$20 LED Build
 

I have read the various threads on LED builds with 10W arrays, Crees, Bridgelux, DIY drivers and I think I have it down to about cheap and easy as you can get it.

I have retrofitted my Biocube 14 with 18 3W LEDs and it cost a total of $21.60. I also redid a 12 gallon Fluval Edge for a planted tank for $8.70 and will next work on my 90 gallon for an expected cost of $96.

The Biocube has 8 Cool Whites, 6 Royal Blues and 2 10000K plus 2 drivers.

The Fluval edge 3 Cool Whites and 3 10000K (around 8000K combined) plus 1 driver.

And the 90 gallon will have 40 Cool Whites, 40 Royal Blues and 9 drivers. I just want to get this up and going and will eventually replace these drivers with DIY Cat 4101 driver and hook it into an Arduino controller

I thought about doing 10W LEDs, but the 3W have dropped to extremely low prices -$35 for 50 which is 70 cents a piece (about $1 a piece for smaller quantities).
I have all the parts to make my own drivers based on the CAT4101 chip but I don’t have a lot of time and picked up some ebay drivers which will run 9 LED’s. They cost $4.50 a piece.
For the Biocube cost was 18 LEDs @ 70 cents = 12.60 and 2 Drivers $ 9.00. Everything was free shipping and arrived really quickly. Total $21.60

Here is the reason I could do this cheaply – I salvaged some Aluminum U channels from some old fluorescent light fixtures, so I got my heat sinks for free. Even if you have to pay for heatsinks or Aluminum you can still do this cheap.

Lights run extremely cool and don’t require a fan – even in the enclosed Biocube hood. The tank is cycling, so I don’t have anything in there and I don’t know how they will respond, but I like the colour and have hooked in a potentiometer to dial down the intensity. Shimmers just like my metal halides.

I will try to get some pics up later and have a number of extra 6 foot lengths of Aluminum channel if anyone has something to trade.

It would be interesting to know where you get your LED's.

Ditto

Ditto the Ditto! Never seen them that cheap.

It would also be interesting to see some pictures Doug.

Chris

I'm currently watching a 100 watt multi-chip LED on eBay that's less than $30. Already have my DIY fixture built using 27 of the 10 watt multi-chips, but it's still a lot of wiring. If I could do 3 or 4 of these 100 watters, use optics & mount them higher..... it would be a pretty cost effective build with much less wiring. There's a thread on RC with multi chips where they are actually getting a manufacturer to custom design a multi-colour 100 watt chip for them. But I think that's going to be pricey at the start. Still be interesting to see where that goes.

LEDs are from String Lights http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-pcs-3W-Ex...14%26rk%3D2%26

But I also bought 10 from Tubelight. http://www.ebay.com/itm/370617903311...84.m1497.l2649

Both Vendors sent them in under 10 days.



Drivers are from electronic convienient 4 you

http://www.ebay.com/itm/180860696551...84.m1439.l2649

Listed price has gone up to $4.98 but they will accept an offer of $4.50. Drivers are only 3 inches long and fit easily in the Biocube hood.

drivers
 

are they a waterproof driver?i just picked up 4 waterproof drivers -same wattage for 39.96 to fix one of my lights

The drivers are mounted in the hood and siliconed to keep out the moisture. I might be swapping them out for some DIY drivers that will support PWM dimming that I can hook up to an Arduino controller.
http://i.imgur.com/80JNl.jpg
LED's in Biocube hood under splash guard. Aluminum U channels are about 4 inches wide and were riveted together.

http://i.imgur.com/xTzCP.jpg
Tank is actually more blue than the picture shows.


http://i.imgur.com/BbEnU.jpg
Fluval edge attached to some CPU heatsinks. This was my first try with these LED's and are overkill because they run very cool.


http://i.imgur.com/nBHGP.jpg
Full tank shot of the Fluval. Planted tanks need around 8000k so they are a combination of 6500k and 10000k

Very nice. Which Arduino controller are you looking to build?