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Innovative Marine Aquariums

GU10 LED Build Thread (Chinese Ebay Lights)


TinyGiant

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I think mine came from the same place.

Soldering was a piece of cake, I had also taken the pcb off the heatsink, but because the heatsink was in the way...

 

I used a tweezer and alternating tapping the legs of the emitter to get the emitter off the pcb.

Then I heated my soldering station to 400 and just place the led and making sure there was some molten solder on the tip (this is important for fast heat transfer!) and just tap one leg of the emitter until the leg "drops" through the solder onto the pcb.

Next check if the led is lined up properly and do the same to the other leg.

 

I hope this is clear, my soldering station is rated for 50W but I think having some

Solder on your tip is more important (higher temps also help, heating the emitter for too long is really bad!)

 

Jbowser

 

Jbowser, where did u order your bulbs from? I got mine from LED-HK and I had a hell of a time trying to get the solder to melt in order to swap the LED's like you did... I really like the effect of the 50/50 but I only managed to get one bulb like that. I tried another bulb and the solder wouldn't melt because the heat was being transferred to the heatsink, so i took the heatsink off. It still took a lot of heat from the soldering iron to melt the solder and it turned back to solid very quickly. I ended up damaging the LED and the electrical trace on the circuit board that attaches to the heatsink shroud.

 

How many watts is your soldering iron? Any tips you Nan pass my way regarding this?

 

Thanks!!!

Edited by jbowser
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I think mine came from the same place.

Soldering was a piece of cake, I had also taken the pcb off the heatsink, but because the heatsink was in the way...

 

I used a tweezer and alternating tapping the legs of the emitter to get the emitter off the pcb.

Then I heated my soldering station to 400 and just place the led and making sure there was some molten solder on the tip (this is important for fast heat transfer!) and just tap one leg of the emitter until the leg "drops" through the solder onto the pcb.

Next check if the led is lined up properly and do the same to the other leg.

 

I hope this is clear, my soldering station is rated for 50W but I think having some

Solder on your tip is more important (higher temps also help, heating the emitter for too long is really bad!)

 

Jbowser

 

 

I just did this tonight, with a 30w soldering iron and without removing from heatsink, no problem.

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I think mine came from the same place.

Soldering was a piece of cake, I had also taken the pcb off the heatsink, but because the heatsink was in the way...

 

I used a tweezer and alternating tapping the legs of the emitter to get the emitter off the pcb.

Then I heated my soldering station to 400 and just place the led and making sure there was some molten solder on the tip (this is important for fast heat transfer!) and just tap one leg of the emitter until the leg "drops" through the solder onto the pcb.

Next check if the led is lined up properly and do the same to the other leg.

 

I hope this is clear, my soldering station is rated for 50W but I think having some

Solder on your tip is more important (higher temps also help, heating the emitter for too long is really bad!)

 

Jbowser

 

hmmm... dunno what i'm doing wrong... maybe my soldering iron just isn't hot enough. thanks for the advice tho.

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hmmm... dunno what i'm doing wrong... maybe my soldering iron just isn't hot enough. thanks for the advice tho.

I have a $5 soldering iron from radio shack and I was able to do it without a problem.

This is what I did to remove the LED.

1. Clamped down the GU10

2. Heat up the area you want to unsolder.

3. With a small flathead lift the side that is heated

4. Do the same thing on the other side of the LED

Edited by dlogfx
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I have a $5 soldering iron from radio shack and I was able to do it without a problem.

This is what I did to remove the LED.

1. Clamped down the GU10

2. Heat up the area want to unsolder.

3. With a small flathead I lifted the side that I was heating up

4. Did the same thing on the other side of the LED

 

+1 same here, and holy hell what an improvement to color blend/

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So i just ordered some different color singular LEDs, that i am gonna play around with on my gu10 fixture. I got Royal blue, Red, green, and violet. I will be sure to post results!

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So i just ordered some different color singular LEDs, that i am gonna play around with on my gu10 fixture. I got Royal blue, Red, green, and violet. I will be sure to post results!

I kind of did the same thing you were thinking. I used the same led color ratio and wavelength as the EcoTech Radion. The color eneded up looking like a 12k MH but with the color pop that LED's have so the color was very even and natural looking. As for the growth I can't say because I stopped my fixture using it shortly I added all the diffent color LED's. I'm planning on setting up a frag tank and I will use my GU10 lights to see what kind of growth I get...

But I'm really interested in seeing how your light turn out. So keep us posted.

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I kind of did the same thing you were thinking. I used the same led color ratio and wavelength as the EcoTech Radion. The color eneded up looking like a 12k MH but with the color pop that LED's have so the color was very even and natural looking. As for the growth I can't say because I stopped my fixture using it shortly I added all the diffent color LED's. I'm planning on setting up a frag tank and I will use my GU10 lights to see what kind of growth I get...

But I'm really interested in seeing how your light turn out. So keep us posted.

 

How many bulbs was your fixture, and how many of each color did you add?

 

I already busted out the soldering iron and flip flopped one blue for one white in each bulb, so they now alternate 2b:1w to 1b:2w, and that did LOADS for my color blend.

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Got a new soldering iron and that did the trick on my 4W bulbs. I now have 2 blue and 2 white LED's on each of the bulbs and the colour blend is sooooo much better. I only have my lights sitting 6 inches above the tank (six of these 4W bulbs for a 5gal DIY AIO), so it made a huge difference from before.

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Got a new soldering iron and that did the trick on my 4W bulbs. I now have 2 blue and 2 white LED's on each of the bulbs and the colour blend is sooooo much better. I only have my lights sitting 6 inches above the tank (six of these 4W bulbs for a 5gal DIY AIO), so it made a huge difference from before.

 

do you still use the optics?

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i'm using 3 blue and 1white on my bulbs (4x1w e26). the color is about 20k.

 

i used a 25w iron with out the board being attached to the heatsink's. it works but i would recommend a higher wattage iron as its taken about a minuite to heat the board enough to get a hot joint. i use an angled pick and place it under one of the legs whale using my desoldering iron to heat the leg of the led. a little upward pressure when the solder is molten will lift it off. i tried using my soldering iron but it was no strong enough to get the leds off without lifting a trace.

 

for soldering them back on i use a alligator clip to hold one leg of the led to the board as i solder the free end. once one is soldered you can remove the alligator clip to solder the remaining leg.

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Lucas in alaska

I purchased some 5x1W blue and white bulbs in the past to test them out but have never gotten around to it. I now see there are some 3x1W true royal blue 460nm bulbs we can get. I guess it pays to procrastinate.

 

I have a 40 breeder and am planning on 32 bulbs (2 rows of 16) with 60 degree optics (I plan on mounting my bulbs 4-6 inches from the water). In the future I plan on adding 4 of each deep red, True Violet and Turquoise from LEDgroupbuy to better improve color.

 

I contacted the seller of the true royal blue 460nm bulbs and he said that he can put in 60 degree reflectors if I would want and to make a note when I put in my order.

 

From what I read I wonder if he could make up 16 bulbs with 2blue and 1 white bulb and 16 bulbs with 2 white and 1 blue?

 

Anyways, what is the ratio I should use with the new 460nm bulbs 1:1 or 2:1?

Question #2 is 32 bulbs going to be enough for LPS and in the future maybe a SPS, clam and/or RBTA?

 

Thanks

Lucas

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I purchased some 5x1W blue and white bulbs in the past to test them out but have never gotten around to it. I now see there are some 3x1W true royal blue 460nm bulbs we can get. I guess it pays to procrastinate.

 

I have a 40 breeder and am planning on 32 bulbs (2 rows of 16) with 60 degree optics (I plan on mounting my bulbs 4-6 inches from the water). In the future I plan on adding 4 of each deep red, True Violet and Turquoise from LEDgroupbuy to better improve color.

 

I contacted the seller of the true royal blue 460nm bulbs and he said that he can put in 60 degree reflectors if I would want and to make a note when I put in my order.

 

From what I read I wonder if he could make up 16 bulbs with 2blue and 1 white bulb and 16 bulbs with 2 white and 1 blue?

 

Anyways, what is the ratio I should use with the new 460nm bulbs 1:1 or 2:1?

Question #2 is 32 bulbs going to be enough for LPS and in the future maybe a SPS, clam and/or RBTA?

 

Thanks

Lucas

 

I would do 3 rows of 10-12 and i like the 2 blue to 1 white.

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I purchased some 5x1W blue and white bulbs in the past to test them out but have never gotten around to it. I now see there are some 3x1W true royal blue 460nm bulbs we can get. I guess it pays to procrastinate.

 

I have a 40 breeder and am planning on 32 bulbs (2 rows of 16) with 60 degree optics (I plan on mounting my bulbs 4-6 inches from the water). In the future I plan on adding 4 of each deep red, True Violet and Turquoise from LEDgroupbuy to better improve color.

 

I contacted the seller of the true royal blue 460nm bulbs and he said that he can put in 60 degree reflectors if I would want and to make a note when I put in my order.

 

From what I read I wonder if he could make up 16 bulbs with 2blue and 1 white bulb and 16 bulbs with 2 white and 1 blue?

 

Anyways, what is the ratio I should use with the new 460nm bulbs 1:1 or 2:1?

Question #2 is 32 bulbs going to be enough for LPS and in the future maybe a SPS, clam and/or RBTA?

 

Thanks

Lucas

 

If you get 60 degree optics, i think 6" would be great, but if you are stuck with the stock optics, you will be much happier if you go 9"-11" of the tank. Also, 1:1 is a little white, but 2:1 is a little blue, lol. On mine i moved some LEDs around on the bulb themselves, so i have a 2w:1b bulb for every blue bulb. It is Really easy to do with a soldering iron

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never!

 

you guys were doing such a great job.. i didnt really have anything to add :P

 

 

the guy with the good epistar bulbs has them listed again. I'll hopefully be doing an order of 10 or so soon... might have some blues for sale (for those who dont want to wait for chinese shipping times)

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never!

 

you guys were doing such a great job.. i didnt really have anything to add :P

 

 

the guy with the good epistar bulbs has them listed again. I'll hopefully be doing an order of 10 or so soon... might have some blues for sale (for those who dont want to wait for chinese shipping times)

 

I saw that... I have been waiting on him. It would appear he took an extra loon Chinese new year break. Also, as long as your markup isn't too extreme, I may take you up on that. Just made a 30g frag tank to plumb into my new system. Should be pretty cool. It is gonna be a 40b and the 30g frag tank plumbed into a 40g fuge/sump, but the 2 tanks are gonna be in different rooms.

 

it is 36Lx18Wx11H Should i do a single row of 24 bulbs, or 2 parallel rows of 13-16? gonna be 50/50 mix or thereabouts. either 60 degree optics at 7" or standard optics at 10"

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I saw that... I have been waiting on him. It would appear he took an extra loon Chinese new year break. Also, as long as your markup isn't too extreme, I may take you up on that. Just made a 30g frag tank to plumb into my new system. Should be pretty cool. It is gonna be a 40b and the 30g frag tank plumbed into a 40g fuge/sump, but the 2 tanks are gonna be in different rooms.

 

it is 36Lx18Wx11H Should i do a single row of 24 bulbs, or 2 parallel rows of 13-16? gonna be 50/50 mix or thereabouts. either 60 degree optics at 7" or standard optics at 10"

 

 

i would do the double row of 16 bulbs alternated :)

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i would do the double row of 16 bulbs alternated :)

 

I was thinking so too with the 18" width. will 16 be spaced closely enough for adequate coverage/blending do ya think?

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well they are 2" wide so thats 34" wide.. should be perfect.

 

i have 22 across my 55 plus i added a few on the front and back to highlight areas

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jus do it evenly. so like 6" probably

 

 

6" from the edge of the tank then the next row 6" from the first row.. so that the bulbs are 6" from each edge of the tank

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jus do it evenly. so like 6" probably

 

 

6" from the edge of the tank then the next row 6" from the first row.. so that the bulbs are 6" from each edge of the tank

 

Sounds great, Thanks!

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This is a great thread.... i ordered about 20 gu10s, half from led-hk and the other half from the below vendor. I am going to buy some more and the vendor will sell me some with 60 degree optics instead of the 30 he has listed on ebay. How many do i need for a 75g tank. I am not planning on putting too much in it... maybe some soft corals.... With the 20 gu10s i have know should i just take the optics off or am i better off just raising the lamps up higher??

 

one

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