Diy Whole Tank Led Lighting Retrofit

[andywg]

The trouble with having lenses and collimaters on these is that then you see the individual beams going through the water which I don't want. I want even spread. If you do want collimators/lense/reflectors then they are cheap from the same source as the LEDs here:
[URL="http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=023"]http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=023[/URL]

My point was not so much at your situation and was aimed at Barney who is thinking of these in a reef setting where the light is more important than it is in a planted setting. With the correct lenses and the right amount of LEDs you don't see the individual beams and you do get decent penetration, but even then it is not as good as s decent MH bulb. Now I don't know of that many people who would ever really consider a 400W MH necessary to cover a 2x2x2 cube of FW planted, but in the upper ends of SPS reef keeping it is far from uncommon.

At the moment most people compare the performances of the LEDs to 250W MH bulbs and the DIY ones fall a way short of the professional ones (as you might expect) which in turn fall short of the MH. In a FW planted scenario you are probably not comparing the LEDs to such high output lighting and I dare say what you have will serve you very well.

 

[SuperColey1]

You are correct. I am comparing them to T8 and T5HO on electronic ballasts. 8.4W of these is easily as bright (to the eye) as 18W fluoro!!! hence why I think I will be raising my hood a bit once I get this lot setup. We shall see.

I did read that people weren't overly impressed when comparing the Solaris setups to MH.

AC

 

[rabbut]

Seeing that Aluminium warping realy makes me worry about heat suddenly. I think I may well rig a computer water cooling system up... The TMC Aquarays are rather feeble IMO now that I have seen them running 12 over a 4X2X18 tank makes it look like there isn't realy any light there at all This is why I'm going DIY. I know there are realy bright LED's out there that will do the job reasonably well, and my Halide will cook my reef in summer (well boil it if you want to be technically correct) and hence I need a "cooler" alternative and/or a way of exporing more heat from the existing lamp...

Thanks for putting this thread up AC, it's proven very useful

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SuperColey1]

Incidentally the chap that had the warping issue in that picture put a 6" PC fan at one end of the tank and then ran it underpowered to avoid the noise issue and it solved the warp and the water temp rising

He did however not use current controllers and eventually fried his LEDs which is why I haven't scrimped on anything here. £100 is a lot for lighting when you think to replace my tubes yearly would cost circa £15 even if it should last 7 or so years without needing replacements so I need to make sure it works without too many problem to solve that involve spending any more money.

AC

 

[SteveyG]

5 are roughly equivilant in lumen output, to a 150W halide

Not sure where you've come to this conclusion from. Comparing lumens to lumens, halides are still more efficient than consumer available LEDs.

A standard 150W metal halide has a light output of 12000 lumens. One of those 3W LEDs has a light output of 80 lumens, so you'd need 150 3W LEDs to achieve the same output (thats 450W of LEDs). In real terms it won't quite work out like this as lumens are not an ideal way of comparing light output, but you get the idea...

 

[SuperColey1]

Some other options:

10W 600Lumens (150 = 9000 Lumens)
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/10W-White-LED-600-LM...1QQcmdZViewItem

20W 1000Lumens (150 = 7500 Lumens)
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/WHITE-20W-LED-1000-L...1QQcmdZViewItem

50W 3000 Lumens (150 = 9000 Lumens)
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/20-Watt-White-LED-10...1QQcmdZViewItem

100W 6500Lumens (150 = 9750 Lumens)
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/20-Watt-White-LED-10...1QQcmdZViewItem

You also have to bear in mind that just like with fluoros the wattage does not correlate in any way to the Lumens/ PAR.

If you have a look at dotlight.de there are many different 3W Luxeon LEDs and there are Lumen outputs from 30 up to 110 just in the LuxeonIII model.

There are also many other different makes and even higher Lumens outputs so worth researching to see if you are actually saving money buying these cheapies from ebay!!! you may pay more £ but get more light per £ by buying different LEDs at the higher prices!!!

AC

 

[SteveyG]

Indeed. I'm very suspect of some of these ebay LEDs though, I may purchase one to test at work to see how the spec sheets compare to real performance.

I've noticed in the past that they tend to run a lot hotter than similar Philips LEDs running at the same power which is an early indication of poorer performance.

 

[SuperColey1]

I've noticed in the past that they tend to run a lot hotter than similar Philips LEDs running at the same power which is an early indication of poorer performance.

These ones from ebay are Philips Lumileds Luxeon III!!!!

AC

 

[reportingsjr]

Sorry if I'm busting on to the scene a bit late, but looking at that design I'm wondering why you are considering heatsinks? They are LEDs, one of the main points is that they produce almost no heat, haha. Also look up on your LED stuff a bit more, as you need a resistor in between each led and such to limit the current, etc..

 

[Schmill]

Sorry if I'm busting on to the scene a bit late, but looking at that design I'm wondering why you are considering heatsinks? They are LEDs, one of the main points is that they produce almost no heat, haha. Also look up on your LED stuff a bit more, as you need a resistor in between each led and such to limit the current, etc..

I think you've missed the point here... These are HIGH POWER Leds, if they are 3W then they are 3W regardless of whether they are LED or standard bulbs, and that heat has to go somewhere. The difference is the LED is usually a smaller footprint, so the heat is that much more concentrated, hence needing the heatsinks to wick it away.

 

[SuperColey1]

Sorry if I'm busting on to the scene a bit late, but looking at that design I'm wondering why you are considering heatsinks? They are LEDs, one of the main points is that they produce almost no heat, haha. Also look up on your LED stuff a bit more, as you need a resistor in between each led and such to limit the current, etc..

You shouldn't use resistors on high powered LEDs. I am using current controllers instead which limit the voltage going into the LED series much better than a 'regulated' 12V supply would.

Heatsinks are most definately needed. Look at the pic above with the warping Alu bar.

AC

 

[SteveyG]

I've noticed in the past that they tend to run a lot hotter than similar Philips LEDs running at the same power which is an early indication of poorer performance.

These ones from ebay are Philips Lumileds Luxeon III!!!!

AC

If you bought these ones: http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=015 , they are most definitely not made by Philips, despite it saying "Luxeon LED Lamp" in the title - they're cheap Hong Kong types. A quick way to check is that the emitter is made has a black round plastic base whereas the Hong Kong ones are square, and also do not have the Part, Bin and Serial numbers (LXHL-LW3C or whatever) printed on the back.

 

[SuperColey1]

maybe they are copies then. the LumiLeds logo is there but they do have a squareish black base and a plain back with no print.

Looking on the Philips site the emitter looks like the K2 and the star looks like the LuxeonIII with Lumileds on one point of the star!!!

AC

 

[SuperColey1]

Some quick pics while I finish off wiring ready to insert it and connect it up.

This is from the end looking along the board. I put this first because I though it looked quite impressive:

This is the whole board from above. The acrylic sheet is 80cm x 34cm

And this is an individual close up:

Got to go...busy, busy, busy

AC

 

[rabbut]

That looks nice and easy to fault test

Good progress though

All the best
Rabbut