DIY LED build - progress finally!

[justahobby]

Now I'm leaning towards a DIY again. I love the idea of getting exactly what I want (who doesn't right?) and being able to change/ replace individual parts should anything fail or not be up to ...uh... par. What's holding me back though is I cannot, I repeat, cannot solder. And I have no idea what I would need.

Say I bought this kit.
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-61/06-Ultra-Premium-LED/Detail

Then I would need these to bypass soldering?
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-LEDs/Categories]

And I would need a heat sink. Which size would be best? Do I use glue or drill?
http://www.heatsinkusa.com/categories/4.230"/?sort=priceasc (http://www.heatsinkusa.com/categories/4.230)

Fans? What else?

How could I make each color dimmable??

[Europhyllia]

For the Seahorse DIY fixture I used a pre-drilled heatsink but still glued the stars on with that heat transfer glue stuff. My first seahorse tank measured 18" across and I used a 12 LED heatsink.

I did not use any fans for it.

To make them dimmable I used Buckpuck dimmable drivers. Those are tiny but require fairly large powersupplies. The powersupply are remote though so that does not affect fixture size. One powersupply could support 12 LEDs but each of the drivers only goes with 6 LEDs if I remember right.
Mine come on at once and go off at once.
If you used the drivers that dipan was selling off through Gabe you could use a ReefKeeper with the light module to gradually turn them on and off.

I bypassed soldering by having Stephen do the soldering. lol

[justahobby]

Only part you lost me on was the heat sinks. You used individual heat sinks? Do you remember where you ordered your stuff?

[justahobby]

Drivers I was looking at based on advice Evil gave others:
http://ledsupply.com/03023-d-e-1000p.php

[Europhyllia]

oh here's a 'what I learned form this':

I ordered all of the supplies from 4 different places. I also wanted the warm whites and ordered them from Cutters in Australia because I didn't find them here in the BIN number I wanted for the seahorse tank.

I was unsure of their optics/lenses so I went with the nanotuners lenses. In hindsight I'd go with the lenses from the same provider as the stars/LEDs because the lenses are designed to just snap on and if you use lenses from a different supplier - well then they don't hold very well.

So my only tip would be to just buy them from the same place.

[Europhyllia]

Only part you lost me on was the heat sinks. You used individual heat sinks? Do you remember where you ordered your stuff?

yeah I edited that. individual POWERSUPPLIES. Sorry (was just stopping by the computer for some leftover Italian food snacking and didn't pay adequate attention...)

As far as drivers goes those are exactly the dimmable Buckpucks I have (support 6 3w LEDs each)

I ordered LEDs and heat transfer glue from Cutters (free shipping if you spend $99 or more or else I could have gotten the heat transfer glue from anywhere)

The powersupplies came from MPJA (16854PS 24V, 6.5A POTRANS POWER SUPPLY )

Drilled and Tapped 4.25" x 9" Heat Sink for 12 LEDs and 1 Y-shaped Hanging Kit from Rapid LED

3023-D-E-700P Wired 03023-D-E-700P BuckPuck, 700mA Output,DC Powered w/Potentiometer and Aluminum Potentiometer 03021HEP-KNOB Turn Knob from LEDSupply

and CREE XP LENS - 60 DEGREE OPTIC from Nanotuners

Like I said if I had to do it over I would just get 60 degree optics from Cutters to fit their stars/LEDs better

[Europhyllia]

Oh and I almost forgot: snazzy black acrylic cover for the fixture to make it look nice from Jack/Wet Acrylic

I added an acrylic shield to that after the fact but of course it would have been smarter to just have Jack design it with a track for a shield.

[justahobby]

....

As far as drivers goes those are exactly the dimmable Buckpucks I have (support 6 3w LEDs each)

I ordered LEDs and heat transfer glue from Cutters (free shipping if you spend $99 or more or else I could have gotten the heat transfer glue from anywhere)

I got lost on Cutters. I knew to click on XPG and discovered the price break is at 10 for a single LED, but I was thinking 10 LED's total and didn't see any blues or royal blues offered

The powersupplies came from MPJA (16854PS 24V, 6.5A POTRANS POWER SUPPLY )

That's the power supply I was going to get, but it says they are not carrying that model anymore :Timeout:

Drilled and Tapped 4.25" x 9" Heat Sink for 12 LEDs and 1 Y-shaped Hanging Kit from Rapid LED

3023-D-E-700P Wired 03023-D-E-700P BuckPuck, 700mA Output,DC Powered w/Potentiometer and Aluminum Potentiometer 03021HEP-KNOB Turn Knob from LEDSupply

I was seeing people regretted the 700mA and upgraded to 1000mA.... which is the same price. Would I be overdriving the bulbs?

and CREE XP LENS - 60 DEGREE OPTIC from Nanotuners

Might install optics later, still don't know if I'm keeping the hood. I really like the idea of a wet acrylic enclosure. Could you post pics of it?

Like I said if I had to do it over I would just get 60 degree optics from Cutters to fit their stars/LEDs better


I added an acrylic shield to that after the fact but of course it would have been smarter to just have Jack design it with a track for a shield

Hmm, good idea

.[/QUOTE]

So what does "tapped" in drilled and tapped me? I thought tapping referred to sinking the screw in :confused:

[justahobby]

Really like what this guy did with the pots:


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1805116

http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd214/TahoeDust/photo4.jpg

[Europhyllia]

I have my knobs right on the fixture. They're small enough to where you don't see them from the front.

Here's what I think tapped and drilled means:
I added my acrylic shield by using a drill press to drill through the shield and all the way through the heat sink.
The drill bit created a hole.
Hole by itself doesn't do much good so after I drilled the holes I used a tap to tap the hole meaning I created a thread for the long 4-40s screws I was using so that I could screw the acrylic shield to the heat sink.

So when I hear drilled and tapped I expect: The heatsink comes not only with holes but the holes also have screw threads.

That's just my guess based on the process of adding the acrylic shield on

Cutters can be confusing. Download the CREE spec sheets from CREE with the bin numbers and you will find Cutters is somehwat of an LED candy store. It's wonderful to be able to choose from all these color temps! XPG are the whites. XPE are the colors. I strongly suggest a mix of blue and royal blue. regular blue is kind of greenish, royal blue is sort of purpelish

Stephen was the one suggestion the 700 for the reasons you described

picture of my fixture:
11317

[Europhyllia]

you can download the specs with the bin numbers here:
http://www.cree.com/products/ledlamps.asp

then you can use that bin info to shop at cutter

or you can just go with what places like nanotuners are offering. much smaller selection so not many choices you need to make!

[Kristy]

Dang, Karin... You never cease to amaze me!

Justin you should have sat next to Stephen at the TOTM social yesterday and you would have had this all ordered by now! :)

[justahobby]

No kidding! Of course at that time I was still juggling with par bulbs. I'm actually surprised you didn't make a comment on my flip flopping :P

[Kristy]

You gotta be joking! If you only knew the many versions of the light that Stephen and I kicked around before we settled on one to hang over our little hex! Stephen, I'm still working on a small thank you gift for you for all the consultation and attempts at education... :D

[justahobby]

Karin, did you add fans to your heatsink?

Kristy, glad I'm not the only indecisive person

[Europhyllia]

No fans for me. If you want to add fans by all means do. We just thought at the 700 we run them at the large heatsink would be sufficient.

Interesting sidenote: You know the AI units come with fans right? I recently wrote AI to ask why my fans on the AIs never come on and they said the AI fans only turn on when the lights are on 100% (which I don't run them at anyway).


Dang, Karin... You never cease to amaze me!
I know what a weird combination of totally clueless and full of (actually good) information, right!?

[justahobby]

Sent you a PM Karin, but figured other people will be reading and learning as well. So in looking up colors I am starting to find threads of people unhappy with the combination of Cool White (CW) LED's and the Royal Blues (RB). One guy seems advocate using Nuetral or Warm white. He is making a lot of sense at the moment and I am putting a couple of his comments below.

Karin, Why did you use WW and did you use any CW? What was your ratio of RB:B? And ratio of ALL blues to ALL whites

Stephen, same question.

Anyone else w/ a DIY.... :D



http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1885076&highlight=nw+cw+rb



The problem you are running into is the spectrum produced by cool white LEDs, which are are heavy on blue and green spectra, but weak on anything else. They are designed to be bright, but not have good color. The excessive green of cool-white LEDs cancel out pinks, purples, red and other colors and then relies on actinic to pop colors. This is why we don't use daylight CFLs over our tanks, of which cool-white LEDs are similiar. Talk about a double standard. There is no scientific reason to use cool-white LEDs on your reef tank. Somebody started doing this in their basement and everybody copies and defends this. The growth energy in LEDs is in the far blue anyways. you have no idea how many reefers I run into that are complaining about this and went back to halides.

What I advise everybody who's going DIY LED is try different LED combos first on a small heat sink, and verify your favorite colors. My favorite combination is two royal blues combined with a single 4100-3500k neutral. This produces color more similiar to deep K halides and gets rid of the sterile white LED look. I proved it - I brought a couple of my LED lights to the local reef shop that runs XMs, Radiums, and Reeflux and we all compared. Everybody loved the LEDs with my warmer mix and hated the LED light with cool-whites and RBs. The warmer mix also looked close enough to the halides to be competitive. 1:1 RB/cool-white works good for a parking garage.



Again, the color problem is greatly helped by simply trying different color combos, such as warmer LEDs closely flanked with two or even three RBs. It will get you in the ballpark of 20k or 14k halides and actually drive actinic colors harder. This fixes color disco problems as well. Also, once you stop using cool-white LEDs Cree doesn't have such an efficiency lead and there's more LED options.
(http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1885076&highlight=nw+cw+rb)

[justahobby]

And why did you want a specific bin?

[Europhyllia]

the bin gives you the specific color temperature (see the spec sheets) so all R4s are between xyz k and abc k, etc.

I used a 50:50 ratio of whites to blues on my DIY fixture. I think that resulted in a very versatile fixture. Right now I got the whites on 100 and the blues on maybe 60 or 70% but if I ever took it off the seahorse tank someone could crank up the blues and give it more of a conventional reef tank look.

I used 1/3 warm whites and 2/3 neutral whites. That looks very pretty on the seahorse tank and I have no regrets there. The warm white/ neutral white full spectrum does seem to support cyano a bit more than the cool white spectrum.

I used all Royal Blue on the DIY fixture but if I could do it over I would go with 50:50 RB:B. The greenish hue of the regular blue would look nice on macro I bet.

So... I love the look of the warm whites on the seahorse tank but don't regret the cool whites on the reef tank either because the cyano was really bothering me there and I like how it just melts away without that red spectrum.
True there are tanks that look very blue but I think that's owner related. A lot of T5 tanks have tons of blue bulbs on them too. Some people just like that look.

Overall I find the cooler look suits the Carribean Reef tank and it's somewhat softened by the 3000k lit background anyway and the warm whites look nice and swampy on the seahorse tank. It might just depend on what kind of environment you are trying to recreate.

Get dimmable drivers so you can tweak it.

[txg8gxp]

All of my builds so far have been with cool whites and a combo of blue and royal blue. I like the higher lumens output of the cool whites but wouldn't mind trying others in the future

[justahobby]

Well I found what I want to emulate, but need help getting there. Check out this post:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18213683&postcount=540

Now, where do I find Semi LEDs? How do I replace/ substitute that 15w emitter?? He is using 7 diff temps/ colors and i'm only going to have 12 bulbs max. I need to do some thinning, but not sure where to start.

[Europhyllia]

Seems overly complicated. If he wants more red spectrum why not go with warmer whites instead of the 12000k and 16000k whites and then adding two red LEDs in the middle of it ?
Or am I reading this wrong?

[Europhyllia]

Reread it and what he wants is a Fiji purple look. You will find that the Royal Blues are very purpley

Is that tank shot a picture of the before (T5) or the after (LED)

[Kristy]

Wow, he certainly achieved the purple look he was going for. Those colors are pretty wicked!

[Kristy]

Karin, that photo has to be the After (LED) pic.

[Europhyllia]

okay if you want a really purple tank but only have 12 LEDs I'd go with a higher ratio of Royal Blues to the regular blues. Royal blue are not royal blue at all in my opinion. They are very purpley. Regular blue are fairly greenish blue.
Don't bother with the red unless you want to highlight a red sponge in a certain location or something like that.
If you want to add some warmth all over a warmer temp white will do more for you than really cool whites with a puny single red light in the middle IMO.
You only have 12 spots to fill. 7 different colors on such a small area will look odd I think.
If you get dimmable drivers you should be able to blend the colors fairly custom even without adding all the extra colors

Personally I am more for a natural 'diving' look than the all blue or all purple tanks but I understand that more intense color might be more appealing if you look at it less from a 'imitating nature' and more from a 'showcasing stuff' standpoint

[justahobby]

A big portion of that entire thread was going over ways to achieve the 420nm spectrum, which it appears he did. And also weed out some of the greens, and give a 3rd dimension missing from WW, NW, and CW so corals don't appear 2 dimensional or "flat" as recently described here on MAAST

[Europhyllia]

I am familiar with that thread. I followed it when I was trying to decide on what to do. I think it has a lot of good points. I wouldn't be surprised if future pucks (is that what they call them?) for the AIs will include warm whites, etc.
I guess while you are deciding what to do consider if you want to go with lenses or without optics. Without optics you might have a chance of your assortment of colors on a small area blending together. With lenses it might look pretty weird on a small tank with just one or two of each.

That thread definitely has helped me in regards to what to do on the seahorse tank but it also was a little going in circles for me considering the pros and cons and getting back to where I started. lol

Anyway: you asked where you could thin it out. I'd drop the red first and then go from there depending on what look you are going for

[Europhyllia]

so corals don't appear 2 dimensional or "flat" as recently described here on MAAST
really? where's that?

[justahobby]

I'm not shooting for a more purple look. IMO it is a bit too purple. But if you look at spectragraph (sp?) it nails down colors that are missing from the others. Adding more blues or RB won't change the fact that the CW is still only putting out one wavelength around 6.5k which washes out colors by giving off too many greens. Same goes for the WM having too much yellow. I may be on a rabbit chase, but time will tell.

[justahobby]

II don't recall the thread but cory and someone else was talking about it and mentioning how he had a hard time taking pictures on the led tAnks.

[justahobby]

Going back to the rabbit chase, I'm saying all this without really seeing any LED aquariums in person. I may settle for RB's, NW's, and a blue or two. :D

[justahobby]

How much spacing did you give to your LED's, any pics?

[Europhyllia]

Oh I remember that thread. :)
Taking pics of LED tanks can be tricky I think because while our brain will blend the colors the camera might not (which is actually what I was trying to describe above: your single red LED on a 12 LED board is not going to fill in the whole tank with that 'missing element' you are looking for)

Also the tank Cory was taking pictures of for our TOTM thing ended up with very blue pics. True. But it's just as blue in person because the owner seems to like a very blue tank. You can get that in T5s too.

Because of LEDs being more of a single source light I think they make the corals look anything but 2-dimensional. In fact after getting LEDs on the seahorse tank I just couldn't stand looking at the T5 lit reef tank.

People might not like the color and that's okay. But if I would describe a lighting source as turning corals into more 'flat, 2-dimensional' it would be T5 -not LED.

Is LED perfect? Nope. Is it possible that MH has a more attractive look to it. Absolutely. Do the advantages of LED outweigh those differences? In my opinion yes. But that's different for everybody. Maybe MH could be the answer for you? Have you considered that?

Here's the thread you were referring to by the way! :) http://www.maast.org/showthread.php?65731-WHY-DON’T-YOU-HAVE-LED-YET (http://www.maast.org/showthread.php?65731-WHY-DON%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99T-YOU-HAVE-LED-YET)

(and man I have spent so many hours researching and looking at data and spectographs before settling on something so I totally know where you are coming from! lol)

[Europhyllia]

How much spacing did you give to your LED's, any pics?
spacing is pre-determined on your predrilled heat skink if that's what you are referring to.
Or are you asking module spacing on the big tank

[justahobby]

Forgot you had a predrilled heatsink. And no, I'm sold on LED's..... not interested in metal halides even the slightest bit. Just trying to get all my ducks in a row.

[Europhyllia]

here's more charts to look at (for those interested in a 'natural' look):
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/8/aafeature

[txg8gxp]

Not to add more options to your list but for a 420nm look take a look at the true violet LEDs. Only down side is they have a max current of 500 mah. Cool whites are only 6500k at low current at higher current they are around 8300k

[txg8gxp]

There is way too much info for me to type out on my iPod so if you want give me a call sometime

[justahobby]

Haha no prob. Will call you in a few. And big thank you to both of you!

[justahobby]

Decided on a color combo and placed the order. Here's what I went with:

7- RB
1 - CB
4 - NW

I'm not 100% sure if I want to stick the CB (Blue) on the NW puck or not. I'm thinking so. That way I can fine tune the RB to prevent getting too much violet colors without sacrificing the CB.

Any ideas on where to put it? I was thinking close to the center.

My heat sink will look like this:

X X X X
X X X X
X X X X

[justahobby]

After TONS of searching I finally found a driver perfect for my application. I had given up looking for several months because I couldn't accept that there wasn't a product out there that fit my needs. I almost went with DIY CAT4101 drivers and making an arduino controller, but then I found out I needed a custom PCB board.

That's when I found the Thomas Research drivers on nanotuners. You don't need a separate 10v supply for dimming like meanwells. Just add a pot AND they can fire 6-15 LED's. I ordered one, but love having the option to order a second if I decide I need to dim 2 sets of 6 LEDs separately. Or easily upgrade the whole fixture later with better range than meanwells and less hassle than buckpucks and powersupplies :bighug:

[Texreefer]

I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds cool!

[justahobby]

LOL. In a month I will have forgotten what it means.

Before nanotuners started carrying the Thomas Research drivers your only choices were DIY, Meanwell, or buckpucks. Each had their issues.
DIY is an amazing option and I will definitely look into that again for future builds, but you need a custom circuit board
Meanwell couldn't do 6 led's and if you want dimming you have to add separate chips and power supplies.
Buckpucks were better options, but still frustrating because you need separate power supplies which means you had to order different parts from different places, mixing and matching if you decide to tweak anything.

[Tommy]

Decided on a color combo and placed the order. Here's what I went with:

7- RB
1 - CB
4 - NW

I'm not 100% sure if I want to stick the CB (Blue) on the NW puck or not. I'm thinking so. That way I can fine tune the RB to prevent getting too much violet colors without sacrificing the CB.

Any ideas on where to put it? I was thinking close to the center.

My heat sink will look like this:

X X X X
X X X X
X X X X


Hey Justin did you order wiht RapidLED I'm problemly couple week late but if you do order from Mike again, just mention my name Tommy he will give you a good discount.

[justahobby]

Thanks Tommy. I've been thinking about placing another order with them.

[Tommy]

My just came in today Mike did a one day shipping for me, but than the heatsink was delaying LOL :cry_smile:

[rrasco]

Justin, did you finish this project?

[justahobby]

Finished it, didn't like it, haven't decided my next move.

[Europhyllia]

What a bummer after so much effort, Justin!
So what went wrong? Didn't like the colors?

[Tommy]

What a bummer after so much effort, Justin!
So what went wrong? Didn't like the colors?


I agreed what happen Justin ??

[justahobby]

It wasn't nearly bright enough, had to raise it too high (lost even more light) to get the colors to mix, and wasn't happy with the colors. I could add a couple cool whites, but the dimness deterred me from trying again. Only thing I can think of is maybe using different wires (non braided) fed less power....? Or because I went with 700ma instead of 1a driver.

[rrasco]

Did you use CREE? I'm planning a large LED fixture and am trying to gauge people's experiences with various equipment.

[justahobby]

Yes, all cree