GU10 LED Build Thread (Chinese Ebay Lights)

[Nitro Reef]

Will do Belac. I've been looking into different companies and how they are placing the different color led beads. Hopefully the camera I have will show the color differences.

[Belac]

From what I have seen internal wise they are just soldered down. (with or with out paste on the heat sink)

Shouldn't be to hard to rearange LED beads. Planning on gutting a warm white bulb that I got in a while ago. Goign to mix those in with three of the cool white bulbs. That should help get a little broader spectrum going.

[Nitro Reef]

I'm thinking of starting with this arrangement of led beads.

 

 

[Belac]

Did you buy the red beads or did you just buy a red light?

[Nitro Reef]

I bought just the beads. It was actually pretty easy to change out the beads.

I'll put in just one red bead and post a picture of what it looks like. The only thing is they won't be delivered til the end of the month.

[Belac]

I feel the pain of waiting.

[ChouDawg]

Since I've decided to go with a Cree LED setup I'll be selling off my GU10 setup. I'll either sell it as a 9 bulb fixture 3x3 layout, all wired up with separate center Actinic, hanging hooks and black acrylic sides or I'll sell the bulbs and sockets individually. If anyone is looking to take the dive and doesn't want to wait or needs some extra bulbs I'll have the following:

 

8x 2B/1W Bulbs with 60º optics

1x 3B Bulb with 60º

1x 2W/1B Bulb with 60º

2x 3W Bulbs with 30º

10x GU10 Sockets

 

All bulbs from luckzdl2008 and all 100% working, I've been running them for about 2.5 months. PM me if anyone's interested in some/all of the bulbs or the fixture.

[Chino]

Just got a reply for luckzdl2008 regarding his purple LED.

"Dear friend

Thank you very much for your time.

Sorry, our purple led wavelength is 400-410nm, it is more expensive than the 420-435nm purple led."

400-410 an issue?

Also, can anyone give me some pointers on how to install beads? Also, where I can get a soldering kit.

[dustbust]

Ok new setup. What do you guys think of this?

 

do I need a red when the WW are as low as 3700k

I will have extra blues and ww's to play with. I also might buy one cool white so I can possibly interchange if my color looks bad visually.

[Belac]

 

Also, where I can get a soldering kit.

 

You can get basic kits at radio shack, walmart even sells irons back in the automotive section. Harborfreight has them too. Though from experence I would tell you to not get the 'hobby' kit that is supposed to be a wood burner, hot knife, and a soldering iron. I always get cold joints when I use it for a soldering iron. I ended up fixing my old iron and useing it out of frustration with my 'new' one. Don't get led free solder if you can help it. A lot of the led free is crappy long term.

 

Plenty of videos on youtube about how to solder.

one is pretty good, what I watched of it.

[mcarroll]

Ok new setup. What do you guys think of this?

 

do I need a red when the WW are as low as 3700k

 

I will have extra blues and ww's to play with. I also might buy one cool white so I can possibly interchange if my color looks bad visually.

 

Unless you're planning to run very wide optics, you're going to be blasting the h*77 out of the tank with that 3x3-row arrangement. (Even without optics it will be a considerable amount of light if the tank is shallow.) I'd consolidate down to one row with 30º lenses (standard) and raise the light for more coverage/less intensity, if needed.

 

If your drawing is proportional, it looks like your tank's footprint is only about 10"x12"....if so, a single row at 12" height will still be monster in effect.

 

Red and Warm White generally look like crud. If you haven't seen them in person, I'd order a single sample bulb before placing your whole order with them.

 

If this is your first GU10 fixture, I'd stay with the formula of 1 Cool White : 2 Blue in a straight row, smack-next-to-each-other. I think using the 2B:1W bulbs from luckzdl2008 is a good way to go for a smaller footprint like yours. And go with at least 12" height...higher if you happen to need more coverage area.

 

My guess is you will be pleased with the result, but if not you'll have a good base to further experiment from with other colors.

 

-Matt

[papaj10789]

I run 9 bulbs over a 7.5 gallon at about 7" over the 11.8x11.8x13 tank. Zoos spreading like crazy. Frogspawn is already growing another head at only 4 months. Happy corals. 5rb and 4cw

 

Edit: I run a mixture of 60 and 30 degree optics depending on distance to Sandbed/rock

[Nitro Reef]

What should I use to glue down the led boards to the heat sink. Is thermal adhesive the same as thermal paste? Two of my lamps blew out probably due to the heat because I didn't fasten down the boards.

[Belac]

No there is a difference between adhesive and paste. You probably will have to oder the thermal adhesive online. I think I remember reading some where you can mix super gule and paste to get a thermal adhesive. But honestly I think that would be a bigger hassel then buying it pre made.

Odds are that either the driver went or the leds. So I would test both before you junk it.

[dustbust]

more possible layouts.

 

ill have extras of all so i will do some experamenting with color combos.

[flamethis]

Hey guys, I've done a ton of reading here but I'm still feeling apprehensive about this. I am setting up a 34G Neo Nano, so it's a 24x24 footprint with 12 depth. The light bracket is approx 15" above the water.

 

I was thinking of retrofitting these into a 24" 165w PC unit. So I have some questions, do I need a heat sink to mount the sockets? How many bulbs would you guys recommend? I was thinking 2 rows of 6 staggered (1 row white, 1 row blue)..

And last question, can these bulbs be dimmed?

[Belac]

No need for a heat sink the bulb's shroud is the heatsink.
I haven't gotten my fixture finised. However the concencious is the equation on the first page is a good place to start for bulb count.

[Nitro Reef]

Thanks again Belac. I opened up the rest of my bulb fixtures and noticed that more than half of them the led board wasn't even attached to the heat sink. I guess I have to watch who I buy from!

[Julian_blnc]

Hey guys, starting up an LPS/Zoa 20 Long,

Any recomendations on bulb combinations, amounts, and mounting height.

Any dimmamble Gu10 also that you guys are also aware of

Thanks

[mcarroll]

The concept of running the bulbs in a line with an alternating B:W color pattern (see the first post) is primarily due to the tight optics and the limits they place on color mixing between the bulbs.

 

If you can imagine a 30° bulb, there's only an inch or so of "light radius" outside the rim of the bulb that can mix. If you mix colors in bulbs like the luckzdl2008 bulbs I think it can still work, but you still need the A:B alternating pattern and you'll need it to be as tight as possible.

 

-Matt

[Julian_blnc]

Thanks matt for the quick response,

I have 2 4 watt cool white bulbs and 2 3watt "blue" bulbs on my desk that ive been expiermenting with.

using the formula 14 bulbs would be enough for a 20 long using 7cw and 7rb in a line touching

 

Is that what you would reomend or is there a better combo using other colors and mixing

thanks

[Belac]

Thanks again Belac. I opened up the rest of my bulb fixtures and noticed that more than half of them the led board wasn't even attached to the heat sink. I guess I have to watch who I buy from!

Doesn't have to be attached for the heat sink to work. Just have to have good contact. The lenses hold them in place so there is enough contact for decent thermal transfer. Thermal grease/adhesive wouldn't hurt, but as long as the fight is close enough and there is pressure holding it to the sink it shouldn't matter to much.

 

Julian - From what I under stand that is pretty much the pattern every one is useing. When I get mine finished like that I may play with added in more individual colored beads like Nitro is going to try. But honestly I don't know when/if I will get to trying that. Going to see what other people's tanks look like when they try to go full spectrum with GU10.

[mcarroll]

Speaking to no one in particular, and at risk of being slightly off topic...I know it's sorta de riguere at this point to use the phrase "full spectrum", but it's so uselesslely misleading when talking about LED's - misapplied for no good reason, so far as I can tell.

 

Let me tell you why I think so, and if you care you can tell me why you do or don't think so too. (If you don't care, don't worry - these bits will be recycled!)

 

In terms of lighting, "full spectrum" was only meaningful when it was used in contrast to "not full spectrum" lighting.

 

Sunlight, which deliverers all wavelengths of our visible light spectrum, is the standard for "full spectrum".

 

By contrast, we have florescent and high pressure bulbs that have wide gaps in their output spectrum. High Pressure Sodium is one example that is more obvious to the naked eye, but many of the florescent lights that are sold for common household use actually have much more unnatural and dramatic "gapping" in their spectra. Not-full-spectrum lighting.

 

For reference: Once high CRI bulbs started showing up, the rare-earth blend that made it possible became more and more widely used to the point today where any bulb marketed for the purpose of aquarium use (of which the are many) is going to be full spectrum. However, even some of the spiral CFL bulbs around my house still have gaps in their spectrum, FWIW.

 

What has absolutely no gaps in its spectrum? White LED's. They all have a very naturalistic "daylight" spectrum - from the reds through the blues - that is not gapped at all.

 

Although probably not relevant to the general lighting market, it can be argued that since a ~450nm emmitter is the basis of most white LED's, that there is a "gap" below 450 that may concern our corals (...also a bit of a deep-blue spike.). This is interesting (how much of a gap? how important?), but I think the term "actinic" which is already used to describe this group of wavelengths would be more useful in this discussion than "full spectrum". People are familiar with adding actinic light to their tanks because they've been doing it since the Phillips Actinic03 T12 days! :-)

 

If the point of adding some other color(s) is not that there's a gap (such as adding reds, greens), then I think kinda by definition you aren't "full-spectrum'ing" your light, you're doing something else.

 

Maybe saying "full spectrum" gives the light "more pop". ;-)

 

-Matt

[Belac]

You know I never thought about that. And I know your right. Because when I buy bulbs for my planted tanks you want something with a really high CRI and a good kelvin to boot, if you can find both on one bulb. Never clicked in my head for some reason. Though you are right there is a point where artifical light just doesn't go and I think anatic is probably the starting point.

It would be impossible to have true 'full spectrum' lighting as it is usually called with leds. They have a range per LED and there always will be some gaps. Think I am going to call it color enhancemnet lighting from now on.

[ktaylor660]

So I have read almost this entire thread today. My question is....has anyone tried the Violet or RGB versions? I found a 3X1 Violet here...

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3W-3x1w-UV-Ultraviolet-Color-LED-Bulb-purple-light-395nm-405nm-lamp-/180892577479?pt=US_Light_Bulbs&var=480145547872&hash=item2a1e09aec7

 

and a RGB here....

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Epistar-Dimmable-GU10-3-3W-9W-6W-BLUE-Coloured-LED-Spotlight-Lamp-50W-RGB-Globe-/281044554034?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Wall_Lights&hash=item416f8f9132

 

I'm looking to supplement my Ecoray LED's on both of our tanks. These seem perfect for what I am looking for, but have only saw the white and blue builds so far.