Led help

[colin779]

Ok, got my kit all wired up, drivers all at the proper power level. On one string of led's I have 4 led's that don't seem to work. They are the first 4 where the power comes in from the driver, the rest on the string work. They do work with a battery tester, I changed a solder point on one of them, the one furthest from the power in came on, so I figured I would re solder some others, now all 4 are out again. If I touch the battery tester onto a uv led it will light the one in the string before it, this does not happen on the other fixture.

I'm stumped and frustrated, any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Katchupoy]

check and double check the polarity of your led... when testing with battery make sure everything is turned off. also check with multi meter if there are short somewhere... check the continuity between the heat sink and all terminals...

 

[colin779]

Double checked all connections, they're good. For some reason I had continuity on at least one screw on each of them, there isn't any solder off the pads, so I doubled up the washers. One of them I had to use the thermal adhesive. It was strange but is all good to go now

 

[Katchupoy]

congrats colin... good thing you did not damage the drivers or even the leds.... good to know....

 

[colin779]

Finally got them up over the tank, the color is so amazing now, everything looks really vibrant and bright =)

 

[Bobby brown]

Any photos coming up?

 

[colin779]

Yea, i can take some this weekend. I'm going to make a few changes that i thought about after the fact =(

 

[pandora32]

What brand of leds? How big is your tank?

 

[colin779]

It's a 90 gallon tank, I went with a kit from rapid led. There's 48 leds, they are all Cree LEDs. It looks incredible in my opinion, the way it brings colors out in the coral and it almost seems like it adds more depth to the tank.

 

[Katchupoy]

pics would be nice...

 

[colin779]

Ok ok =) I decided I'm going to make my changes tomorrow while watching Thursday night football so I'll put some pics up then =)

 

[colin779]

It's going to be this weekend for the pictures, I woke up this morning with a terrible cold. Strange how you can be fine when you go to sleep and wake up sick...

 

[colin779]

Finally feeling better, I think that was the worst cold I've ever had. I didn't get off the couch all weekend and still dot feel 100%. Much better though. Should have my changes completed tonight though and some pictures to follow.

 

[pandora32]

Glad tour feeling better!

 

[colin779]

Will be taking my pictures tonight, I'll include a few different color settings. I finally settled on one that i like, i have no idea if its 20k or something lower, i just know i like it =) The lights are pretty intense, i backed them off a little bit (they are on 2 dimmers, I had them all at 690mA, raised the cool whites and royal blues to 850mA). My green bubble tip never really had bubble tips either, now they are all bubbled, he kind of shrank too, i'm guessing that's because of the more intense light. Looks cooler with the bubble tips though.

It's also very strange but my wife noticed that the fish seem to be much more active and don't retreat into the rock work as often. They all stay out in the water column now, no idea if that has something to do with lighting also, who knows, they're fish after all... Hah

 

[Katchupoy]

cant wait for the pics.....

 

[colin779]

Ok, finally pictures of putting everything together. I will be putting up pictures of the tank in the member showcase forum.

Everything arrived

Laying out and attching the LEDs

Everything wired up

Dimmer wiring

How i mounted the drivers, there are spacers under them, they are about a quarter inch of the wood

Hanging over the tank

Turned on over the tank. This is the color i've chosen, messed around with it a lot since it's so adjustable. Im skipping all the just Royal Blue and the just Cool White pictures. I have the Royal Blues set to 850mA, Cool Whites at 850mA, and the Violet, Red, and Green at 690mA. The Violet, Red, and Green are on the same dimmer as the Cool Whites, so they scale with the white.

That's pretty close to what it looks like over the tank, its hard even with my nice camera to get the white balance correct. I did shoot it in RAW format but lack decent editing software.
It looks much more impressive in person, i'm amazed how vibrant all the colors are now, and it kind of feels like there's an added depth to the tank now. Hard to explain but i'm beyond happy with the results and the color quality in the tank is so much better than it was with my halides. My Bubble Tip anemone never had bubbled tips either until i switched the lighting. Not sure if thats a coincidence or not?

The spots that look a little dark in the front corners aren't really that dark either.

 

[pandora32]

Tank looks great. I was looking at rapids kit for the 180g. Did you switch out any of the leds for another color when you ordered? I emailed them if the 180 kit will work on my tank and told them i wanted to grow sps throughout the water column, my tank is 29" top to bottom. They told me what leds id need to switch and what optics to use. I asked a question and they told me what i needed even though i never said i was buying. I thought that was pretty cool.

 

[colin779]

Weird, picture looks super dark on the computer i'm on right now, it's not dark at all. They are at least as bright as my 175w halides and aren't even turned up all the way on the dimmer. Way brighter than the halides if i turn the dimmer all the way up. Should be more intense too.

I was very happy with their customer service, Mike emailed back within minutes every time i had a question. With the kit for the 90 i stayed with the 6 violets, 2 reds, and 2 greens that they recommended. I told him what color temp i was looking for and he gave me his recommendation which was instead of 20 royal blues and 18 cool whites, to do 24 royal blues and 14 cool whites. He helped me out on the optics too, my lights are only about 8 inches off the water so he recommended to go with the 80 degrees to avoid spotlighting.

 

[tat2z_21]

Glad to see it worked out well for you. The customer service at RAPID is really good.