My LED build in progress

[bimmerzs]

Here my current LED setup I'm working on to replace my ~1300 watts of lighting I had over the 130G. The heatsink is 30"L x 10"W and I had it anodized. It will have ~90 led's total when finished and I am using the Berquist Thermal Pad's instead of the time consuming 2 part thermal epoxy. I have 70 RoyalBlue,10Blue,20CoolWhite,10NeutralWhite, 4Red and 4Green led's to work with. I will use a 3:1 ratio of RB to blue/white and have 7 dimmable meanwell's to work with.

[Lance]

cannot wait to see what this looks like once it is finished

[Heath]

looks good so far. i want more pics

Tapatalk

[bimmerzs]

looks good so far. i want more pics

Tapatalk

Patience young grasshoppa.

[kleankord]

which kit is this?

[coralreefer]

Doesn't sound like a kit - sounds like Ron is going for something a little new!

[psteeleb]

are you going solderless?

[washingtond]

Ron looking good and are you going to have your Apex control the dimming? I think that you will find that your corals will really like the new lights.

[M@!]

Very nice! Are you running any optics?

TXU is gonna miss your old tank. LOL

On the plus side, you won't be the cause of rolling black outs in your neighborhood now. LOL

Looks like your gonna have a great fixture.

[Lance]

BTW I count 118 LED's in your post but you are only going to run 90. What are you not going to run out of what you posted.

[bimmerzs]

which kit is this?

Doesn't sound like a kit - sounds like Ron is going for something a little new!

Yup....not a kit but nothing really "new", best heatsink, best led's, all around best driver and ocd type soldering skill's.

are you going solderless?

Nope.....that's no fun!

Ron looking good and are you going to have your Apex control the dimming? I think that you will find that your corals will really like the new lights.

Yup, along with a VDM module...thanks

Very nice! Are you running any optics?

I have the 80* optic's for everything but the green's and red's, I need those to diffuse more and not spotlight since only 4 of each. Everything should blend well at 18"-20" height.

TXU is gonna miss your old tank. LOL

On the plus side, you won't be the cause of rolling black outs in your neighborhood now. LOL

Looks like your gonna have a great fixture.

Thanks Derek!

BTW I count 118 LED's in your post but you are only going to run 90. What are you not going to run out of what you posted.

Theres always one in the crowd. J/K there Lance. I am using pretty much everything since also need two smaller setup's for my tub setup in Austin. May have a driver left but thats probably it, I let youu know.

Cheers,

[chrisrush]

Sweet Ron. I didn't know you were going LED. Let me know how the green and red turn out.

[C4rN4gE]

Sharp looking heatsink, and excellent choice going with the Berquist! Now that NanoTuners is out of business, I need to start sourcing those from somewhere else.

Do you mind if I ask what your reasoning is for going 3:1 RB:W? And actually, it looks like you are going a mix of Blue and White? In looking at the spectrum graphs, Blue doesnt really give you the best spectrum for maximum photosynthesis. OR are you going to see if maybe there is a something missing in the spectrums of most fixtures that coral need and you are going to try and provide that with the green/red/blue lights?

[bimmerzs]

Sweet Ron. I didn't know you were going LED. Let me know how the green and red turn out.

Thanks and will do!

[bimmerzs]

Sharp looking heatsink, and excellent choice going with the Berquist! Now that NanoTuners is out of business, I need to start sourcing those from somewhere else.

Do you mind if I ask what your reasoning is for going 3:1 RB:W? And actually, it looks like you are going a mix of Blue and White? In looking at the spectrum graphs, Blue doesnt really give you the best spectrum for maximum photosynthesis. OR are you going to see if maybe there is a something missing in the spectrums of most fixtures that coral need and you are going to try and provide that with the green/red/blue lights?

The goal is to "hit" all of the spectrum's first, the 3:1 ratio and mix will allow me to maximize coloration while maintaining a more natural, balanced looking tank and not some blacklight generator. I may add a couple t5's to it if needed later on. That and I can make some killer storm patterns using my Apex.

Cheers,

[Lance]

don't forget to add the rain generator

[bimmerzs]

don't forget to add the rain generator

Gonna skip that one.

Cheers,

[bdare]

Ron,

Give me a shout when it comes time for wiring... I've learned a few tricks...

Ben

[Marc]

I love the look of the anodized heat sink.

[bimmerzs]

Hey Lance,
The extra's are being used on the led setup for the prop/frag tank I got going in the Austin apartment. Getting all the small kinks worked out with this one before playing with big guy. Gonna have 3 T5's in the middle of the heatsink's.

Ron,

Give me a shout when it comes time for wiring... I've learned a few tricks...

Ben

please share

[DennisF]

Did you get the red led's from Steve? He does not show them on his site.

[Lance]

That is looking great Ron..........Love the idea of putting the T-5s in there after our round table meeting talking about the corals not getting all the colors and how they were going to be adding T-5 bulbs to their setups to supplement the color spectrum.

[bdare]

Ron,

Give me a shout when it comes time for wiring... I've learned a few tricks...

Ben

please share

Well...

For starters, each driver doesn't need it's own power cord. You can have one cord control multiple drivers. Another is when it comes to wiring the dimmers. Much easier to run a set of wires from the dimming pots close to the drives and wire them there. Keeps it cleaner than running all the wires from each driver to the pots. Little stuff like that...

[bimmerzs]

Did you get the red led's from Steve? He does not show them on his site.

Nope got a couple from a member and the rest of the red and green's from rapidled.

Cheers,

[bimmerzs]

Ron,

Give me a shout when it comes time for wiring... I've learned a few tricks...

Ben

please share

Well...

For starters, each driver doesn't need it's own power cord. You can have one cord control multiple drivers. Another is when it comes to wiring the dimmers. Much easier to run a set of wires from the dimming pots close to the drives and wire them there. Keeps it cleaner than running all the wires from each driver to the pots. Little stuff like that...

Yup.....good advice for those going that route. I will have one main power cord to all drivers and the output to each driver bank with have fuses for protection. I'll be dimming via my Apex and an extra VDM module and I'll try to keep my wire management in check. Still have a few outstanding cosmetic enhancement's I'm thinking about or I may kkep that part super simple and clean.

Cheers,

[bimmerzs]

That is looking great Ron..........Love the idea of putting the T-5s in there after our round table meeting talking about the corals not getting all the colors and how they were going to be adding T-5 bulbs to their setups to supplement the color spectrum.

Yeah....I have been following led's for about 2 years, it's seems true that some coral's do better under Led's than others. You see a lot more red and green led's being added now where before they were considered pretty much useless. I'm gonna get with pampee to get a frag of one of the coral's that didn't do well under his led's and see how it does under my setup. If it does well then t5's may not be necessary but I think I will still have them in place and wired up. I say I'm keep them off but you know I like lot's of light.

Cheers,

[Lance]

updates??

[McReefer]

Wow.... That's really slick looking. Can't wait to see it over a tank with some t5s. Whats your cost so far?

[bimmerzs]

updates??

Been busy with the holiday's and all, only added the t5's to the smaller unit over the prop/frag tank. Still planning out a few things for the larger unit, may start wiring that one up soon. 'll post a few pic's of the smaller unit this weekend.

Cheers,

[bimmerzs]

Wow.... That's really slick looking. Can't wait to see it over a tank with some t5s. Whats your cost so far?

Thanks.....cost. Easily $600-$700 so far which is actually not bad, heck getting the heatsink anodized was $50 by itself and almost as much as the heatsink.

Cheers,

update?

[bimmerzs]

I finished adding t5's to the smaller unit, haven't had a lot of time nor motivation since the holiday's. I'll try to post pic's Sunday.

Cheers,

[McReefer]

I finished adding t5's to the smaller unit, haven't had a lot of time nor motivation since the holiday's. I'll try to post pic's Sunday.

Cheers,

I've been waiting to see that... Just take some meth or something, that will make you motivated! lol jk

[zed102]

What t5 bulbs are you using to supplement?

[bimmerzs]

I finished adding t5's to the smaller unit, haven't had a lot of time nor motivation since the holiday's. I'll try to post pic's Sunday.

Cheers,

I've been waiting to see that... Just take some meth or something, that will make you motivated! lol jk

Gonna pass on that motivational technique. I don't have a pic of the completed "nicely" arranged unit just the pic I took while testing it.

100_1204.jpg (1004.37 KiB) Viewed 2229 times

[bimmerzs]

What t5 bulbs are you using to supplement?

99% probability of going with the new ATI coral plus bulb's. http://blog.aquanerd.com/2012/01/ati-re ... -bulb.html


Cheers,

[zed102]

Looking forward to see how these do for the colors. So far my corals are looking awesome under just the LEDs but if I lose some color I have a t5 retro ready to go in.

[bimmerzs]

I really need to update this thread....I have been really trying to get the 150G cube running so that has limited my motivation and available time to work on the main fixture. I have sourced additional color led's from groupbuyleds....true violet, turquoise and got their deep red. I got som cyan's also so I'm now up to 9 different flavors of led's. My apartment also has track lighting right above where the tank is at so I picked up a couple of deep penetrating PAR38 bulb's so I can at least get light on the tank and start moving coral's over. I have one each of the blue and blue/white PAR38 bulb's.

Cheers,