amp regulators but dont know which one to get... can i get some help? LM317AEMP/NOPB LM317AEMPX/NOPB LM317EMP/NOPB or are they all the same? Don't choose these regulator as they are SOT-223 SMD package and are difficult to solder. Go for a LM117 or LM317 with A or AT extention. In any way ask for a TO-220 or TO-252 package. and, yes, you absolutely need a variable regulator after your 15V adapter. these adapter are not well regulated and I repeat myself NEVER fixe the voltage on a K2 led. If you want something reliable and with a good result, you absolutely need to drive the led with a fixed current. look at this application note and do something like in figure 5: http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-178.pdf plug the output of your adapter between Vin and earth then put 3 K2 in serie between Iout and earth. For the resistor choose a 2W 1,25Ohms. Link to comment
LEDfreak Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Well, the cloudy water has turned clear. I will probably change the water one more time and then add some live rock and sand tomorrow. I will post some more pics after. As for the DIY guys, try a 12V power supply in series with sets of 3 Lux LEDs and a 1 to 3 ohm (depending on how much current you want to drive through the array) 5 watt resister per series. This of course changes with different types of LED. Only high power 3W LEDs will work in this simple circuit. Note: It is very important to understand DC circuits before you start playing around with this too much. You power supply will have enough juice to start a fire!!! So be careful!!! If you havent the know how to calculate voltage drop across different components in a series, then you may consider using a LED curent driver rather than a voltage regulated powersupply. (a bit more safe) Note, I am using the 12 volt leads from a computer powersupply to drive all of my arrays. It is capable of 20A at 12V output capacity (240W or more). My entire array in parallel series configuratin that I designed draws about 4A about 48W and shed some resister heat on the blue series since there are only 2 LEds on those two. I had to drop about 5 V at 1A across those resistors - equivilent to a 5Watt heater. I attached those two to the heat sink to make sure they didnt dump heat into the hood. It is extracted with the forced air over the sink. I figure I get 39W of usable light (not the same as 39W of PC light) this is more intense since 39W of PC lighting looses much ogf the power to heat rather than light. I am only dumping about 9W of heat from the resistors and the little bit from the LEDs. The heat sink has 2 3" fans on the back and the entire hood is exausted with upgraded fans fitting the factory position. As for bright...it not only looks bright, but it is on par with about 150 W MH in PUR - thats light output in the photo usable range - So YES it IS bright. This will most definately get some SPS soon. No reflector needed with the LEDs I used (Luxeon III stars). They have a 120degree pattern (they shine down) so no reflector needed. Total cost was probably around $200 when the dust settled plus some blood sweat and tears. -Brad Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 2, 2007 Author Share Posted July 2, 2007 Don't choose these regulator as they are SOT-223 SMD package and are difficult to solder. Go for a LM117 or LM317 with A or AT extention. In any way ask for a TO-220 or TO-252 package. and, yes, you absolutely need a variable regulator after your 15V adapter. these adapter are not well regulated and I repeat myself NEVER fixe the voltage on a K2 led. If you want something reliable and with a good result, you absolutely need to drive the led with a fixed current. i kind of lost you when u said never fixe the voltage on a K2 led...does that mean i shouldnt use a regulator? look at this application note and do something like in figure 5: http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-178.pdf i need to use a resister along with a regulator??? plug the output of your adapter between Vin and earth then put 3 K2 in serie between Iout and earth. For the resistor choose a 2W 1,25Ohms. by earth do u mean Vout? the resister is recommended no needed right? i dont want any unnecessary power loss. i still need a bit more physics classes... a LM117 or LM317 can stand the current of a 5 Amp 60 watt 12v LED driver? im trying to bring 5amps down to 1amp. Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 2, 2007 Author Share Posted July 2, 2007 i decided to get my regulators from http://www.futurecb.com/ since i'll be getting more LEDs from them anyways. theres like a billion regulators...so i need a little help finding the right one for me.... dropout voltage is the amount of voltage i lose right? will this regulator be find for my 35 watt 15v 1 amp adapter? http://www.futurecb.com/Store/ProductDetai...TGONSEMI7371792 will this be fine for a 12v 1300mA about 20 watts adapter? and a 12v 60 watt 5 amp max driver? http://www.futurecb.com/Store/ProductDetai...TGONSEMI9490749 feel free to look around the site its pretty useful. Link to comment
Coyote Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 I will try to explain... i'm sorry but it's not easy for me as i'm french and my english is not fluent enough... With a normal led, you know exactly the U/I curve. that means when you want to drive your led at x amp, you can know precisely the tension of the led. You can then use the normal resistor regulation technique: Utotal=Uled+Uresistor That's the way to go with normal led but not with high power led (HP leds). The problem with the HP leds like K2 is that the you don't know precisely the U/I curve. For example: at 1 amp a white or royal blue k2 can have a Uled from 3,03V to 4,95V with a typical at 3,72V. When you set the voltage of a K2 (for example 4V) you don't know at all what will be the resulting intensity inside the led: maybe 350mA maybe more than 1,5A. More: when the led start to heat, the voltage of the led go down. If you set the voltage, the intensity will go up. the led will heat up more and the intensity will again go up... and the led will burn.... So, when you fixe the voltage on a HP led: -you don't know the intensity inside the led so you don't what light you will have -you can't protect the led against a heat built up with a possible destruction of the led -in any case, you don't master all the parameters of the led and that's not good for the lifetime of the led Now, if you want to have the best of your leds you need to use a regulator in current mode. in fact the regulator will tune the voltage of the led to precisely have the choosed intensity. For this you need a regulator like the lm117, lm317 or mic 29152 and a current sensing resistor. for example, a typical 15v 1 amp circuit will have in serie: a lm317, a resistor of 1,25Ohms, 3 K2 leds lets says that the voltage in the leds at 1 amp are the following: Uled1=3,6V Uled2=3,9V Uled3=3,8V the voltage inside the resistor will be: Ures=R x I= 1,25 x 1= 1,25V you then have: Uled1 + Uled2 + Uled3 + Ures= 3,6+3,9+3,8+1,25= 12,55V Finally, the regulator will trim the excess of current so Ureg=15V - 12,55V= 2,45V Even when the led heat and her voltage change, the regulator will compensate and trim more voltage. I hope i've been clear... i decided to get my regulators from http://www.futurecb.com/ since i'll be getting more LEDs from them anyways. theres like a billion regulators...so i need a little help finding the right one for me.... dropout voltage is the amount of voltage i lose right? will this regulator be find for my 35 watt 15v 1 amp adapter? http://www.futurecb.com/Store/ProductDetai...TGONSEMI7371792 will this be fine for a 12v 1300mA about 20 watts adapter? and a 12v 60 watt 5 amp max driver? http://www.futurecb.com/Store/ProductDetai...TGONSEMI9490749 feel free to look around the site its pretty useful. no, these are fixed voltage regulator. You need a variable one.... these are good: http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...VSTMICRO7148257 http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...KSTMICRO4987558 http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...AIRCHILD8395733 Link to comment
coolwaters Posted July 2, 2007 Author Share Posted July 2, 2007 im going to give http://www.futurecb.com/store/ProductDetai...AIRCHILD8395733 a try. how would i reduce the current down to 1 amp? Coyote can u help me with the wiring diagram on a 60 watt Xitanium LED driver its the 12v 5 amp max driver. im going to use either the LD1086V or LM317T as the regulator. the LED driver its already stabilized so im guessing its going to be a little easier. *im well aware that the driver packs enough power to kill me several times...and anyone doing this should also be aware that DC current is a lot more lethal.* Link to comment
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