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1 LED 20W CW+RB


acabgd

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Hello to all of you,

 

I wanted to share my experience with the relatively new "combo-LED", which is a 20W CoolWhite + RoyalBlue module in one piece.

 

post-71436-1330901416_thumb.jpg

 

I was a bit sceptical about the possible power of these LEDs, so I ordered two pieces, just to be on the sure side. However, once they arrived I tested them quickly and it turned out I would light the whole room if I put the two LEDs at once. I therefore decided to go with only one and possibly add another one at a later stage if needed at all.

 

post-71436-1330901221_thumb.jpg

 

An old CPU cooler with a fan was used to attach the LED, and the biggest problem turned out to be the cutting of the tank cover in order to accomodate the big cooler.

 

post-71436-1330901244_thumb.jpg

 

I tested the temperature before putting the whole setup in the cover and the temperature never rose above 35C. Once inside, it did rise briefly to some 51C, but once the cooler started to dissipate heat, the temp went down to around 40C which is acceptable. There is no discernible heating of the tank water, I am sure that the plexiglass cover over the LED light helps in directing heat the other way, as well as the fan which circulates air.

 

Once the light was on the shimmer was incredible! This gave the tank a whole new look and the room is now also filled with intensive blue light. Actually, I'm really happy with this solution and I'm now waiting to see what will my corals think of the new light.

 

post-71436-1330901316_thumb.jpg

 

post-71436-1330901332_thumb.jpg

 

post-71436-1330901346_thumb.jpg

 

post-71436-1330901361_thumb.jpg

 

The only problem I've had were the drivers, or rather the LED actually. It draws over 2 amps of power (measured up to 2.05A) and the drivers I've bought go only to 1.67A, and were not powerful enough. I therefore had to improvise and connect 2 drivers inline in order to get enough power. The drawback is that one driver gets very hot as it runs at almost maximum power all the time, so I will have to find another solution with a stronger driver.

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where did you get the led's from? very interesting

 

Got them via FleaBay from Hong Kong for the whole US$19.00/pc and arrived surprisingly fast in less than two weeks. The low price did put me off at the beginning as I've thought it must be rubbish, but I said why not give it a try, it's not really a waste, can use them for something else if this doesn't work.

 

However, it works much, much better than anticipated with the only problem being the aforementioned high amp draw, meaning I will need new drivers.

 

Here a short video which (sort of) shows the amount of shimmer. Shot by mobile so sorry for quality.

 

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MOJOEJOEJOE

real nice. I got my led`s from China as well. I ran them for over a year with no problems and now I have newer led`s with better color.I still have the original`s and plan on using them for a different project. Mine are 10 watt and are real bright. I like the color combo. Do you have a link to where you got them?

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I've actually been looking at these as well for quite awhile and wondering if they would be any good. They actually have par readings on the auction page (PAR reading(Instrument: Apogee MQ-200): 252 231) but there not too specific if its par readings are from point blank, or from the sand bed at ~ inches off the water... Have you messaged them at all? I wonder how good the customer service is. Btw, is this the same one? 20w Hybrid LED If so I wanted this driver for it. it has over heat protection and would help with its lifespan. 20W Led Driver - Over Heat Protection

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I've actually been looking at these as well for quite awhile and wondering if they would be any good. They actually have par readings on the auction page (PAR reading(Instrument: Apogee MQ-200): 252) but there not too specific if its par readings are from point blank, or from the sand bed at ~ inches off the water... Have you messaged them at all? I wonder how good the customer service is. Btw, is this the same one? 20w Hybrid LED If so I wanted this driver for it. it has over heat protection and would help with its lifespan. 20W Led Driver - Over Heat Protection

If you do end up getting a few and some drivers let us know how they work out. It seems a few of those (3-4?) would be perfect over a 30.

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I need to chek this out. I actually am going to create a pendant with two 50w LEDs. One cool white and the othe royal blue. Going to order one hybrid 50/50 first see how that works. Anyone know a meanwell driver I could use?

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I've actually been looking at these as well for quite awhile and wondering if they would be any good. They actually have par readings on the auction page (PAR reading(Instrument: Apogee MQ-200): 252 231) but there not too specific if its par readings are from point blank, or from the sand bed at ~ inches off the water... Have you messaged them at all? I wonder how good the customer service is. Btw, is this the same one? 20w Hybrid LED If so I wanted this driver for it. it has over heat protection and would help with its lifespan. 20W Led Driver - Over Heat Protection

 

I've got mine from the same seller, but I got these claiming 20500K Cool White + 453nm Royal Blue

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270887022492?ssPag...984.m1439.l2649

 

These also claim to have a little higher PAR reading at 308, compared to PAR 231 for the 10000K + 453 Royal Blue version.

 

Just as you've said, the PAR reading is pretty useless not knowing what distance from the LED they mean, point blank or a few inches off, or water surface, or...?

 

I didn't use any special connector, this is as you said just red/black shrink tubing. Wiring was quite easy to solder as the LED board is big enough.

 

And yes, I did have communication with the seller as I wanted to order drivers as well, but they didn't have appropriate ones at the time. I therefore got them locally from a shop, but as I've said I didn't count with over 2.05 amps of power being drawn from a single LED. Anyone using these LEDs should pay attention to this high power requirement for the drivers.

 

I will try to get a PAR unit from our reefers club this week and take some readings.

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I've got mine from the same seller, but I got these claiming 20500K Cool White + 453nm Royal Blue

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270887022492?ssPag...984.m1439.l2649

 

These also claim to have a little higher PAR reading at 308, compared to PAR 231 for the 10000K + 453 Royal Blue version.

 

Just as you've said, the PAR reading is pretty useless not knowing what distance from the LED they mean, point blank or a few inches off, or water surface, or...?

 

I didn't use any special connector, this is as you said just red/black shrink tubing. Wiring was quite easy to solder as the LED board is big enough.

 

And yes, I did have communication with the seller as I wanted to order drivers as well, but they didn't have appropriate ones at the time. I therefore got them locally from a shop, but as I've said I didn't count with over 2.05 amps of power being drawn from a single LED. Anyone using these LEDs should pay attention to this high power requirement for the drivers.

 

I will try to get a PAR unit from our reefers club this week and take some readings.

Yeah, the Super actinic one. I was gonna pull the trigger and buy one but it annoys me the limited options (dimmable 50w driver but no 20w, and optics for the 50w but not the 20w) and not knowing the color the tank will be compared to the pictures of the leds behind paper it seems really blue and needed some white supplement. But judging by your pictures it looks really nice! I just might have to buy one. from what i remember 100 par on the sand bed is adequate for softys (correct me if im wrong) so all it would come down to is getting it close enough to the water to get atleast that (if the par readings were taken point blank). It would work well with my pico and ive already got a video card heatsink perfect for it because the center of the heatsink has copper that draws heat from the square to the whole heatsink, I've got an arm as well that i could attach it to. How many of these or even the 10w would it take to span a 30g breeder since you've seen the spread? (36") Mabe 3-4 20w or 5-6 10w?

 

Let us know how the tank likes the light... lol your our guinea pig.

 

Pics of my possible build

don't mean to hi jack your thread but might give you some ideas and help me get advise... :happy:

 

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Graphic card cooler is definitely better than CPU cooler, being much "thinner" (the CPU cooler is like a tower!) and having copper for better heat dissipation.

 

100 par on bottom should be adequate for most softys, but I would really try to take PAR readings in my 7g tank and see what values are realistic.

 

I would say 3x 20W should be enough for a 36" breeder tank - but again depending on real PAR values. I'll try to get these this week.

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That looks really nice. If the PAR values stack up I might be considering for my tanks here.

 

how do you think the 50W hybrid would be??

EPISTAR_45mil_50W_actinic.jpg

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For me the 50W was not an option due to the small size of the tank. I would have to lift it up real high in order not to burn everything within the tank, and that would beat the purpose of having it all in one LED. But for larger systems - sure, that's an option, again with the caution about high amp draw and need for good drivers (even more so for the 50W).

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jedimasterben

I'm seriously considering these for my new setup (and hell, maybe even converting my 55g/75g tank over to them).

 

My new setup is a dual-tank waterfall-style build set up like this:

tankssetupside.jpg

 

tankssetup.jpg

 

 

Bottom tank is 24"x12"x12" and the top tank is 24"x12"x14", and the top tank will be raised up by around 10".

 

I'd like the lights to be four inches higher than the rim of the top tank, and the fixture will be flat and not droop down to have the lights also close to the bottom tank, so the lighting would be 28" higher than the substrate of the bottom tank.

 

I have several combinations of these high powered LEDs to consider, but ALL will be supplemented with 3w LEDs, 8x violet, 4x cyan, 4x pink, and 4x red to finish out the spectrum.

 

I could do 3x 10w supers, 3x 20w supers, or 5x 10w supers, as that's all the driver options I have (they are the only dimmable ones).

 

They would be arranged as such (top view of the 24"x24" footprint of the two tanks):

 

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or

 

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-----X----------------X-----

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Working on uploading Google Skethups of these diagrams, my work connection is being finicky though.

 

EDIT:

Ok, here they are. I made two different views for each setup, with 120 degree and 60 degree cones, since most of an LED's light is within the first 50% of the cone.

 

Three LEDs, 120 degree cones, front

three120degreefront.jpg

 

Three LEDs, 60 degree cones, front

three60degreefront.jpg

 

Three LEDs, 120 degree cones, back

three120degreeback.jpg

 

Three LEDs, 60 degree cones, back

three60degreeback.jpg

 

Five LEDs, 120 degree cones, front

fivelight120degreefront.jpg

 

Five LEDs, 60 degree cones, front

five60degreefront.jpg

 

Five LEDs, 120 degree cones, back

five120degreeback.jpg

 

Five LEDs, 60 degree cones, back

five60degreeback.jpg

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everything looks pretty happy... no one knows your tank better than you tho. what do you think your corals reaction is to the light?

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Corals seem to react well to the light but it's still too early to say for sure - only 2 days. They open and seem okay, will see if the top one closest to the light might find it too strong or not.

 

Dimmer should be arriving, I did order two of the 20W dimmers as I plan on adding another 20W ComboLED. My plan is to have a better spread and also to drive both at 55-60% and thus prolong their life and keep the heat down.

 

I'm certainly looking forward to following growth of corals, as I feel this will be the only real indication on whether this type of ComboLED is really useful.

 

Thanks for all your comments!

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Their PAR readings might be correct, but one most note these are not for a single LED module, but rather for their 120W mount, which means 12x 10W LEDs. Such high PAR numbers are then to be expected.

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Wow this looks promising... Thanks acabgd for being bold enough to try this out...

 

It's amazing how many different options there are now for LEDs... Where it was once Cree CW & RB in pretty massive arrays, there are now other LED manufacturers getting good results on the 1w/3w stars, the GU10 bulbs, these high power arrays, and other things as well.

 

I would be interested in seeing a larger build with these LEDs to witness the color blending and get some ideas as to spacing, intensities, and optics (and if someone finds a good driver for a few of these! or the 50w ones). You could even supplement with some additional 3w stars using the exotic colors to change things up a bit.

 

One question though, on this array are the blues and whites powered separately for independent dimming?

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what are you using for the dimmer ? can you post a link to it?

I am still waiting for dimmers, ordered on Feb 16 and still didn't arrive :(

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110823726395?ssPag...984.m1439.l2649

 

These guys however use the el cheapo "economy international mail" which probably travels by steamboat and donkey carts and allegedly often takes over a month to arrive. But I'm getting restless...

 

Wow this looks promising... Thanks acabgd for being bold enough to try this out...

 

It's amazing how many different options there are now for LEDs... Where it was once Cree CW & RB in pretty massive arrays, there are now other LED manufacturers getting good results on the 1w/3w stars, the GU10 bulbs, these high power arrays, and other things as well.

 

I would be interested in seeing a larger build with these LEDs to witness the color blending and get some ideas as to spacing, intensities, and optics (and if someone finds a good driver for a few of these! or the 50w ones). You could even supplement with some additional 3w stars using the exotic colors to change things up a bit.

 

One question though, on this array are the blues and whites powered separately for independent dimming?

 

No prob, I was really curious to try it out and finally find out how they really perform.

On this power LED the blues and whites are all on the same die, therefore not possible to dim independently.

 

I have another 10W blue LED which I might use if needed to add some more blue, but your suggestion on additional 3W stars with other colors (ie. violet) is something I already envisaged for the future.

 

Anyway, next plan is to add another same 20W comboLED when dimmers arrive and then experiment with the 10W blue and see if it's needed and brings some improvements. Afterwards it's off to experimenting with other colors (hoping that my corals will survive all of this...heh)

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What you've got there, is a cheap version of the Kessil, and likely if you put the two side by side color would be very similiar along with PAR.

 

I like how they added the phosphor coating in a single strip over the array. Leave it to the Chinese to be practical :-)

 

I really wish they'd use a much warmer phosphor though. The benefit of doing it this way is perfectly smooth color blending.

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