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DIY LED in t5 shop light with diamond diffuser


cocojakes

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Okay, so i'm starting to get a little annoyed with my Kessil's, I've had one completely fail on me, and now it looks like I have burnt out LED chips in the others too. But mostly although I love the shimmer, and colour mixing without the banding (most important part to me) but they are just too directional, and I'm noticing corals dying as they grow new heads or new branches, that shade old ones. And almost all my SPS have no flesh on their undersides anymore. (although their tops look beautiful)

 

SO, i'm thinking about how I would go about adding dispersed light, like how you would with a T5 addition to a MH, but I really don't want to deal with the heat, and bulb replacement aspect of t5, and want more control over the spectrum than just "add a purple bulb".

 

This is more of a feeler, to see if anyone has done what i'm planning, and how well people think it will work. The idea is to get two 48" t5 work lights similar to the picture here:

 

12360250_10156322377150346_6073134680897

 

 

 

and basically put 8 little pucks of:
2x Royal Blue

1x True Violet

1x Red

1x Blue

1x cool white

1x cyan

 

in each (each line is its own, controllable channel, so I don't need to worry about ratios, I will just dim some of them a lot more than others)

 

and then have 2 central pendants each with a single 12W neutral white LED (debating between 4,000k or 5,000k)

 

 

The idea, is that the two luxeon M 12 watt LEDs, with no optics, and no diffuser, provide the single point source bright white shimmer lines, and then the rest of the LEDs in the fixtures behind the diamond diffuser act like t5 bulbs providing an even wash of a blueish purplish hue, to the tank, giving much more even spread of light to fill in the shaddows, and the diffuser should make it so there is minimal to no shimmer lines from them, meaning no colour banding.

 

Would this work? or am I giving the diamond diffuser too much credit, and I'll still get gross multi coloured shimmer lines?

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I've tried that diffuser before, and it just didn't cut it as far as diffusing the light. I'm not overly concerned with the diffuser creating far lower par values than I would otherwise have from the same number of LEDs, as I have no issue sticking in a stupid amount of LEDs, plus the par from the 12W whites will help. My main concern is fully diffusing the light, so that it provides almost no shimmer, and an even light across the tank, similar to t5. I figured the best way to get an even colour is to put them in spread out little pucks (16 pucks total over a 75 gal) but maybe theres a better way?

I plan on buying some of the diamond diffuser to test out with some LEDs to see how well it would really work. I'm open to ideas for better diffusion materials that will eliminate the shimmer lines, and subsequent disco effect though. This just seemed like a very tidy way of doing it, and making it look like a real fixture in my hood as well lol

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I'm slightly confused.

 

So you want to retro two t5 shop pendants with small clusters and 2 larger whites? Would the whites be in a third fixture or 1 white on each T5 retro?

 

I'm not really an expert on this stuff - but it seems like you can probably skip red assuming your using a warmer white. IME red and green are big culprits of banding.

 

Why the cool white in each cluster? Maybe use lime instead of cool white there?

 

Finally, if your goal is to have the least amount of banding and the most T5 like spread, it seems like it would be ideal to have identical groupings all along the length of the tank. So have 8-10 clusters of the following (or more if you want to scale):

 

3x 1 WW & 2 RB on a 3up star

1x 2 blue & 1 cyan on a 3up star

1x 2 violet & 1 lime on a 3 up star

 

That would be 15 LEDs in a small area and if you provide good heatsinking, close to the tank with no optics. It could be modified to have more clusters (16) but still make use of the 3ups...

 

Or just get a bunch of these and call it a day: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/355869-nano-box-v3-array-lime-luxeon-t-uv/?p=4923124

 

Haha anyways someone else will probably chime in with something way better but until then you can read my post haha

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The idea would be to have the two neutral whites as pendants, or have one larger fixture, and have cut outs for the two neutral whites. The idea behind the red is to allow for colour control, to get a slightly more purple colour, without blasting the corals with violet light. the idea would be like:




c = cluster, w= white,

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

| c c c c c c c c |

| |

| w w |

| |

| c c c c c c c c |

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

 

 

or the other idea was 2 smaller fixture type ideas, with:

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

| c c |

| |

| c w c c w c |

| |

| c c |

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

 

 

either way, the cool white in the clusters is just to be able to add a little bit of visible light if needed, in ambient lighting, without the overpowering bright neutral whites. The idea is that everything other than the two point sources, are diffused, eliminating banding.

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The idea would be to have the two neutral whites as pendants, or have one larger fixture, and have cut outs for the two neutral whites. The idea behind the red is to allow for colour control, to get a slightly more purple colour, without blasting the corals with violet light. the idea would be like:

 

 

 

 

c = cluster, w= white,

 

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

| c c c c c c c c |

| |

| w w |

| |

| c c c c c c c c |

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

 

 

or the other idea was 2 smaller fixture type ideas, with:

 

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

| c c |

| |

| c w c c w c |

| |

| c c |

|--------------------------------|---------------------------------|

 

 

either way, the cool white in the clusters is just to be able to add a little bit of visible light if needed, in ambient lighting, without the overpowering bright neutral whites. The idea is that everything other than the two point sources, are diffused, eliminating banding.

 

I think I understand you on the red... But I still think it's acting contrary to your objectives - besides most people don't like the purple look. Obviously though aesthetics are up to the individual.

 

As for the cool white adding visible light, I think that's precisely what the limes are for. Apparently green is the brightest color to the eyes and lime is a good way to brighten things up without altering the coloration. JMB has a good write up on it on this forum and supposedly you don't need much. I should have lime incorporated into my fixture in a few weeks and I'm pretty excited.

 

Finally, I realize white is pretty good at blending, but do you think there will be shadowing with only having 2 white LEDs? I could be wrong though because I'm essentially doing the same thing over my 40b hehe.

 

Still, it sounds interesting I'm curious how it turns out.

 

Here's my plan, 2 clusters over a 40br. I'm basically replacing four 3w whites with one 10w white per cluster, removing one red per cluster, and adding three limes per cluster. The LEDs will be as close together as I can get them.

 

post-39800-0-24010700-1448301900_thumb.jpg
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Are the Kessils under warranty? They tend to have good customer service. I would try to get them fixed and then build a T5 retro around them. Make yourself a canopy of sorts to house the Kessil and T5 with proper ballasts.

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Aj, nice to see you still on here.

How is the 40b doing btw??

 

Following along here,as I will be looking into a DIY led for my 40b

Hey man, thanks :)

 

The 40b is doing well - about to go through a re-scape. one of these days I'll actually start a tank thread hehe.

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  • 2 weeks later...

the one that had a full section burnt out was replaced, my main concern is with the intense shadowing from having just point source lighting (its like having a metal halide with no t5). I also am not a big fan of the blue spectrum, I want to be able to add more of a purple colour.

 

As an aside, any theories on how having 4x 3W LEDs running at 250mA is going to differ from 1x3W LED at 1000mA as far as power, and penetration, etc.

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