DIY LED lighting

[coolwaters]

will i think those are better then those 5mm LEDs.

pretty sure those are called super flux LEDs.

[Gomer]

Has anyone considered covering the inside of a hood with these LED light strips?

 

 

Given their small size it seems like you'd be able to pump out some serious light in small area. I have no idea how good the bulbs are though.

 

 

Low power and inefficient.

[elbowdonkey]

Low power and inefficient.

 

While I'd argue that low power is the goal, after running some numbers I'll agree with inefficient regardless of your definition. Here's my quick take (which may be flawed of course):

 

96 of these strips covers a 72x24" footprint which yields about 276W total at roughly $6700 without power supplies.

 

It'd cost about $4000 to buy an Aquaillumination 72" fixture, which would yield about 600W. With power supplies.

 

So yeah - they're basically not intense or dense enough.

[jpndave]

My boards should be here soon and I have been thinking about the amount, color, and power to use on LEDs for my nano. I would like to get them ordered (well, whatever I can get that is). I was originally thinking a 50/50 mix. I am concerned that may be too blue. I also read where some are adding a red and a green to get a better distribution of color.

The Warm-White appears to have quite a bit of red and not as much blue actinic. If I do a few of those instead of either Royal Blue or the Cool white, that should bring up the reds a bit and tone down the blues as well. The red emitters are a different forward voltage @ a certain amp input. That would make combining them with the other lights in series a risky proposition. The cool whites have a lot of the green so that should already be covered. Maybe 8 Royal Blue, 8 Cool white and 4 Warm white? They would be driven at the 700 mA or could be turned down. Is that too many for a Biocube 8? I don’t need scorching SPS lighting. I would like to keep a few medium light SPS at the upper parts of the tank, the rest will be LPS, zoas and rics.

 

LXML-PR01-0275 275mW @ 350mA 525mW @ 700mA 455 nm Emitter Lambertian Royal Blue

 

LXML-PWW1-0060 60 @ 350mA 110 @ 700mA 3100 K Emitter Lambertian Warm White

 

LXML-PWC1-0100 100 @ 350mA 180 @ 700mA 6500K Emitter Lambertian Cool White

 

 

 

 

Thanks for any input you can offer. Hopefully I will have results to post here shortly.

[evilc66]

You found a source yet for the top bin cool whites and royal blues? Future won't have them for months. This recall is taking Lumileds a lot longer to bounce back from than they thought.

[beachboy_ss]

Hey everyone very interesting thread. I was wondering what the cost would be roughly to DIY a light system for a 30 gal cube (20"x20"x20") tank to keep SPS and clams or if it is even possible.

[evilc66]

There are a lot of variables that will change the total, but budget for about $300-$500 for that size of a tank. It is a great deal of money up front, but it is a far sight cheaper than any pre-fab fixture, and the long term costs are cheaper than MH of T5.

[beachboy_ss]

Here we go with the questions? For my 30 gal I listed the other day how many leds and drivers would I need and in your opinion what would be the ideal white to blue ratio. I just want to say thanks to eveyone on this thread for the help.

[Gomer]

Here we go with the questions? For my 30 gal I listed the other day how many leds and drivers would I need and in your opinion what would be the ideal white to blue ratio. I just want to say thanks to eveyone on this thread for the help.

 

 

Don't know where your post is, but you'll probably need 2white per 1 blue. Using the latest technology LEDs and optics, you will need on the order of 30 LEDs at 700-1000mA

[beachboy_ss]

Hey everyone very interesting thread. I was wondering what the cost would be roughly to DIY a light system for a 30 gal cube (20"x20"x20") tank to keep SPS and clams or if it is even possible.

Gomer here was my posting I was talking about. I know the soloris has 50 leds for the 24" so i am wondering if i should go off there design or something else. My main goal is to make the jump and try my luck with sps and clams. I was going to DIY a T5 fixture but I ran across this thread and was hooked.

[beachboy_ss]

21mm KD CREE Q5 LED Star Board. Are these a good led.

[restes]

Check this out.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/900-White-LED-Light-Pa...id=p3286.c0.m14

[beachboy_ss]

Do you need to use Regulated Circuit Boards or dose this do the same thing 3W LED Driver 35W Power Adjustable 70mA-700mA Dimmer or do you need both.

[evilc66]

Check this out.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/900-White-LED-Light-Pa...id=p3286.c0.m14

 

GARBAGE. 5mm LEDs, no matter how many of them, are not sufficient at lighting a tank of any size over maybe 6" deep.

 

 

Do you need to use Regulated Circuit Boards or dose this do the same thing 3W LED Driver 35W Power Adjustable 70mA-700mA Dimmer or do you need both.

 

I don't know what you mean exactly by a "regulated circuit board", but you do need to use current drivers to run these high power LEDs. You can run more than one LED from a single driver. Your source voltage and capabilities of the driver will determin how many LEDs you can run in series.

 

Cree Q5's are good LEDs for whites. Be mindful of some of the Asian retailers selling these, as the color bins can sometimes be poor (meaning that although the brightness is there, the color can be not what you want). I'd look at finding one on a 15mm star or similar. Just makes it easier to fit them closer together. The closer you can fit the white and blue together, the less color separation there will be, and you won't have blue spotlights on the tank bottom.

 

Another thing I might suggest Beachboy_SS is that you start your own thread to ask questions. We are 20 some odd pages into this thread, and your project will be lost and never found again This is a usefull thread, but only for the original topic, and the supporting information.

[neuwave]

hey evil, besides finding a led with a higher color temp. Of which we have seen so far nothing really that gives us the blue we want; have u worked with any leds with a controller that can fluxtuate a led from 6.5k to 20k as the Solaris has described in their products? I was thinking about trying to dust off all the programming books I have and making one. I might be just having a moment insanity to try but I'm an engineering geek and sometimes i'll just sit in front of a project for hours untill i get it. Any thoughts?

[evilc66]

My setup so far has been just a fixed color temp. I am going to be experimenting here this weekend with some different combinations of white and blue on some of the stars that i have installed recently. Last weekend I added 5 more stars to the setup (total: 18 white @ 130lm, 9 455nm royal blue = 64W , this is over a 1.6g tank BTW). Needless to say it's bright. The heatsink is getting a little warmer, but my DIY current drivers are running super cool (only 5 parts to make one for each star). The color is still in the 12-14k range, but I want it a little more blue. I think I'm going to take 4 of the stars and change them to 1 white and 2 blue and see how that works. Maybe I'll just start with the one in the middle and change it to all blue and set how big of a difference it makes. I'm glad I put the forethought into this fixture so I can make easy changes like this.

 

I have thought about changing my approach for future projects and allowing adjustable color temp by a controller of some sorts. I went the way I did more for maximum lumen output. The arduino chips and dev boards are looking pretty promissing for doing basic stuff like this. I may have to play around with one in the near future. The Luxdrive drivers would be perfect for something like this as they have options for a pwm input for dimming control. Now I'm going to have to seriously think about this.

 

I'm going to update my thread here in the next few days as soon as I upload the pictures from my camera.

 

BTW, my little blue tip acro LOVES the light. It looks better now than it did under the 400W SE MH at the LFS. Super blue!

[jpndave]

My setup so far has been just a fixed color temp. I am going to be experimenting here this weekend with some different combinations of white and blue on some of the stars that i have installed recently. Last weekend I added 5 more stars to the setup (total: 18 white @ 130lm, 9 455nm royal blue = 64W , this is over a 1.6g tank BTW). Needless to say it's bright. The heatsink is getting a little warmer, but my DIY current drivers are running super cool (only 5 parts to make one for each star). The color is still in the 12-14k range, but I want it a little more blue. I think I'm going to take 4 of the stars and change them to 1 white and 2 blue and see how that works. Maybe I'll just start with the one in the middle and change it to all blue and set how big of a difference it makes. I'm glad I put the forethought into this fixture so I can make easy changes like this.

 

I have thought about changing my approach for future projects and allowing adjustable color temp by a controller of some sorts. I went the way I did more for maximum lumen output. The arduino chips and dev boards are looking pretty promissing for doing basic stuff like this. I may have to play around with one in the near future. The Luxdrive drivers would be perfect for something like this as they have options for a pwm input for dimming control. Now I'm going to have to seriously think about this.

 

I'm going to update my thread here in the next few days as soon as I upload the pictures from my camera.

 

BTW, my little blue tip acro LOVES the light. It looks better now than it did under the 400W SE MH at the LFS. Super blue!

evilc66, do you have plans for your driver? I just received a bunch of Rebel's and would like to build a few of those drivers.

 

Thanks!

 

Dave

[evilc66]

Well, can't take credit for the design, but it does seem to work well. You can find the instructions here. Super simple. It is still a linear regulator, and as a result not the most efficient, but does the job for only a few dollars. I made nine regulators (one for each star) and had spares for about $20 shipped. Unfortunately you can't find all of these parts at Radioshack.

 

I'm going to be updating my thread here in a while and will post the parts list from Digikey that I used.

[jpndave]

Well, can't take credit for the design, but it does seem to work well. You can find the instructions here. Super simple. It is still a linear regulator, and as a result not the most efficient, but does the job for only a few dollars. I made nine regulators (one for each star) and had spares for about $20 shipped. Unfortunately you can't find all of these parts at Radioshack.

 

I'm going to be updating my thread here in a while and will post the parts list from Digikey that I used.

Cool, thanks for the link! Where can I find a plan for the "most efficient" design?

[evilc66]

A switching boost/buck regulator are the most efficient. I saw plans for a 1.5A regulator on Instructables, but it might cost you just as much to build as to buy. Luxdrive makes a series of drivers that fit the bill, and aren't too expensive. You can get them at www.luxeonstar.com.

[neuwave]

Are u planning are playing around with a micro controller or a micro processor? to play with the varying light levels.

[evilc66]

There is no reason to use something as powerfull or expensive as a microprocessor. Most inexpensive microcontrollers from Atmel, Zilog, Microchip et al, are plenty to dim and control lights. I'd rather pay $3 for a microcontroller and smoke it than one that costs 10x-20x as much and I'm utilizing 1% of it's capabilities.

 

Some of the development kits available now can be found as cheap as $25 and come with all the tools you need to start programming. The hardware required to do what you want is up to you

 

The new arduino boards are super cheap, easy to program and you be a great controller to use with the dimmable Luxdrive regulators. I think this will be my fall/winter project.

[neuwave]

lol the only reason I was asking cause i might be able to get a microprossor for free, got a couple of engineering buddies. but I've already see some of the micro conrtollers for $25 -40 so i'm most likely going that direction if I dont get a free B. Wont start my project till later on in the year but just getting some ideas.

[evilc66]

Getting the microprocessor free is one thing. Getting the developement tools is another

 

With the multitude of microcontroller dev kits available that are geared towards hobbiests (ie, cheap) they are far better suited to play with. The arduino based stuff is nice because you don't have to be a full on C guru to get the most out of it. The programming environment was developed to be easy to use for beginners. There are also BasicStamps that are simple to use too, but it seems the arduinos are beating them pretty consistently in price.

[minipigg]

I've been wanting to do this for quit some time now. Solaris uses this company for their led's and lenses and other items. I'm sure this costs more then some of the other led's listed here but they have them available and its good quality.

 

thoughts?