get nylon screws. easier

Steve

Not when you include tapping that many holes.

I can't imagine any of this being easy on account of your paws!

Off to a great start there. The welding stuff is way over my head but looks impressive. You have thermal paste under those directly on the aluminum as well?

Yeah definitely harder without thumbs!

Thanks and yes there is thermal paste under each LED.

Nylon screws sound good until you need to tap. Plus they are know for slightly backing off over tim due to expansion/contraction of the heatsink. Then your stars don't have good connection to the sink and all h*!l breaks loose. Things are looking great on here though!

While I wait for my new washers I thought I'd work on setting up and testing the rest of the electronics and it seems I've found an issue. The 24V power supply won't put out more than 14V, the lowest is 10V. I would have expected a range of about 20-28V so I'm thinking something maybe half of something isn't working properly. Anyone familiar with this?

Nevermind, I need a new multimeter :sad:

bah, I have lost track of how many holes I have tapped. kinda therapudic to me.

Steve

Some updates:

Covered the inside of the canopy with aluminium tape
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6772.jpg

Installed fixture and setup heat tests, this is operating at 100% on all LEDs except the yellows which I haven't gotten working yet (might be driver issue).

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6776.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6774.jpg

Hottest point I could find was at 113F according to this measuring device, other methods I used were not over 100F. This was taken after about an hour of steady state. I also doubt I'll be anywhere near 100% power, 50% is more likely closer to my lighting needs.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6779.jpg

The test was not done without fans, without the fans I suspect it will reach well over operating temp with this many LEDs at 100%. Once the fixture is done I will do some more testing but I think I'll be installing a thermo switch to protect the LEDs from overheating in the event of fan failure.

right on Man lights looks great

OK so I'm now working on getting the fixture with work with the LEDcontrol4 module and the profilux controller. So far I've had limited luck on trying to figure out how these things connect and I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple people who know more than me. So if anyone has ideas please post.

This is the LEDcontrol module:
http://support.aquariumcomputer.com/...2011-02-11.pdf

And this is the driver:
http://stevesleds.com/uploads/Quad_L...de_1.27.11.doc

What I need to know is exactly what pins from LEDcontrol connect to the driver. I'm assuming pins 2-5 on the LEDcontrol connect to Pin 2 on the corresponding drivers but I don't know what connect to Pin 1 on LEDcontrol and if I need something to connect to Pin 4 on the drivers.

Any help would be appreciated :mrgreen:

OK so I was unable to get the PWM controlling working however I believe it's possible with some further investigations, it's just unfortunate that a product that is geared towards the DIY market has such little support and documentation. Realistically a decent manual with examples of how to connect typical drivers would be helpful instead of the typical spec sheet that tends to focus the details on what it can do rather than how.

Anyways I've installed the fixture with the manual dimmers to get a feel for what this thing can do, here's a FTS with 100% blue, 10% red, and 50% white (the color I'm most happy with):
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6790.jpg
Not the greatest picture but my camera did have issue balancing the color.

Anyways my final thoughts are not great, overall this style of lighting isn't for me and I'll either sell it as is for what I can get or rebuilt some kind of hybrid.

These are my problems, some I feel are related to how it was built but others on LEDs in general.

• Main issue is it doesn't work for rimless tank, having an open fixture means when I sit in my living room I have 126 LEDs shining in my eyes.
• The color isn't as good, the corals simply don't reflect the same colors as they do with other options.
• Overall brightness isn't impressive, running close to capacity over 300W of LEDs seems comparable to 200W of T5s, to my eyes anyway, yes PAR may tell a different story.
• The fans are still noticeable, considering that I went through great lengths to eliminate the slightest noise even the quiets fans are a nuisance.
• It's overly complicated, I just can't get over it, I feel it will be a constant problem in the future with too many parts to fail. One driver already failed from ESD, although this was my fault during construction.
• The controller was a big fail, although possible far from plug and play like I was hoping and told by some.

All in all, I'll be investigating other options and I'll take what I can get for this fixture.

Interesting conclusion. Do you think some of the issues related to failing equipment and coloration may be due to the choice of the budget "Steve's LED's"?

Are the fans noisy because they are high flow or because they blow into a contained tunnel which creates some additional noise?

I applaud your effort, this was a creative design and looks great. I am sure you wont have an issue selling it. What are the dimensions of the canopy?

Cheers,
Ken

I wouldn't call it budget equipment, it's good quality stuff and I've worked with cree and meanwell parts as well. The drivers are just a little more sensitive since they are just the raw circuit boards so ESD protection is something I should have taken more seriously. However the drivers are easily replaced and inexpensive. Coloration is typical with what you see with LEDs, I just don't care for it but was hoping mixing in some red and eliminating the use of optics would make things better but it's personal preference and I'm just not getting it.

The fans are noisy because everything else is quiet, all equipment is remote on another floor. I don't think any other fans would be better, these are quiet fans and the channeling makes no difference.

Again, nothing against LEDs. I wanted to try them so I did but in the end I have to look at the tank everyday and it's just not what I want. Mostly it just how my tank is positioned in the room, up high so when I watch TV the lights beam directly into my eyes and burn my brain, even now it's really annoying. A completely closed canopy would be ideal for this lighting, but again not what I want.

3.5" High
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...11/Fixture.jpg

Some quick macros under the LEDs, nothing crazy just trying it out.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6820.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6818.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6817.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6814.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6813.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6811.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6810.jpg

Couple more shot in RAW mode

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6824.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...11/Coral_1.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...2011/Coral.jpg

I think you should hold off on selling the LEDs for a month at least.. just to get over the "thats different" phase. cuz I got to tell you thats some of the nicest colors I have seen in pictures that is natural looking and not looking like your using tricks to make the colors 10 times more saturated than they are.

Steve

I agree. Those pics look like they could be text book examples.

Holy fruit loops batman, those are great pics and amazing colors. I to would suggest getting adjusted to the LED's before you sell but that's just my 2 cents :biggrin:

Thanks all, I've decided to hang onto the fixture for a while. I'm going to spend a little more time and money on it to fix some of my issues with it.

I've ordered a custom Arduino controller to take the place of the LEDcontrol4 by profilux which was disappointing to say the least. The controller will control everything related to the light fixture including heat sink temperature. I'm also going to work on coming up with some ideas to shade the LEDs.

We'll see how this goes.

how high do you have the fixture above the tank? controling the light spill might be as simple as putting optics on your outside edge of LEDs or lowering the fixture. I would see how low you can go befor you don't get nice coverage and mixture.

Steve

It's pretty much as low as I can put it, plus even if I lowered the fixture it wouldn't help as the problem is the profile is too short and the LEDs don't go far enough up into the fixture, lowering it really won't accomplish anything unless it basically touches the water. I'm not using optics and don't plan on it so that won't work.

I'm just going to add a 1.5" trim piece to the bottom to extend the profile a little, that should fix the issue.

OK so one problem solved.

The light bleed was pretty bad, so without going crazy the best solution seemed to be build a small extension.

This was it before:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6796.jpg

Here's the extension all built and stained:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6835.jpg

And here's the final result:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6838.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/DSC_6837.jpg

No more light bleed which is much better but I'm not sure if I lost a few points on style :mrgreen:

Lost? No I think you gained points. Thats very nice!!!!

I agree with Dan. I like it better.

Wow! That looks fantastic! I'm looking to change out my T5s right now and am torn between looking at a DIY MH and a DIY LED (maybe an AI Sol). Everytime I look at LED stuff, though, it seems as though people are complaining about colour of reds and orange and loss of richness in the corals compared to MH. But holy damn, does that tank shot look great!

What % are you running at in thoes pics? also have you looked into some PAR readings yet? if you do can you make sure you do a 100% setting reading as well as where you like it please. I am realy interested to see how Steve's LEDs put out.


Steve

Hard to say exactly as the controller varies throughout the day but I would guess blues close to 90%, whites at about 70% and reds 5%.

No par meter over here so not much I can do right now, maybe sometime in the future I'll get one. I do believe there are PAR readings on RC for these LEDs if you're interested.

Definitely a 10 out of 10 for style, looks awesome.

Really I have to say the tank pic is pretty great. As for the fixture...I think it looks just as good as before.

Looks nice man. My preference would have been simple flat strips to match the shaker doors but I still like what you've done.

Mine as well actually, couldn't find them in Maple in the city on a Sunday. Oh well done now, looks decent. Thanks guys!

Moved in a new fish from my holding tank, got him all trained up eating mysis.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...LeafFish_1.jpg

What a cutie...
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...1/LeafFish.jpg

Got a couple more still waiting to move in but they still need a little more work.

Prime photo for one of those photo caption contents lol. What type of fish is that? Looks like a real character.

The one on the right is a mandarin there Brett :twised:

Wow! I want a 120 rimless so bad! I wonder how big you can go before needing eurobracing?

Pics are AMAZING!

I know I've seen a 480g rimless ELOS build on RC. Apparently you can go BIG =)

I believe it's some kind of black leaf scorpion fish. Appears to mimic a leaf so sounds about right.