LED builds by Guerry

[Guerry]

Hi all, I'm going to start this thread with the fixture I built for my 209 display tank. First alittle history to this build, in Feb. of this year I had decided that the MH lighting over my tank had to go and had pretty much decided that I was going to install a 72" ATI T5 10 bulb fixture. This set up was going to set me back about $1800. with bulbs. I was lucky enough to also be atending the Altanta reef club meeting that month and the speaking was none other than Sanjay, well to make along story short I was lucky enough to spend about hour of time discussing my tank and lighting the rest is history!

back in a minute

 

[Guerry]

ok well Sanjay recomended that I talk with Bill at Reef LED lights and what we came up with was 144 3watt led setup. I orderred three of his XP-G kits which looked like this upon arival

so first I had to come up with a lay out for 48 emitters on a 18" x 8.46" heatsink which took a little math on my part but turned out sweet

 

[07FocusST]

Loving the 2nd layout of the LEDs!

 

[Guerry]

thanks, it gets better LOL so having lay out figured out it was time to tint the emitters and wire

thats is a must when you have high quality heatsink to get a good soider joint, I use thearmal epoxy to mount the emitters to the heatsink (much quicker than drilling 288 holes) all emitters are run in groups of 12 for this build and I tested each group as I assembled fixture

next is pic's. of units wired,tested and ready to be assembled into fixture

 

[Frankie]

Go Guerry Go!

You rock brother!

Frank

 

[Guerry]

thanks buddy, I need to make some plans to get up your way and check out some of that twisty pipe work out

 

[Guerry]

You guys might notice the emitters with red wire don't have optics, those are XP-G R5s which is for my mid day lighting. I'm going to post a link to my local reef club forum hope thats ok here but anyway a friend was taking pic's of the frame work for the fixture so I can't post them for yall LEDS for the 209 - Page 6
ok assuming you checked out the frame constuction here's some pic's of arcylic cover

Oh heres a sneak peek at new fixture I'm building for frag system

 

[Skimmy]

excellent work, man!!
those look great!!

 

[Frankie]

How is the noise with those fans Guerry? I have been doing some research on them and have found some that are supposed to be almost non noticeable. There are new ones coming out soon called A-1.

The ones I have now have zero motor noise but the wind noise upsets me.

Here is a link to some others that are out now. You may want to check into it also.
Quiet PC Hardware - Quiet Computer Fans

 

[Guerry]

you can't here them running, gon'a take alook your link thow you nerver know when you might find better source

thanks

 

[Guerry]

well got alittle more done on fixture, first I started frame work for cover. When doing this I layed the pieces going on top out to get better idea how I wanted things to look

now having good idea in my head of how I wanted things to look I cut two rails 40" long clapped them to heatsink for drilling and tap

when installing cap srews I use LocTight on threads

this is pic of finished frame

next step is cover, for this I used 1/4" black arcylic. here's pic's of pieces cut and ready for assembly

here you have it one sweet LED fixture

here's bottom view

this is pic of fixture ready for final wiring whitch we will cover later

 

[GR808]

Really nice build!! Great job

 

[Guerry]

Really nice build!! Great job

thanks

I haven't been able to get much done this week between work and my local club meeting today.I did order some red and green emitters this week thow going work on get better spectum

 

[mojoreef]

Spent the last 4 days with Sanjay, testing pretty much every LED lighting fixture out their and trust me their were hundreds of them at Macna!. Although their design was different from model to model the results were all the same and so were the prices. I me Sanjay and Dana Riddle pretty come up with the same thought and that is they are great for small tanks but are way over priced and when folks look into using them on large tanks its insane. In looking at Guerry's build here it looks as good if not better then any fixture we came across and for good size tanks this is the best route to take.

Another thing we spent alot of time on was the fact that you really need to inject multiple color sources, so make sure you get some greens (not so many on a percentage bases) then some reds, blues and then whites. When we look at MH bulbs they are full spectrum lights, so with one bulb you get spikes in multiple wave ranges, Leds are stuck in single ranges so you have to actually add the color leds to make up for this.

Anyway great build Guerry, I think I am going to be knocking on your door for a parts list.


Mojo

 

[ksed]

Well said Mojo

It was nice meeting you at MACNA:canada:

 

[mojoreef]

Hey Kev it was great meeting and hanging around with you at macna to. !!!

 

[Guerry]

thanks guys, Oh Mike that was a great compliment and any thing I can do help is just a call away

 

[Guerry]

Well fixture is complete! today I installed red and green emitters to the mix, 8 of each. The finish wiring took longer than I was planning but turned out nice in my opion. Here are some pic's so you can be the judge LOL

tomarow I will get it installed and start doing testing

 

[Somethings Fishy]

that looks sweet, i wish i was able to build my own like that... cant wait to see how it looks over a tank!

 

[Guerry]

that looks sweet, i wish i was able to build my own like that... cant wait to see how it looks over a tank!

thanks