Awesome! Will follow along for sure!! Did you get any extras to pimp your skimmer :lol:

 

Yay! Tag! Your it!

 

I have been thinking of a similar kit but the dimmable solder version with 80* lenses for my 37G (30x12x22) tank. What size tank are you putting this on?

 

^I believe he is putting them on a 40B!

Welcome to the club Doc! I was wondering how much longer you were going to hold out! When I ditched my two 150 W halides, my kitchen/house cooled off significantly. I also save about $15 a month in electricity between the bulbs and fan I had to run to keep the tank cool! Looking forward to this build.

I tend to favor a more blue look, around 12-15k. I wish I would have gone 2-1 blues to white on my build. I have my whites dimmed as far as I can yet still keep them running. When I add 24 more led's to my heatsinks for my 90 upgrade, they will be all royal blue/blue. No more whites for me!

 

^I believe he is putting them on a 40B!

Welcome to the club Doc! I was wondering how much longer you were going to hold out! When I ditched my two 150 W halides, my kitchen/house cooled off significantly. I also save about $15 a month in electricity between the bulbs and fan I had to run to keep the tank cool! Looking forward to this build.

I tend to favor a more blue look, around 12-15k. I wish I would have gone 2-1 blues to white on my build. I have my whites dimmed as far as I can yet still keep them running. When I add 24 more led's to my heatsinks for my 90 upgrade, they will be all royal blue/blue. No more whites for me!

That is exactly what I am doing. The white really does overpower.

 

I went 2-1 blue on mine and I still think its too much white.

 

Yep it is going on the 40B. The nano might be next if I like them :lol: I waited until AFTER I graduated to start up a "build"... did not need the distraction. The down side is that I am expecting a few more days of 90+ degrees in DC while the light is currently in Richmond Ca... so much waiting.

Haha, I actually like the 65k look. I like the bright white-yellow look of mid-day sun. With the staggered schedule, it will be mostly blue for most of the photoperiod with the whites on for a much shorter time.

I am also only using 24 LEDs on the 6x20 heatsink with a capacity for a total of 36 LED so I can add more blue if I want. While I went non-dimmable, I figured I could upgrade the drivers later but oh well. And since I owned an AI SOL (Blue) back in the day (yeah, how many folks can say that) I can compare the pre-fab standard against the DIY (sans soldering).

 

sounds good Doc!

I'm adding LEDs to my 40g breeder, I went with 9 blue, and 9 white...

they will not replace my MH but will run all day and the MH only 3 hours or something...

 

I thought about that... but decided that I will use a whiter mix of LEDs for the "3 hours" of additional peak lighting.

I also went with the bigger heat-sink so that I can sink additional heat. Each LED will have about 5 square inches of surface space worth of heat-sink... the 6"x9" with 24 LED would offer only 2.25... so I have more than double. Sorry... I am quick&dirty engineering it. :lol:

I think I will run 8 blues, and 4 cool whites for the main 6-7 hours of normal lighting for my own "viewing" while running 4 blues, 6 cool whites and 2 neutral whites for the peak lighting.

I also get a fair amount of natural sunlight between about 2pm-6pm from Feb to about the end of October.

 

I'm just wondering why single LEDs instead one led? I seem to have better results in my daughters tank with the single led chip than when I did the Cree 3w LEDs..

 

Following This should be cool. Ive really been thinking about LEDs for my tank. I dont want to come off the money it would cost for ecotech or AI so...DIY has appeal to me. I like that you found some that are solderless as that was my biggest opstical.

 

I will be following along, I am bulding the same exact same thing that you got from RAPIDLED, I hope I receive it soon. Do you think those 24 solderless wil be enough for that 6x20 heatsink? I am thinking it might fit like this

*______*______*______*
*___*_*__*_*__*___*__*
*___*_*__*_*__*___*__*
*______*_______*_____*

 

I will post some concepts of the lighting distribution in a bit. I have pages of drawings :lol:

I also bought some extending wire connectors so the LED can be placed further from the terminal.

Should I be concerned at potentially overdriving the 1000mA LED at 1050mA? I figured the 5% overage with a limited photoperiod (3h) will not overly stress the 4 or so blue LED that will be firing with the whites. I figured the heat will be adequately dispersed as well. THoughts

 

Should I be concerned at potentially overdriving the 1000mA LED at 1050mA? I figured the 5% overage with a limited photoperiod (3h) will not overly stress the 4 or so blue LED that will be firing with the whites. I figured the heat will be adequately dispersed as well. THoughts

I would say drive them all at 1000mA first, you don't want to fry the new LEDs, it only takes a nano second to fry one...

 

I asked the question about LEDs because I know you take the time to study, breakdown, analize, and truly make a great educated decision when you do things..

 

sorry, saltlife, missed that one

As far as many LED vs a single LED, I personally would prefer a single LED if one existed but even the single "LED" are multi-chip LEDs. So in reality, they are many LED just crammed together. I guess the LED are small due to their relationships with super conductors.

As for the commercially available LED that are a single source, I do not care for them as much as the other makes. Not are they expensive but unless it is for a deep tank, the smaller LED arrays are fine for penetrating most hobbyist tanks. The other issue is that LED, have a hard time both getting the spread and focus correct. Multi-LED designs get better spread while also using a narrow-er lens that will focus enough light when needed. Finally, sometimes they false-label their product so those "150w" LED are really a 27 watt multi-chip but claim to be the 150w equivalent... or so I think. For the many-led design, the lower cost of singe chip LED and CREE being fairly good at producing PAR.

Plus, 36 inch tanks are tough to light with a single source.

 

I understand.. I used rapid LEDs premium dimmable kit and it was nice but coral growth was supper slow and coral color really changed.. It could have been the spectrum.. Who knows??? I switched to the kessil a150w 15k and color started to change back.. Growth is still slow.. Not sure if it is as slow but it probably is.. Mh are still a faster growing and coloring up light by far.. On my main tank the 100w cannon deff helps with growth... Looking forward to your build and imput..

Last but not least after the brief chat about the bubble king I bought a bubble magus 180 and switched the pump out to a tunze hydrofoamer 9420 and it out skims my bubble king.. I wanted to use a bubble blaster but they don't have one that will fit the bubble magus due to the side port.. Thanks for the bit of info

 

ok, ok........so..... how much would you charge me to build a custom LED system for a 240g, 8'X24"x24" tank?
oh, and ship it to Florida?
Come on Doc, you the man, LOL

 

far as i know over running your leds will shorten the life of them , Heat is the killer of leds . i ordered a 120 led light kit for my 125 running two dimmable drivers with a 50 50 mix of royals and 10k awsome

 

FlaReefDreamer: I am decent at building a lit of things, but electrical engineering is one thing that I lack "expertise". I know the basics about not killing myself but I an far from a qualified electrician. I would not pay for a FutureDoc built fixture :lol:

Gunner: Yeah, that is why I am running a shorter photoperiod on a oversized heat-sink. We will see, if there is a problem, I will order a different driver and a few replacement LEDs. That is one of the few benefits of the multi-LED arrays

 

If anything I would under drive your LEDs. I set my drivers to the maximum level each called for and at 100% the plastic over the actual LEDs started to smoke and melt a little after only a few minutes. I then read on rapid LEDs website to actually set the levels below the maximums. I think if you overdrive them even for a few minutes you will have problems.

 

I have not gotten my LEDs yet, but I'm planning on under driving mine...

 

Sup Doc, it seems like you would have to drive the royal blues with http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lpc-35-700-constant-current-driver/ , while the whites go with http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lpc-60-1050-constant-current-driver/ , I think it might be the safest bet?

 

Btw, have you considered adding a blue, neutral white, warm white to the mix? They ahve those on solderless kit as well.

 

I think I will... uggg, need to put in a second order...

 

Second order in with a new driver... plus I added a few non-royal blue LEDs to be able to adapt the color a little bit.

 

Same here, i think i will post a write up on how easy/hard it is to make a soldersless kit. Will add some neutral white and blues in the mix, just like their par 38 bulbs.

 

bummer I hate those second orders, but atleast you have the right parts now..