Thinking DIY LED

[danewell]

dmatt88 wanted me to post what I was thinking and get some ideas. I agree I should just don't like keep posting threads on similar topics.

Here is what I am thinking from ReefLEDLights.com

2 x 18″ Drilled and Tapped (+$165.50)
4 Inventronics Dimmable (+$130.00)
4 CoolTron Fans w Powersupply (+$28.95)
10 XP-G w Inventronics 1050mA & Carclo Optics (+$109.50)(High noon kit)
Two 12 position euro style terminal block. (+$9.00)
Carclo Ripple Wide (+$74.40)

The tank is a 110 (48x18x30), wanting to be able to keep pretty much anything. Currently have Zoas, Green Star polyps, Waving hands (xenia),and more mushrooms than I can count. This will give me 58 LEDs and I am thinking of arranging it to where the back row is all blue (used for moon lighting as well), next row alternating white and blues, next high noon mixed with blues, front row white and blue. Tips and advice greatly appreciated.

 

[BigAl07]

I'm not 100% sure but I'd think you may want a few more LED than what you're proposing. I'm working with someone on a customer LED for my RSM 130D (only 34g) and I'll probably have around 24 - 30 LED and that's in a much smaller footprint. Also I'm just tossing some ideas out there but you may want to add in a few GREEN and RED LED into the mix.

 

[danewell]

Who are you working with onthe custom? You can PM it if you want. Thanks.

 

[reefer gladness]

I don't think you can have too large of a heatsink but the bigger they are the more expensive. Something to consider if you're doing a complete DIY project, you could use a single heatsink that runs the full length of your tank.

After comparing the efficiency of various heatsink profiles on heatsinkusa.com I decided to use the 5.375" which has nearly the same cooling capacity as the 8.46" profile. Point being that using the dimensions of a heat sink as a measuring stick of it's cooling efficiency can be misleading.

The depth of your tank is the challenge and this will probably give you incentive to use 60 or even 40 degree optics to focus the light to that depth. I exchanged a few emails with the staff over at rapidled.com for my project and they gave me good recommendations for how many LED's and of what type to achieve the Kelvin I wanted.

In retrospect the only change I would do in my project would be the addition of some regular blue LED's in addition to the royal blue but I can still add them on later.

I would not use the 3 watt blue LED's for moonlights. There are low-power LED's that you can use for that purpose, check out the moonlight LED's on rapidled for an example.

My project used 28 LED's (14 cool whites/14 royal blue) and I think the heatsink is 21" long. The hood in my RSM 130D has 2 fans running constantly but to be honest the top of the hood and the air coming out are both room temperature so I'm pretty sure I could run without the fans - and the fans are the noisiest part of my tank currently.

FWIW, I expect my next tank will be using the Kessil A150W or something very similar. Dense matrix LED technology is the future in my book. The prices really stand out as being low compared to other reef capable LED's and the advances being made in cooling are pretty exciting (check out the video of the Spectral Halo grow light on Kessil's website for a look at their vapor exchange cooling block).

 

[dmatt88]

Good info. My Xmas present to me is led lighting. I'll learn from ur mistakes dean. Cheers! Clink.

 

[danewell]

Thanks buddy.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

I don't think you can have too large of a heatsink but the bigger they are the more expensive. Something to consider if you're doing a complete DIY project, you could use a single heatsink that runs the full length of your tank.

After comparing the efficiency of various heatsink profiles on heatsinkusa.com I decided to use the 5.375" which has nearly the same cooling capacity as the 8.46" profile. Point being that using the dimensions of a heat sink as a measuring stick of it's cooling efficiency can be misleading.

Gotta disagree with the first paragraph! haha

I used a single 48" heatsink over my tank and consider it a great mistake. It even fell once while adjusting and destroyed a colony into frags and gave me a nights worth of work of cleaning up and replacing a router. I now believe and encourage folks to take a modular approach for convenience, safety and functionality.

it gives you greater control on how to place your light and also allows it to be more versatile and be used on other tanks.

The other factor with heatsink size is not just cooling efficiency but layout. I have had folks asking about using narrow heatsinks and then loading them up with LEDs. This effects coverage and spotlighting because even tho optics are, "80 degrees" they can have most of their power within 40degrees, etc.

There are a bunch of ways to do it right, and 1000 ways to do it wrong. Thats why we spend so much time on education and information.

 

[reefer gladness]

Fair point, safety should always be a concern when designing a light system. In my case I used the long profile heatsink to avoid the very problem you experienced. It was intentionally cut longer than the space it covers and it's simply not possible for it to fall through to the tank unless my canopy breaks apart.

Good thing to bring up though, it was a major consideration in my project considering I live in an earthquake prone area.

 

[BigAl07]

Re: HeatSinks - Also take into account that if you go "modular" you may get better cooling (depending on how your cooling system is designed) because the extra surface area on the sides gets airflow in between units. I found this to be the rule when helping install some LED into a Non-Reef setting. We got better cooling with 4 smaller heatsinks because the air was able to flow around the heatsinks better than over/under one large unit. Plus by using smaller units (we found this out because the larger heatsink was out of stock) we got more units for less money. The larger heatsink was a CUSTOM size and the smaller ones were "stocked" size. It ended up being a Win-Win situation. Also the "Modular" heatsink idea added less weight to the over-all project. This may or may NOT be a consideration depending on if weight really matters. This was a "Hinged" lid so weight on version 2.0 was a good bit better. On the flip side... going modular on the heatsink did slightly complicate wiring and "attaching" the units. It was quicker and easier to do one larger heatsink but multiples ended up working out better in every other respect.

 

[BLADEYAMAHA]

Man BigAl tell him about the 3Watt 420nm Actinic/Purple/Violet LEDs, please.

 

[BigAl07]

Man BigAl tell him about the 3Watt 420nm Actinic/Purple/Violet LEDs, please.

:LOL: Trust me I've already brought it up and hope to hear something back maybe as early as today. I'm dealing with a significant "time zone" difference so I have to wait on the "sun to come up over there" LOL!