MrGone
:)
So I have had this in the works for a few months and finally got it setup yesterday. I still need to do some finishing touches but for the most part it is done. I ordered all the parts from Steve's LEDs. For the price and this being my first LED build, it worked out well. I built it for my Dad's aquarium at his office.
There are 154 3w LEDs total, 144 over the display and 14 over the refugium (I still need to install). I am thinking about using the Digital Aquatics ALC module, right now I just have them plugged in like a regular light and am using six rheostats to control various arrays.
I'll post the pretty pics first, I tried to color balance them the best I could (I might try again with a 15% gray card but this is a fairly good representation). To give an idea of the brightness, all of the office lights are on in these pictures I had to meter a few stops lower to get the correct exposure of the fish tank.
Here are the whites on full power, the blues turned all the way down
Here are both the blue and whites on full power
And here are the blues on full power, the whites turned all the way down
Here are two of the three light bars on the display tank, the LEDs are mounted to 1.25" 0.125 wall aluminum square tubing.
This is the refugium LED array, the fan will be rotated 90% when it is installed to the underside of the cabinet
Now this next part I am particularly happy with how it turned out, it was quite a bit of work (I have big hands and this was kind of tight). It will be bolted to the underside of the stand above the fresh water storage container (there will be a sheet of acrylic that attaches to this to prevent splashing/etc).
Getting a general idea of what I want to do
Power supplies mounted, wiring up the drivers
I put quite a few hours into this part. The LED arrays plug into ports 1-7 and the rheostats plug into 11 and 12. I was going to use 8-10 to power fans but each tube ended up having a spare wire pair that I ended up using instead.
I mounted the rheostats into a wall plate/box. I'm not sure if this will be my finished product but for now it works (the numbers are backwards because I was working from the back side of the plate and was a little too focused on wiring and not enough on the order from the front... oops
)
The back side. Standard network cables (T568B) are used to connect the rheostat box to the patch panel.
Letting them breathe! the fans blow down the middle of the tube to the other side, then exit the canopy.
I think the only thing I would do differently (and still might) is to add one more white LED bar (49 more cool white LEDs), just a personal preference.
-Shawn
There are 154 3w LEDs total, 144 over the display and 14 over the refugium (I still need to install). I am thinking about using the Digital Aquatics ALC module, right now I just have them plugged in like a regular light and am using six rheostats to control various arrays.
I'll post the pretty pics first, I tried to color balance them the best I could (I might try again with a 15% gray card but this is a fairly good representation). To give an idea of the brightness, all of the office lights are on in these pictures I had to meter a few stops lower to get the correct exposure of the fish tank.
Here are the whites on full power, the blues turned all the way down
Here are both the blue and whites on full power
And here are the blues on full power, the whites turned all the way down
Here are two of the three light bars on the display tank, the LEDs are mounted to 1.25" 0.125 wall aluminum square tubing.
This is the refugium LED array, the fan will be rotated 90% when it is installed to the underside of the cabinet
Now this next part I am particularly happy with how it turned out, it was quite a bit of work (I have big hands and this was kind of tight). It will be bolted to the underside of the stand above the fresh water storage container (there will be a sheet of acrylic that attaches to this to prevent splashing/etc).
Getting a general idea of what I want to do
Power supplies mounted, wiring up the drivers
I put quite a few hours into this part. The LED arrays plug into ports 1-7 and the rheostats plug into 11 and 12. I was going to use 8-10 to power fans but each tube ended up having a spare wire pair that I ended up using instead.
I mounted the rheostats into a wall plate/box. I'm not sure if this will be my finished product but for now it works (the numbers are backwards because I was working from the back side of the plate and was a little too focused on wiring and not enough on the order from the front... oops
)The back side. Standard network cables (T568B) are used to connect the rheostat box to the patch panel.
Letting them breathe! the fans blow down the middle of the tube to the other side, then exit the canopy.
I think the only thing I would do differently (and still might) is to add one more white LED bar (49 more cool white LEDs), just a personal preference.
-Shawn
Last edited:
