New DIY LED build

[mojoreef]

Thought I would start a separate thread for my DIY led build. So this is going to go over a 8 foot by 3 foot tank that is 30 inches deep.. So the concept was to have multiple heat sinks mounted to a rail system and then each heat sink attached to the rail by ball joints so I can dial them in.

The first row directly over the rock work will be 6 heat sinks each of them 12 inches long by 8.46 wide and then the second row will be pull out towards the front of the tank and then angled back towards the rock work. The concept their would be to light the coral that would be under top corals and then also to blend the lights from both type of heat sinks.

So the color layout for each type of heat sink will be as follows

So the totals will be 216 Cree LED emitters, 9 meanwell drivers, 9 fans 18 resistors and fuses, 216 Carlco wides optics and 9 heatsinks. Should be cool!

mojo

 

[BigAl07]

It's going to be a FUN project!!

 

[Boomer]

What is the current draw on each LED. I believe you said Cree 3 W, which ones, as they are not all the same and what is the Lumen rating at X Amps. More than likely the Cree's are around and no more than 160 l / W or a total of around 216 Cree's x 3 = 648 W and 216 Cree's x 160 l ea. = ~ 35,000 l and 35,000 l / 648 W = ~ 53 l / W efficacy. A std MH @ 400W = 36,00 - 40,000 l where e = 90 - 100 l / W and 2 - 250W MH about the same as 1 400W MH .

 

[mojoreef]

they are all 3 watt cree's, Your talking Chinese to me with all the conversions LOL When we did a prelim par test on a very close system we were getting about 550 par at 12 inches in water and that was running at about 50 total power.

Mojo

 

[eww]

What is the current draw on each LED. I believe you said Cree 3 W, which ones, as they are not all the same and what is the Lumen rating at X Amps. More than likely the Cree's are around and no more than 160 l / W or a total of around 216 Cree's x 3 = 648 W and 216 Cree's x 160 l ea. = ~ 35,000 l and 35,000 l / 648 W = ~ 53 l / W efficacy. A std MH @ 400W = 36,00 - 40,000 l where e = 90 - 100 l / W and 2 - 250W MH about the same as 1 400W MH .

HUH?!? Was that a 747 that just buzzed over my head?

I can't wait to see more Mojo. At least you got to see a pic of your heatsinks and cooling fans...

 

[Krish]

I used led lights to work, so I know the led's themselves don't put out much heat under the light itself. However, do the fixtures themselves get pretty hot? I never thought of this. Never thought they needed a significant heat sinks or fans to be kept cool. I thought everything operated at a "cool" temperature? This would be interesting to know a bit moe about for future builds where leds are used and canopies.

Other than that, looks like a coold setup! Interested to see how it all comes together .

 

[mojoreef]

Heat is your enemy Krish, it really kills the life of the fixture if it gets to hot. So is the fixture hot? no not really to touch but if you had 220 leds in your hand...yea it would leave a mark, lol


Mojo

 

[Boomer]

OK, to be more clear guys

It takes x watts of power to produce y lumens of light intensity, called lumens or if you want foot candles. So, a so called std wax wicked candle = 1 foot candle = 1 lummen. So, 40,000 lumens equals the llight put out by 40,000 candles, kinda.

Power or wattage is what drives you power $ bill

So, if we have a light that puts out 40,000 lumens and it take 400 Watts to drive it the light efficiency, called efficacy, is eqaul to the total lumens / watts

Thus, 40,000 lumens / 400W= 100 lumes per Watt

If we now take a 400 Watt light and it puts out 20,000 lumens, then it is 20,000 / 400 = 50 lumens / Watt

Has you can see we need 2 400 watt lamps at 20,000 lumens to equal the same light output as 1 400 W at 40,000. So, if you choose the 400 W @ 20,000 and wanted 40,000 lumens of light you need two of them equaling 800 W vs 400 Watts of the other to get the same amount of light. Your power bill has just double. Meaning, if you ran the 400 W @ 40,000 lumens and it cost you $10 / m the other light at 400W at 20,00 will cost you $ 20/ m for the same amount of light because you need to run 2 of those 400W (or 800 W) @ 20,00 lumnes to get 40,000 lumens.

What is the current draw on each LED.

The higher the current draw in amps in LED"S the more lumens you have. Ruffly, as the current draw doubles in amps the wattage triples and the lumes / Watt gets worse not better.

Example: A 5 watt Led at 1.5 amps gives 500 lumen or 500/ 5 = 100 lumens / watt and the same 5 W Led can be driven at 15 Watt and 3 amps giving 1,000 lumens. But what happens here ? 1,000 / 15 = 66 lumens / Watt and not 100 l /W anynore. So, in LED's there are pros and cons. Pro> 2 of these 5 E LEDS ( 10 watts) will give the same lumens as 1 15 watt LED but the wattage is 10 Watts vs 15 Watts and you save 5 watts on your power bill. Con > you now need more space for 2 LED's rather than one. So, it becomes a choice.

 

[Boomer]

hot?

High output LED can get very HOT. You turn on a LED flashlight that is running on say 10 W on 2- Cr-123 batteries and it wil be to hot to hold after 15 min. and the is why many of them have fancy heat-sinks designed into the handle and head of the flashlight.

This is my newest one
LED Flashlight

 

[Guerry]

the biggest problem I have since switching from two 250watt MH and two 400watt MH over my system and going to LEDs is now in the winter I have to run a heater in the house, before that the lights and chiller took care of that LOL. Now as far as heat from my leds I have 144 three watt Cree emitters running at 40% with 6 1.3 watt fans and heat sinks are always cool to the touch

 

[Krish]

Heat is your enemy Krish, it really kills the life of the fixture if it gets to hot. So is the fixture hot? no not really to touch but if you had 220 leds in your hand...yea it would leave a mark, lol


Mojo

Gotcha!

hot?

High output LED can get very HOT. You turn on a LED flashlight that is running on say 10 W on 2- Cr-123 batteries and it wil be to hot to hold after 15 min. and the is why many of them have fancy heat-sinks designed into the handle and head of the flashlight.

This is my newest one
LED Flashlight

What the heck do you need a military grade flashlight for?? LOL

 

[eww]

This is my newest one
LED Flashlight

Seriously Boomer "a usable beam at 700 yards"??? What the heck do you use that for unless you like to spotlight when you hunt :behindsofa:

 

[tat2z_21]

Looks absolutely awesome. Just one question. With the adjustable angle. Would you still get decent penetration with it angled over the water surface . Or will most of the light be reflected off of the surface.

 

[TJL]

NICE setup Mike, going to be even better than you think in the end. I'm finally just a week or so away from starting my LED build as well.

Boomer, the hardest thing about comparing LED's to most any other light source is that you cannot. Apples to Oranges at best for reeftank application, even the best MH has a fairly large percentage of unwanted spectrum that is included in the lumen ratings whereas the LED chips are very narrow in spectrum and by choosing which ones we can achieve much better ratios in PUR/watt. Then on Mojo's tank for example you would need at least three 400w MH's to cover the same footprint to even come close to his 648 watts of LED's. Good ol' metal halides are about to become dinosaurs along with all incandescent lighting in the next few years. The overall acceptance of LED's in this hobby has impressed me so far and looking forward to see what comes of it in the future.

Cheers, Todd

 

[NT Coral Keeper]

I am planning my second LED build (MUCH smaller at 24 LEDs for a Nano), and have been looking at some of the newerCree colors. My first build was 50/50 royal blue and cool white, which my SPS has been growing well under, but I theorized that adding a few blue and red, maybe even green, might bring out more colors. Do you have any experience with these yet? Can't wait to see your build!

 

[Skimmy]

i assume you have a controller that is going to run the whole show??
or will it have it's own dedicated controller?

 

[ReefRookie]

Awesome set up.

 

[mojoreef]

eww

What the heck do you use that for unless you like to spotlight when you hunt

I can only imagine what he is going to inspect with that????lol

tat2z_21

With the adjustable angle. Would you still get decent penetration with it angled over the water surface . Or will most of the light be reflected off of the surface.

Great question!!! and one I put alot of time into, the angle of deflection can be an issue, on the unit we are building I am only going to use a very slight angle, yes I will no doubt get a bit of deflection, but we have a ton of par so I dont think it will have to much of an impact. Its something I will be playing with once their over the tank.

NT Coral Keeper

My first build was 50/50 royal blue and cool white, which my SPS has been growing well under, but I theorized that adding a few blue and red, maybe even green, might bring out more colors. Do you have any experience with these yet?

The reds leds will pick up a bit of wave that the chlorophyll's will pick up for growth, they will also enhance a few flouresing pigments, that and they tend to make the fish colors a little more vivid, but they are not a big player. On the blues they spike a little higher in the 400mn's zones and are in to create more of a full spectrum look. On the greens they play a bigger role in the fluorescing pigments, so:
>Pocilloporin primarily absorbs green/yellow (550-600 nm) light along with some upper UV-A . it emits a orange/red
>Red/Orange Fluorescing pocilloporin that primarily absorbs light from 500 to 540 nm (green) and fluoresces light with wavelengths that are primarily orange to red.

I have found that with out it you tend to wash out your reds and orange colored corals.

Skimmy

i assume you have a controller that is going to run the whole show??
or will it have it's own dedicated controller?

Yea I got a independant controller that will have each color run into it. It will give the ability for me to dial in the intecity of each color and then do stuff like ramping up and down, dawn and dusk and so on.

Mojo

 

[tat2z_21]

That is going to be a lot of PAR. That many LEDs. Looks like lots of fun.

 

[Boomer]

Guys I collect Flashlights as a hobby


Todd

Boomer, the hardest thing about comparing LED's to most any other light source is that you cannot.

I'm not, I am talking about wattage on this point. Show me where I compared them other than Lumens / watt as an example ? LED, like MH or Fluorescent, can put out and some do put out 100 l / W. The issue with high output LED is it is hard to find or hard to get the right cone-angle for spread and penetration as you are using less of them and they are spaced more apart. You can get LED to punch water somewhat like MH using very narrow cones, which has ready been done with a fixture that is mounted on a 8 ft ceiling, where the surface of the tanks is 6 feet away, where there is even zero wash-out loss.

Apples to Oranges at best for reeftank application

Go tell that to Sanjay who will not use a LED system on his 500 gal tank as they are not there yet, UNLESS (see below)



even the best MH has a fairly large percentage of unwanted spectrum that is included in the lumen ratings whereas the

I do not think you understate the measurement of Lumen. Lumens is a very narrow specificity of light set to the human eye ~ 440 nm. Meaning, it misses allot of the light leaving a bulb of any kind, to included LED and why we should be using PAR meters.

LED chips are very narrow in spectrum and by choosing which ones we can achieve much better ratios in PUR/watt.

Only if you are dealing with chips in a specific light region, a plus of chips. Cool White chips have about the same spectrum of an other light in what is defined as Coll White. LED color is a function of it selected Chromaticity bins, something no other light can do.



Then on Mojo's tank for example you would need at least three 400w MH's to cover the same footprint to even come close to his 648 watts of LED's.

Sorry, but I do not buy that till I see real data tests such as Sanjay does. Where is your test data to prove that ? Do not take this wrong, but I find that ^ laughable , as 3 - 400 W MH put out 90,000 - 120,000 Lumens vs Mojos' mere 35,000 l and "footprint" is not all in lighting and one has to define "footprint'. And LED just do not work yet on tanks like 500 gal, like Sanjay's but are great on smaller tanks. If Sanjay was happy with a LED system it would be on his tank and he gets them for free


The other thing you are missing here is all MH are no the same in output @ 400 W. As K increase PAR decreases. The is no way in PAR that Mojo's fixture can out perform, in PAR, 3- 400 W Iwasaki 6,500 K lamps. And try not to compare, which I hate, "Apples & Oranges", such as I, "Bob", do not like the color of that light, which is a personnel choice, which is NOT a functionality choice. Meaning, there is no coral reef that is at 15 or 20 K. The 400 W Iwasaki 6,500 K lamps, which I introduced into this hobby, is the closest match in producing the light found on a real coral reef.



Good ol' metal halides are about to become dinosaurs along with all incandescent lighting in the next few years. The overall acceptance of LED's in this hobby has impressed me so far and looking forward to see what comes of it in the future.

In a few years, yes, nobody disputes that. However, they are a far cry from the use in Public Aquariums or Joe's 20,00 where they will not make for more than few years.

IMHO a person that wants to DIY a LED on his own can achieve what ever they want on a home tank, same for MH, it is a chocie. But the issue is for those that go to a store to buy a Mojo fixture, which will be on the order of a few thousand dollars. A very Impressive LED unit is the Acan Lighting A102AC- 48B, which has the same PAR values Mojo has give me but the Acan does not say these are under water readings.

@ $2,600 ea. and two of these on Mojo's tank $5,200 ( vs his DIY ~ $2,000) and 4 MH 400 W units complete are ~$4,000 (store bought) and 99 % of reefers are going to be buying units.

LED Lighting



Lastly, you guys must be behind on lights 2 year ago I dumped this light on the hobby but it too is not there yet and further away than LED, mostly a K issue. But wait til it is.

Light Emitting Plasma by LUXIM Corporation


http://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/luxim-plasma-light-bulb-kicks-some-serious-led-butt.html

Plasma Grow Light - Product Demo - YouTube

Plasma Light Bulb - YouTube



So, it is all clear and Mojo's know this after many phone conversation, I'm all behind him on his DIY and he appears te be achieving what I said above about DIY LED. But for the none DIY it is still way to much money.