New DIY LED build

[Boomer]

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

Umm, the new one just out and much brighter

LED Flashlight

and then there is th Olight @ 2250 Lumens, twice as bright as mine.

SR90 Intimidator---OLIGHT.ALL rights reserved

 

[mojoreef]

Sanjay has Leds on all his other systems though right? In talking with him he told me he just didnt want to screw around with his system as it was running fine and he didnt pay the electrical bill, lol.

Ok so cutting through all the lumen's /watts and all the other lighting metrics that confuse the issue. It truly boils down to par readings right??

Mojo

 

[Boomer]

Yes Sanjay has them on his other 3 tanks as they gave him what he wanted and where cost effective and the reason they are not on his 500 gal but he hopes to someday down the road.

It truly boils down to par readings right??

Not even It is much more of "I like it", a personnel choice. Many fixtures give plenty of PAR that are not LED's.

par

One should not take this term and run with it just like Lumens. The massive light out put of some lamps like Xenon ( had one at work, 1,000,000 lumens, 6 feet long 3 in in diameter, 5600K., another light of the future), HPS ( yellow tank), LPS ( very yellow tank) and Plasma will kill LED and MH on PAR.


and I forgot

There are also some really cool Sulfur lamps being played with also but so far nothing for us.




Sulfur Lamps-The Next Generation of Efficient Light?

http://eetdnews.lbl.gov/cbs_nl/nl06/cbs-nl6-slamp.html



Also from the other website, new future LED's

Nanocrystal Coating = White LED Big Breakthrough?

 

[mojoreef]

Ok what I meant was that as long as you are getting sufficient Par at depth from them when it comes to growing corals, or even deeper by saying the most of the par is in that 425-475mn zone which the zoox love. And yea you have to like the look, that pertains to all fixtures and the bulbs that fit in them.

Mojo

 

[Boomer]

I added more to those last two posts for you.

Yes I agree on the above, it is called Devils Advocate day :lol:

 

[NT Coral Keeper]

@ Boomer; the picture with the LED's on the ceiling blew me away...what is that, a 20 degree optic? 0pens up all sorts of possibilities, and what a great clean rimless look.

@ Mojo; thank you for the reply on color choice... definitely food for thought before I order my LED's!

I researched this topic quite a bit before going LED myself, but I am appreciating the discussion that this build has inspired. I am learning and re-learning! Thanks to Mojoreef, Boomer, and the other contributors!

 

[mojoreef]

Yes I agree on the above, it is called Devils Advocate day

Yea I knew you were just ragging me lol

mojo

 

[TJL]

Nothing personal Boomer, though I did :boink: at you in fun to solicit some added responses to this thread. And no offense taken either, though my knowledge on lighting may be a little South of yours I did spend several years in the designing/importing of lighting fixtures primarily T4 tri-phosphor lamps out of Korea (a little ahead of its time) and fully understand lumuns, lux, CRI and Kelvin temps. Was really only trying to state my pleasure that LED's are now becoming mainstream and are here to stay and hobbiest in Reefkeeping and plant growing are greatly adding to the commercial engine driving R&D and costing down. 3 years ago I had/have direct connection to Rodan Ltd. China (Worlds largest LED manufacturer) and was seriously looking into designing/importing both commercial and hobby LED lighting but lacked a few $'s to do it right with UL and CSA listings. I was introduced to a broad range of chips and bulbs from 1/64w to a 70w chip in a 8" funnel reflector being develped for Aircraft landing lights that was comparable to the then current high wattage halide and xenon lamps. All I was saying was Apples to Oranges is all we'll ever get in comparing different sources of light as well as what we want to see and what corals/plants need. The unwanted spectral values (yellow into green) from most aquarium lighting is in our receptive range and much harder to control in incandescent than LED's, even the best most accurate light source out there 'Plasma' is not what we want to see in our reeftanks solely. So my concerns that I posted more than a year ago on the limited spectrum that colored LED's produce and at that time all commercially available Aquarium fixtures were using a single blue 460nm-ish and a single Cool White (blue w/ phosphor coating) and at best being able to independantly ramp up/down to give a 8-23K look. This promted me to look into supplementing with different blues and whites and adding cyan and red emitters to the mix. What I came up with and purchased last year came close to the overall spectral value of a Phoenix 14K lamp (my favorite) and is just whats now becoming hot topic in LED's. I gave up on MH's long ago well before they got to where they are today, 6500-7100K with heavy LOUD magnetic ballasts and made the switch to and have successfully grown all types of corals since under VHO's ( a dinosaur in thier own right). My new and finally upcoming LED build will incorporate all this plus a true East-to-West Solar cycle.
In closing would like to say THANK YOU to all who have contributed to this and other similar threads, without us (DIY-ers & Tech Geeks) the mainstream manufacturers would take much much much longer to step up thier product offerings (multi colored chips and choices of optics maybe even adj ???).

Cheers, Todd

 

[Boomer]

Me just poke'n too Todd

3 years ago I had/have direct connection to Rodan Ltd. China (Worlds largest LED manufacturer)

Not even close, it is Nichia of Japan Rodan is a tiny little LED company, with a annual rev of 2 - 5 million, which is not in China but Taiwan but have a pant in the Guandong province of China . The biggest LED in China use to be Cotco Luminant Device Ltd of Hong Kong, bought out by Cree 2 years ago. The worlds largest-LED manu's are, Nichia, Samsung, Luxeon, Osram, Seoul, Cree followed by others like ATL, GE, LG, Luminus and others from Taiwan like Epistar and Everlight Electronics are bigger than Rodan. The LED capital of the world was S- Korea and mostly in Seoul and now is Taiwan but only due to fab capacity and soon China will beat them all but that is only LED companies. Nobody is bigger than Nichia or Samsung, Luxeon, Osram, Seoul and Cree. The LED's color range and output, with what you can do with them has soared in the last two years. The leader in High-Output LED's is now Luminus of USA, MA. One has to take note that HO LED is not the big market but gets the most attention. That race for the last two years has been between Luxeon --> Cree and now --> Luminus. And Luminus LED HO are single core and not multi-core like Cree. The new SST-90 by Luminus is 2250 l.

The unwanted spectral values (yellow into green) from most aquarium lighting is in our receptive range

That is my point, it is human need not a coral need. Coral reefs are Blue-Green. BUT I understand people do not like the look of a real coral reef color or the real color of corals themselves. I mean, if a coral in nature is dull red how much cooler is it if we can make it look or appear bright red but to me many are artificial looking, look fake and blue tanks annoy me allot. Other annoying issue with some LED fixtures is their stroboscopic affect.

I need to add one thing about LED Sanjay does not like, they have a poor CRI ~ 80 and need to be in the 90's.

 

[TJL]

See, I knew we had to have something in common.
Coral reefs are Blue-Green. BUT I understand people do not like the look of a real coral reef color or the real color of corals themselves. I mean, if a coral in nature is dull red how much cooler is it if we can make it look or appear bright red but to me many are artificial looking, look fake and blue tanks annoy me allot.
My thoughts/opinion as well.

The CRI (Color Rendoring Index) will be a tough nut to crack in LED's without incorporating RGYB chips into the mix or at least some Yellow/Amber based ones but not many want that range in thier lighting anyhow. I've always liked the crisper White look in my reeftanks but thats just my preference for seeing a more natural looking aquascape. I do have a handfull of 40* optics for my 6500K chips that I plan on spotlighting my Sarcophyton elegans for a true bright yellow and on my Pink Stylo to remain pink instead of purple.

So back to topic and the pros of LED lighting, with good optics and choices of chip colors we can/do have the options in DIY builds to highlight individual corals and clams in the color they look best with. I just saw/read up on the new Vortech Radion fixtures, glad that they have stepped up to set the bar a little higher for others to follow. Will have to see what Acan comes up with in return now. Speaking on optics, I did purchase several to give me options once system is up and running. My educated guess is that I will more than likely only run optics on a handfull of whites and blues to highlight a select few corals/clams and leave optics off of the rest especially Red and Cyan to better distribute these fill in colors. My tank is only 20" deep so should be good on PAR without optics and have all the colors blend well, Mikes tank being deeper may need the benefit of optics to punch down to the bottom of his beast. It will be interesting to see if the reds & greens in this setup without optics will blend everything together. Also will be interested to see how this is programmed with the Apex controller, I have not figured out mine will work out yet controlling 7 different circuits.

Mike, any updates on this build or do Boomer and I have to continue hogging the thread ???

Cheers, Todd

 

[1guydude]

So wats wrong with plasma lighting? I saw one at seamax and was quite impressed with it. I can see myself using em down the road sometime!
He had a smaller Mh reflector on it and said 4ft of spread is easy and he could also dim it up and down...not only intensity but kelvin temp/color seemed to change as well. Unlike Mh and t5 with ur 14k, 16k, 20k bulbs. You can go from 12k to 12.5k and so on.... wasnt as hot as Mh lighting either... only downfall i can think of is the cost of the product and replacing the bulbs depending on how long they last and how much they even cost per bulb. He said his unit cost $1200!!!!

Can u guys talk a lil more about the colors of the LEDs....i know mojo mentioned wat like wat colors or wat colors made wat colors pop more but wat colors/numbers of leds are u using mojo? Ive only ran the royal blues with the whites....i have one cool white but dont like it so much as the brighter white i have!

Just wondering if adding a couple greens or reds to the fixture would be beneficial or sticking with the white/blue color combo is best for now?

 

[mojoreef]

My educated guess is that I will more than likely only run optics on a handfull of whites and blues to highlight a select few corals/clams and leave optics off of the rest especially Red and Cyan to better distribute these fill in colors. My tank is only 20" deep so should be good on PAR without optics and have all the colors blend well, Mikes tank being deeper may need the benefit of optics to punch down to the bottom of his beast.

When you run with out some kind of optics you bleed off way to much light, or at least that is what we discovered, I think you will end up with some kind of optic Todd. On mine the red will be the only light I would leave the optics off of. On testing Todd we were getting 260 par at the bottom (30 inches) and that was at 60% power. So getting light down their is not an issue, lol.

Also will be interested to see how this is programmed with the Apex controller, I have not figured out mine will work out yet controlling 7 different circuits.

Not going to use the Apex for the lighting, Guerry designed and built a cool little controller unit that will control all the lights on separate circuits so I can dial in each lighting type seperately and then do stuff like ramping up and down, dust and dawn and so on and so forth.

mike

 

[mojoreef]

Can u guys talk a lil more about the colors of the LEDs....i know mojo mentioned wat like wat colors or wat colors made wat colors pop more but wat colors/numbers of leds are u using mojo? Ive only ran the royal blues with the whites....i have one cool white but dont like it so much as the brighter white i have!

Just wondering if adding a couple greens or reds to the fixture would be beneficial or sticking with the white/blue color combo is best for now?

Ok here is how I went about figuring that out on mine. So lets start on the low side of the par at the 400's mn.

So with that you are actually looking at the cool white and not a blue LED, you can see the peek is around 430-440 nm with a little lump in the yellow/green

From here I added the royal blue which peeked at 450-460mn?

Then the blue which peeks at around 465-475mn

Then some greens to cover the 500 to 550mn range

and then finally a touch of red to pick up some chlorophylls and like in the 600-650mn zone, but mostly for fish.

SO if you compare that with say a 400 watt 10K ushio and just look at the spikes, not the levels you can an idea on why you need so many different colors to try and make the LED's more of a full spectrum.

Anyway that was the thought process.

Mojo

 

[1guydude]

k thxs that helps me out a lil bit... sry for hijacking too mojo, im off to look at t5 wave lenghts now LOL!

 

[Boomer]

Mojo

Nice pick of LED's, BUT

Then the blue which peeks at around 465-475mn

Wrong diagram it is the same as the 450-460mn


I also hate the use of the term RRP % on the X plot. That should be a more meaningful value like Watts / 10 nm bandwidth.



Dudeguy

It is cost and also K and CRI. You do not have much of K range yet. They tested them at the Stienhart Aquarium in SF and they are a nice light but just no there yet for what we want, hence light of the future. There are lots of YouTube videos on them.

The bulbs range from 5 K- 6 K, which most reefers do not like for viewing. Yes, you can get higher K but you have to dim them to get that, which lowers the PAR allot. These light are also nasty-ass powerful, as a @250 W lamp will give over 1,000 PAR 1 ft under water. A DIY 250 W will cost you $600 - $800.

 

[1guydude]

wat about the UV leds? Do u think they are good or do more so damage? Do they spike in the purple color?

U guys are full of nuggets of knowledge ! :ranger:

 

[Guerry]

I can't take cedit for design of controller, It's and open source program that anyone can build and much easier to use than trying to use an RK or Apex. I have a RK on my system but it would take way to many ALC moduals to controll 12 drivers

 

[TJL]

Thanks Mike, the one good thing about this build of mine taking sooooo long is that you guys get to work out most of the kinks for me first. I do have 80* & 90* optics for most of mine and a handfull of 60* & 40* for spotlighting so should have my bases covered. Have a 2-color dimming unit that I need to work into the scheme somehow with the Apex controlling the six front-to-back circuits firing East-to-West for a Dawn/Dusk effect. Really thought that I'd only need the dimming capability for initial coral acclimation but to be able to ramp up/down my first and last circuit would be sweet. I believe that I read somewhere that there is a module for the Apex you can ramp up/down LED lighting with ??? I had a whole lot of LED & controller info lost with my Laptop Crash so will have dig it up again. When is your expected date of firing up these LED's ??? Will try and make it down if posible.

Cheers, Todd

Guerry, could you post a link or shoot me pm with the info please

 

[mojoreef]

I also hate the use of the term RRP % on the X plot. That should be a more meaningful value like Watts / 10 nm bandwidth.

Yea me to but it show where it peeks, thanks for the catch I fixed the diagram.

Folks dont worry about hijacking, the thread is open for conversation, not just some kind of chronical.

 

[Boomer]

In case you guys have not seen this, the latest HI-Tech controller

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What is attractive to many potential buyers of the Radion LED light from Ecotech Marine is not only the quantity and quality of the light it produces, but also in its built in smarts in the form of wireless communication and especially the software which is used to program it all. Just Friday Ecotech Marine announced that the Radion LED would begin shipping to resellers, hopefully satisfying all the pre-orders. But what was most exciting of all to the lucky few beta users of the Radion was the release of the first iteration of a fully-fledged Radion controlling and programming software.