LED Aesthetics: What do you really think of your color?

[NeveSSL]

What do you guys think is the best way to to distribute the light over a 20x18x18 tank? I am planning on bare LEDs close to the water.

 

I'm planning on using 12 RBs, 6 NWs, 2 CBs (all XR-Es) and 4 cool whites. Do you guys think this will be enough? I could probably add a few more if I need to since I will be using 2 Meanwell ELN-60-48s.

 

I'm not sure at all what to do with these. I had originally thought about putting them on two 4.25x9 heatsinks, but I'm not sure this will provide adequate coverage over a 20x18 tank.

 

I also have thought about doing clusters, but I'm not sure that would work well with all of the different colors I'm doing.

 

Any thoughts? I'm really wanting to get good coverage without spotlighting.

 

Any help would be much appreciated!!! I'm hoping to use tax return money to do this.

 

Brandon

 

Anyone?

 

Brandon

[Machupicchu]

whats up man. if you check back on page 30 http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...6394&st=580 thats the fixture i was talking about on the reefcentral thread way back. Its on a 1/4inch thick aluminum plate 12x12 inches. Looks great but the only difference is that i did 9RB to 3CB and 8NW to 4CW. If i could go back and change one thing i would have done 10RB and 2CB those things are powerful, which makes me think putting them and your white channel is asking for trouble (which is what im guessing your doing based on your LED numbers).

 

With the heatsinks they will probably stay cold, if you do aluminum plate get atleast 1/4" thick and a fan.

 

With the 12x12 plate there was plenty of coverage for my buddies oceanic 34 cube at 3 inches above the surface, we raised it to around 5 inches to get better color blending and consequently even more coverage. After about a month his corals are finally adjusting to the light at around 50%White and 60%Blue at a 700mA max.

 

Total cost around $370

[jfarabaugh]

...no kidding. No dremel :-) I was looking for an excuse to get one...don't disappoint me!

 

I tired that (at least with the stuff I had) it didnt work. I cut a 18"x12" piece cleanly in about 1 minute with the dremel. I would pick one up just because it is a kick a$$ tool to have.

[skymastre]

I tired that (at least with the stuff I had) it didnt work. I cut a 18"x12" piece cleanly in about 1 minute with the dremel. I would pick one up just because it is a kick a$$ tool to have.

 

 

definitely the encouragement I was looking for

[NeveSSL]

whats up man. if you check back on page 30 http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...6394&st=580 thats the fixture i was talking about on the reefcentral thread way back. Its on a 1/4inch thick aluminum plate 12x12 inches. Looks great but the only difference is that i did 9RB to 3CB and 8NW to 4CW. If i could go back and change one thing i would have done 10RB and 2CB those things are powerful, which makes me think putting them and your white channel is asking for trouble (which is what im guessing your doing based on your LED numbers).

 

With the heatsinks they will probably stay cold, if you do aluminum plate get atleast 1/4" thick and a fan.

 

With the 12x12 plate there was plenty of coverage for my buddies oceanic 34 cube at 3 inches above the surface, we raised it to around 5 inches to get better color blending and consequently even more coverage. After about a month his corals are finally adjusting to the light at around 50%White and 60%Blue at a 700mA max.

 

Total cost around $370

 

Doh! I completely forgot that you have pretty much already done this. I have about half of what I need already. Thanks for reminding me of your post. How far apart did you space your LEDs? And you didn't get any spotlighting, correct?

 

BTW, tell your buddy that rainbow Welso is one of the sweetest corals I've seen! Love it!

 

Thanks man!

 

Brandon

[Machupicchu]

Doh! I completely forgot that you have pretty much already done this. I have about half of what I need already. Thanks for reminding me of your post. How far apart did you space your LEDs? And you didn't get any spotlighting, correct?

 

 

BTW, tell your buddy that rainbow Welso is one of the sweetest corals I've seen! Love it!

 

 

Thanks man!

 

Brandon

 

There was a tiny tiny bit with the light spaced 3 inches above the water, but none spaced 5 or more, honestly i didnt measure the spacing too exact, i just spaced them evenly in the pattern shown in that post over about 11x11 inches space. Id say there 1.5-2 inches from star to star.

 

He gets that alot about the brain now that he has that light, the amazing thing is is that he scored it for $60 bucks from a LFS. Lucky bastard hahah

[NeveSSL]

Gotcha, man. Thanks for the replies. Where did you get the aluminum plate?

 

And that kills me he got that coral for $60! I would bet that coral would sell for $300 or $400 on eBay! That's awesome.

 

Brandon

[Machupicchu]

i got the aluminum sheet from a local weld shop. I would try to do the same because all of the websites iv seen the prices are robbery, plus shipping.

 

I paid 15 for mine. Which is still kind of expensive.

 

With the plate make sure you get a fan with decent CFM, 70> and design the fixture with plenty of ventilation.

[NeveSSL]

Thanks for the headsup on the fans. I usually use Yate Loon 120mm fans in all my PC builds and tanks, so I'll either pickup one medium speed (70cfm) or it may be even better to do two low speed fans for less noise (at 47cfm each... more air that way, too). I've also considered mounting a couple of $1 heatsinks to the aluminum plate to help with dissipation. I found this and these on eBay. We'll see.

 

Brandon

[nUgZ]

I got some custom LED's from Dave Fason. These things are ridiculously bright!! Almost too bright to get good pictures of the corals without pulling the fixture away some. I can't wait to get them set up over the new tanks. These pictures are without optics on the lights. The first pics are of the fixture and LED's themselves. The heatsinks are 5 1/2" x 10" x 1 1/2" and the LED boards are 4" x 4". They have 48 LED's each. These mimic a 400 watt halide.

 

 

 

 

These next pics are comparison shots between the LED's and the Radium 20k halide. The first pics will be under the Radium. The second pics will be under the blue LED's only. The third pics will be with the blue and white LED's on, but with the whites dimmed quite a bit.

 

Tyree War and Peace Favia on the left and Coraldiva's Blue Magic Chalice on the right under Radium 20k.

 

 

Same pieces under blue LED's only.

 

 

Same pieces under blue and white LED's.

 

 

Aussie Lords under Radium 20k.

 

 

Same pieces under blue LED's.

 

 

Same pieces under blue and white LED's.

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[NeveSSL]

Nice! Those look great!

 

Alright, Dave... lets hear some details.

 

Brandon

[Mr. Microscope]

What about using PINK LED's for that, "red skies in the morning" type of look?

 

I imagine it would really make some softies like Anthelia and Xenia look amazing. I couldn't find much out there for selection though. Here was the only fruit of my google searches. Kind of expensive, but 1 watt. So, not too bad for supplemental color.

 

http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/103694/...0LM-1W-LED.html

 

Edit: I just realized the price of $41 is for 20 of them. Not too bad I guess. 'Would probably need to blend them with a little white for the right effect.

[Mr. Microscope]

Any thoughts on pink? The specs say color temp 6000K-7000K. Seems interesting that its not measured in WL. Maybe it's a subtle whitish pink.

[DaveFason]

Forgot to post on here.

 

The boards are custom made with my specs. They have four banks of 12 LED's in a series and measure in at 4 1/8 x 4 1/8. The optics are wide ( ~45-50 degreee's ) Khatod 3Up. They are a bit pricey but have the best color I have seen on a LED setup.

 

-Dave

[reef44@]

I had to laugh at this picture. It reminds me of this old Tom Hanks movie I saw again recently called the Burbs. I know my LED array is bright but I never thought of taking a pic of the windows out side.

 

 

ITS COMING SOON

 

This is a picture from outside my house. The light is on the floor of my office with the blinds and the curtains shut. It is so bright I literally need to wear sunglasses in the room to avoid seeing spots and seeing in B&W for the next 10 minutes. Even better is the fact that I hit it with my cheapo spectrometer and I got the full visual spectrum with pretty even strength throughout…violet through red and ALL the colors in-between.

 

[MDreefer]

This is what my tank (no corals yet) looks like with pink light, this is my usual RB, NW, and Blue LED with the pink acrylic placed in front of them, looks ridiculous under the bright yellow/green one I have.

[dipanp]

Looking for some guidance. I have an idea of what I want to build, but not sure if the NW addition is worth it for me. It would cost a fair amount as I already have a bunch of 7up CW's. I also have 4up RB/B in 3/1 ratio, solo violet LED's, some Cree MCE's in RGB-NW, and some Nichia UV LED's.

 

The ratios I had originally planned resulted in setup #1:

 

CW 28

NW 2

RB 12

B 6

V 2

UV 1

R 2

G 2

 

I have extra RB/B 4up boards, so I could shift the color more towards blue since the CW XPG's are so powerful. The resulting numbers is setup #2:

 

CW 14

NW 2

RB 18

B 8

V 2

UV 1

R 2

G 2

 

Or I could go somewhere in between with setup #3:

 

CW 21

NW 2

RB 15

B 7

V 2

UV 1

R 2

G 2

 

I wanted to decide on the numbers first before deciding how to power them. I will use 6 of these modules total, 4 over the display and 2 over a frag tank. I planned on having my Profilux control them all via DALI dimmable drivers (ELDOled) and 0-10V dimmable Meanwells, or maybe the new nanotuners drivers. I will want independent color control just for fine tuning color. Plus the reds and greens would probably be on a very low setting.

 

With all the proponents of neutral white in this thread I am second guessing myself as to getting so many cool whites, but I already have them now and getting more neutral whites would be pretty costly. I figure if I want some 7up NW boards, it will cost me maybe $50 per module, so maybe $300 total from Cutter. Might be worth it. A decent setup with one 7up board per module would result in a variation of setup #2 with one NW 7up board substituted for a CW board:

 

CW 14

NW 9

RB 15

B 7

V 2

UV 1

R 2

G 2

 

Part of the reason I put this build off for so long is I couldn't figure out a good way to drive all these LED's. Still having some difficulty, but things are looking better with the newer drivers that are becoming available.

[Mr. Microscope]

This is what my tank (no corals yet) looks like with pink light, this is my usual RB, NW, and Blue LED with the pink acrylic placed in front of them, looks ridiculous under the bright yellow/green one I have.

I was thinking perhaps a little subtler, but interesting.

[dipanp]

This is the pattern I had in mind, with optics, mounted well above the water surface. Enough to light the bottom, but not the walls. I have a couple optics to try with most of the LED's I have.

 

[DaveFason]

To much stuff going on and to much spacing. No reason for a RGB.

 

-Dave

[dipanp]

To much stuff going on and to much spacing. No reason for a RGB.

 

Thanks for the input. I like your incredibly compact grid of LED's, BTW!

 

I will try to tighten the layout as much as I can. The RGB MCE's I ordered almost a year ago when I thought some different colors would be useful. That's when I ordered the rest of the LED's with the exception of NW as well. I have them already and so will probably implement them, but will have each color on independent dimming control. I will be able to turn them down or off as needed aesthetically.

 

I know green has already been rejected here, but I did make some observations about it some time ago that encouraged me to get the RGB MCE in the first place. I picked up a Quark RGBW flashlight that uses a single RGBW Cree MCE and was playing with it a bit. It picked up oranges in coral incredibly well. Same glowing effect that the blue gave. It picked up some highlights of red also. I wish someone had not stolen my DSLR or I could have taken some Zoa shots showing this.

[doctaq]

what kind of driver do you have to independly control the channels?

if i had to use an rgb the mce would be the definate choice

[dipanp]

what kind of driver do you have to independly control the channels?

if i had to use an rgb the mce would be the definate choice

 

I was going to use a gazillion Meanwell ELN-60-48D's until I discovered potential issues with them. Low PFC being a big one, but inability to connect enough of them to my aquarium controller as a secondary big issue.

 

I will use DALI compatible four channel 100 watt drivers made by eldoLED. The aquarium controller (Profilux) has a DALI interface option for light control, so this would be great. The drivers are pretty expensive though, at a listed $230 on their website (PowerDrive AC model):

 

http://shop.eldoled.com/?e=ZIGKrYol3pZM1LZ...HSvQUHshsAQi-6Y

[Hans Dorn]

I had a look at the MCE datasheet a while ago and found the white and blue part to have extremely low output.

 

What gives? They're pretty expensive to have such crappy dies.

[evilc66]

Thanks for the input. I like your incredibly compact grid of LED's, BTW!

 

I will try to tighten the layout as much as I can. The RGB MCE's I ordered almost a year ago when I thought some different colors would be useful. That's when I ordered the rest of the LED's with the exception of NW as well. I have them already and so will probably implement them, but will have each color on independent dimming control. I will be able to turn them down or off as needed aesthetically.

 

I know green has already been rejected here, but I did make some observations about it some time ago that encouraged me to get the RGB MCE in the first place. I picked up a Quark RGBW flashlight that uses a single RGBW Cree MCE and was playing with it a bit. It picked up oranges in coral incredibly well. Same glowing effect that the blue gave. It picked up some highlights of red also. I wish someone had not stolen my DSLR or I could have taken some Zoa shots showing this.

I think you will find that the neutral whites will give you much of the same effect with less complication. They have much more output in the green to red ranges, which will pick up more warmer tones in corals.

 

I had a look at the MCE datasheet a while ago and found the white and blue part to have extremely low output.

 

What gives? They're pretty expensive to have such crappy dies.

These came out before the advent of the XP-G. The whites are about right when compared to XR-Es at the same current (not necessarily top bins). The blues do seem quite low, but that could have been a decision to make it easier to balance colors.