Fluval Edge LED setup

[Naturalreef]

Blue led's look great Hector! I'm still waiting to hear from Nanotuners about the possible drop-in led solution, but in the meantime I ordered 2 mr11 160 lumen smd led's from amazon for $25 with free shipping. I seen two other reefer's use these led's and the coverage is excellent in my opinion. I'll add a blue led strip soon after as well. I absolutely want to keep the stock look to this tank. So I will test frags from my Biocube 14 with the new led's and see how they respond. Now that I have the lighting sort of taken care of, I want to look at flow. I may get the zoo med 501 cannister filter and see if that will give good flow throughout the tank. I really don't want the look of a powerhead in there for asthetic reasons.

[thesmokingman]

Blue led's look great Hector! I'm still waiting to hear from Nanotuners about the possible drop-in led solution, but in the meantime I ordered 2 mr11 160 lumen smd led's from amazon for $25 with free shipping. I seen two other reefer's use these led's and the coverage is excellent in my opinion. I'll add a blue led strip soon after as well. I absolutely want to keep the stock look to this tank. So I will test frags from my Biocube 14 with the new led's and see how they respond. Now that I have the lighting sort of taken care of, I want to look at flow. I may get the zoo med 501 cannister filter and see if that will give good flow throughout the tank. I really don't want the look of a powerhead in there for asthetic reasons.

 

Psst, here's some options for a 470nm blue. I use the 4.7in flex strip myself, the angle is a lil too directional but what can you complain about given the cost?

 

http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

 

http://www.oznium.com/smd-bar

 

http://www.oznium.com/silicone-encased-led-strip/tech

[Naturalreef]

Thanks Smoke,

Both led options were taken from your post! How have the corals responded since the upgrade?

 

 

 

Psst, here's some options for a 470nm blue. I use the 4.7in flex strip myself, the angle is a lil too directional but what can you complain about given the cost?

 

http://www.oznium.com/led-flex-strips

 

http://www.oznium.com/smd-bar

 

http://www.oznium.com/silicone-encased-led-strip/tech

[thesmokingman]

Thanks Smoke,

Both led options were taken from your post! How have the corals responded since the upgrade?

 

No corals yet other than what came on the rock. My setup is still curing/cycling atm. I did run the lights for a week and the output and color was very nice imo.

 

Hmm, if I could find my light meter... however they seem plenty bright going by my non-scientific meter. I've thought about hooking up another mr11 receptacle for even more light but may just throw a 3 way switch run the blues as moonlights off the power brick instead.

 

Oh btw, the fluval's power brick is good for 20 watts, not 10. The original halogens are 10 watts a piece, making the limit at least 20 watts.

[Naturalreef]

From your pics, the new led's look 100 percent better as far as light coverage. I really don't see any spotlighting. I was going to do the same thing and order two new mr11 sockets and add them to the original light bar. I will wait and see how my corals react with the replacement led's first. I'm not going gung ho on this tank...looking for a simple setup that will keep everything healthy at a cheap cost.

 

 

No corals yet other than what came on the rock. My setup is still curing/cycling atm. I did run the lights for a week and the output and color was very nice imo.

 

Hmm, if I could find my light meter... however they seem plenty bright going by my non-scientific meter. I've thought about hooking up another mr11 receptacle for even more light but may just throw a 3 way switch run the blues as moonlights off the power brick instead.

 

Oh btw, the fluval's power brick is good for 20 watts, not 10. The original halogens are 10 watts a piece, making the limit at least 20 watts.

[hector1520]

Oh btw, the fluval's power brick is good for 20 watts, not 10. The original halogens are 10 watts a piece, making the limit at least 20 watts.

 

I just noticed that as well. I wonder if we could just tap into the power supply in parallel and use it to drive a buckpuck and the LEDs

[thesmokingman]

I just noticed that as well. I wonder if we could just tap into the power supply in parallel and use it to drive a buckpuck and the LEDs

 

Probably. The brick outputs 1700mA max and these mr11 bulbs are only 125mA a piece. There seems to be a bit of headroom.

 

 

 

I was thinking about these bulbs, even though they have very good coverage they can't overcome the limits of the tank design itself.

 

The limitation of the tank means that if we put rocks that are high and to the sides, it will create shadows due to the point source location of the light bar.

 

Thus if you have your rocks not too high in the middle and lower at the sides, it will reduce the shadow and drop off.

[fcruz420]

Any updates?

[wwu123]

Just to confirm what others were thinking here, I did tap into the 12V AC power in parallel successfully to drive more LED's. I had MR16's in the two sockets that were consuming 3 x 1.2 watt Cree XR-E's each, so only 7.2 watts total.

 

Since I'd previously opened up the lighting arm to retrofit MR16 sockets, I opened it up again and ran additional leads through the existing slots behind the MR16 sockets to the outside of the swing arm. Then I connected two $2 no-name buckpucks from Dealextreme designed for 8-40V input. These are rated only for 3V x 350 mA, but actually when tested can drive one LED at 660 mA, two in series at 500 mA, or three at 410 mA. (They can probably drive even more current at a higher voltage, but the Edge power supply only gives 12V AC.)

 

So I wired two royal blue LED's per buckpuck, or a total of four blue LED's to complement the existing six white ones. Total watts at the power supply is now 14W, still under the power supply's 20W capacity. I'm getting much purer colors and some nice flourescence on several of the corals. The only minor issue is that I'm using aluminum U-channel stock as my heatsink, mounted perpendicular to the swing arm instead of parallel as hector1520 drew it, and when the blue's are all pointing straight down, the center area at the top of my rocks is much more blue than white. But otherwise the rest of the tank looks great.

 

The U-channel is drawing a lot of the heat from the LED's, and I can feel it dissipating upwards through the holes in the top cover. I didn't add a fan but I think the stock cover being ventilated does allow the heat to escape.

[hector1520]

got any pics? I had to put this project on standby for a bit until I get a new motor built for the Typhoon

[evilc66]

As in GMC Typhoon?

[doctaq]

so the two mr base led bulbs werent enough light? im thinking about possibly putting the bulbs together but probably wont if there isnt enough light

[hector1520]

Yup, its now getting a Vortec block and reworked heads with a healthy dose of alcohol, the original motor finally went out after 158K

[evilc66]

Nice. That's one of my all time favorite cars/trucks. I started doing a kind of tribute truck based on a 98 Blazer 2 door 4x4. Converted it to AWD and dropped an LS1 upfront with a 3"/4" drop. Never finished it though. Still sitting in the garage.

[hector1520]

 

All you need is a little inspiration

 

 

BTW- that is an 11 second camaro he's racing

[evilc66]

Very nice. Got the inspiration. Just don't have the time to dedicate to it anymore.

[hector1520]

Are these the drivers you mentioned wwu123?

 

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13553

 

Seems like they would would perfectly although the dimming capabilities would've come in handy. Still, the price for 4 Q5s and 2 of these drivers is the same price as one would pay for one buckpuck. I placed my order and will keep everyone tuned in once it gets here

[doctaq]

that would fit into the space and power that the fluval has if im not mistaken, but there was also a 1*3w one that i never could figure out the maximum voltage for as the limits tend to be underadvertised in that sense.

if you run active cooling i dont see why you couldnt buy the bulb housing that would also heatsink the leds and drive them inside of that.

maybe just a crazy idea of mine.

[hector1520]

Finally got the time to finish this thing. I ended up going with 4 XRE whites and 2 of the dealextreme mini pucks mounted on some angle alum. behind the swing arm. There is hardly any shadowing here as opposed to having it in front of the swing arm. I'm VERY happy with the color, its very ELOS-esque, like a crisp 14K. Now the only obstacle to figure out is cooling, It was impossible to get a case fan to fit under the stock hood, looks like I'm going to have to make a hood after all just to fit a fan, this is my first time working with crees, when you guys say they get hot, they get HOT!

 

Anyway, picture time

 

 

I added a small rocker switch to be able to turn the whites on/off

 

 

 

 

Blues on

 

 

Blue/Whites (this is a very old point n shoot, I had to set the exposure way down, the glare was horrible)

 

 

Much less shadowing than before

 

 

FTS

 

[jbb]

i would worry about the wires being exposed like that. they are pretty close to the water , and the output of the filter. just a thought.

 

 

nice setup otherwise, would like to do something like that with mine

[hector1520]

All the solder joints got a nice thick coat of nail polish, I'll probably spray the whole thing with clear engine enamel to protect the aluminum as well. It'll still be a while before I fill it up so I have time to improve the design

[hector1520]

So one of the mini-pucks melted this morning, I had the light's on with the fan just blowing over the hood when I noticed smoke coming out. Took everything apart, nothing shorted but one of the mini picks melted to the point one of the solder joints came loose. I tested the light's and they seem like they didn't burn out. That shows once again cheaper is more expensive in the long run.

 

This just pushes me to do it right and get a tried and true dimmable buckpuck. I can't seem to find the voltage draw from the buckpuck, I think I can still get away with piggy backing it off the stock power supply.

[Ghotit]

EPIC tank , i fell in love with the edge whe i saw it at petsmart one day. cant wait to see this all come together

[Blue Fin]

Did you find a cooling solution yet?

[Carinya]

Ccjung, any time frame or specifics as to how much light coverage while keeping the stock look?

 

^^^ THIS!