Another DIY LED Light Unit

Discussion in 'Anything DIY related' started by llewellynkearney, Mar 9, 2014.

  1. llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Hi Guys and Girls

    Yes Another Thread on diy leds. I bet you guys are tired of every second guy trying to build a led light unit. ( and some do succeed) So here is my try.
    please feel free to comment PLEASE as all help and suggestions are welcome.

    So here goes: I got some industrieal reflector from a scrapyard for free( that's where the idea of a light came from ). So I riveted two of them together and was very pleased with how it looked.

    Then I decided to go the led route. Here I please want your input, cause I'm not sure how many leds to put in. Here is a list of led I ordered:

    3W cool white 6500k X 18
    3W pure white 8000k - 15000k X 9
    10W Aqua Marine Royal blue X 2
    60 degree lenses X 27

    Do you think this will be too much or not enough?
    OOhhh almost forgot to say my tank is a 4ft 270l 500mm deep


    Here are some pics of my unit so far.
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  3. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Sorry I see the pics uploaded in reverse order.
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  4. JJFury

    JJFury

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    @llewellynkearney, Good workmanship is always appreciated, so keep the info and pics coming. If I may ask, how much did you pay for those LEDs, and how are you going to drive them?

    Also, it may or may not be of interest to you, but I slapped together some calculations for some other guys here in the forum ago to calculate the height/spread of an LED given the beamwidth etc. See the link below if you are interested.

    Dropbox - LED Calcs.xlsx
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 2, 2016
  5. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    hi
    Thx. I paid R800.00 for everything incl. drivers. The driver I got can drive 7 - 9 3w leds and for the 10w I got a driver for each.

    Thx for the link, I will have a look.
     
  6. GavinD

    GavinD

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    Nice build. Thanks for sharing
     
  7. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Thx gavin
     
  8. Rabbid dawg

    Rabbid dawg Ninjasarus

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    What I would do is use @JJFury s led calculator to work out the spread of of your light with those lenses. Then you know how far to space those 6500k and 8000k led,to get an even coverage, Install those first and see what effect it has.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 2, 2016
  9. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Yip that's what I'm busy doing. Thx alot
     
  10. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Just a small lil update. I'm getting all my leds, drivers, heatsinks and 60 deg. lenses tomorrow. So guess what I'll be doing all night tomorrow night.
     
  11. Rabbid dawg

    Rabbid dawg Ninjasarus

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    Great!
    Have you calculated how far you are going to space your leds and what colour combination are you using?
     
  12. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Yes a little. Still a figuring out how high to suspend it from the water surface. But just getting more confused the more I read up on led lighting, so decided to go with my gut. Will have to wait and see how it turns out.
     
  13. JJFury

    JJFury

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    @llewellynkearney, if you have a look at that spreadsheet that I put together, calculate the height where the beam will be exactly the front-to-back width of your tank at the surface of the water. Once the light enters the water, you will get complete internal reflection off the glass (meaning that the light do not escape through the glass). This will give you the optimum spread of light from your LED. Hope this helps.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 2, 2016
  14. sub-lime

    sub-lime Somethings Fishy...

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    @llewellynkearney looks great but if you are planning on high light i would double the wattage. Also look on your drivers and check the duty cycle since most led drivers run @85% so instead of running @ 100+- W you're only running 85% of that.
    Do you have an option to turn off the 450nm led's? I would recommend this since they do meet the nm for the photo process however algae feeds on this too... watch fert & co2 levels very carefully or you will get blooms.

    I would look at including a few 3w 680nm.
     
  15. GavinD

    GavinD

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    I am looking forward at seeing the final result of your DIY. Sounds really nice.
     
  16. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Got all my goodies today. connected the 15000k and wow they are bright. Also connected the 10w royal blue and I am really suprised at how bright they are. will post pics when I have connected everything
     
  17. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Pics of all the goodies
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  18. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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  19. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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  20. dash

    dash

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    Hi wow! Those lights look amazing! Ok tell how much to put the set together and how does it compare to your normal t5 lights rated 6500k? Why I am asking, is because it would be interesting to know if you could grow plants under that LED strips. I have read some where that people have planted tanks with these lights but the confusion comes in when doing the rating of the bulb.
     
  21. OP
    llewellynkearney

    llewellynkearney Llewellyn Kearney

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    Hi @dash
    The whole thing costed me around R750.00. And all I can say is it's awesome. Here are a before and after pic so you can see for yourself. the before lights are 5 x 30w 6500k t5 tubes.
    IMG-20140315-WA0005.jpgIMG-20140315-WA0003.jpg

    Still need to sort out all the wires and how to suspend it. This was just a test run.

    IMG-20140315-WA0005.jpg

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    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 2, 2016

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