Wanna Try building a LED light

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

Holy heck ron thanks alot the 400 w that isnt a problem sinceI use to have 250's over my tank the tank, houses Aussie Acans & LPS and 3 clams squamosa 10", 8" 5".

what is the average price of LEd's the cool white and Royal blue ron , is thee another place that you can get them from other then led supply.

Ahhh, I looked at things again and I thought you wanted high PAR for SPS. In that case you could use 60 degree optics and fewer LEDs space 2.25 inches apart. That would give you 25 LEDs per row if my math is right? That sounds about right as I used 20 LEDs for 4 feet with this configuration and you are one foot longer.

LEDs run USD $5 to $6 each mounted on stars. You could try nanotuners.com and see if they can give you a good deal on LEDs, drivers, optics etc as a large package deal? Some people really like Cutter Electronics in Australia or also ETG Tech in the US for larger buys.

Originally Posted by Jeff000

Couple things.
50/50 split you will get very white light. I much prefer the bluer look like 20000k MH. So 2 blues to every white. Also keep in mind the whites are brighter then the blues to start with.
Get dimmable drivers (only a couple bucks more) so you can have more control.


I have to disagree with your optics recommendation.
see this thread,
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...ght=led+optics
70 degree optics provided the best results.


I do agree the meanweel drivers are the best buy.

But if you run dimming drivers you can then fine tune the colour temperature to exactly where you want it. 2 blues to 1 white will not give you the option to go more white if you want to.

That reefcentral article is okay but the problem is that he simply changed optics and did not adjust LED spacing. The two have to go hand in hand. If you go narrower optics for greater penetration of light into deeper tanks you need to space the LEDs closer together to get additive PAR. His results are not surprising given the way he did it. The conclusion is that for the spacing of LEDs he used 70 degree optics are best at the particular distance he measure PAR. If he had spaced the LEDs closer together and used tighter optics he would have likely seen higher PAR. This was not a scientific study that can generally be applied to all LED setups, only to those particular strips he used at the depth he measured.

[Skimmerking]

So Ron you have 20 LEd's for each row of 48" right and how many rows did you do my tank is 24 wide.

[Ron99]

I have 4 rows for my 18" wide tank. So ideally you would want 6 rows. But since you a doing LPS etc. rather then SPS as I have you may get away with 5 rows. If you want the ability to have higher PAR for SPS in the future then go 6 rows.

[Skimmerking]

SO for a 60 " tank Ron would you say that
5 rows of 3W LED's with 60 optic's of 25 would do a 60" tank

LIKE THIS

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So 125 LEd's would all i need for my tank then
and how many driver's or transformer 4 of them. the dimmable ones

[Ron99]

Yes, that looks right to me. How many drivers you need depends on what you are using. If you go with the Meanwell ELN-48 then you will need 10 of them, 5 for white and 5 for blue.

[Ron99]

Actually, you want to stagger the white and blue so like this:

B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B

W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W

B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B

W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W

B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B W B

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by Ron99

Yes, that looks right to me. How many drivers you need depends on what you are using. If you go with the Meanwell ELN-48 then you will need 10 of them, 5 for white and 5 for blue.

ok Ron so 125 LED's would be what i would need so if I say 130 lights 3W each
65 whites
65 royal blues
with 60 degree optics
and 10 meanwell eln-48 dimmable drivers
and for a sheet of metal it should be alum heat shields what did you use ron

[Skimmerking]

Could i not try using these Ron,


24VDC 150-Watt Power Supply Features:
L 7.80" W 4.38" H 2.00" WT: 1.9lbs
Input Voltage - 100-220VAC, 50-60 Hz
Output Voltage - 24VDC
Output Current - 6.5A

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

ok Ron so 125 LED's would be what i would need so if I say 130 lights 3W each
65 whites
65 royal blues
with 60 degree optics
and 10 meanwell eln-48 dimmable drivers
and for a sheet of metal it should be alum heat shields what did you use ron

You will want to try to get a proper heatsink rather then aluminum sheet. With close to 400W of LEDs you will want good surface area to dissipate heat and probably to run a few fans as well. The cooler you keep the heatsink and therefore the LEDs the longer they will last. I found some surplus heatsinks on eBay. You could try heatsinkusa.com too. You may need two from them to fit 5 rows of LEDs.

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

Could i not try using these Ron,


24VDC 150-Watt Power Supply Features:
L 7.80" W 4.38" H 2.00" WT: 1.9lbs
Input Voltage - 100-220VAC, 50-60 Hz
Output Voltage - 24VDC
Output Current - 6.5A

Not on their own. Those are just power supplies that you would use with something like buckpucks as the constant current driver for the LEDs. You want a good constant current driver as LEDs are current sensitive devices rather then voltage sensitive. To much current and you burn them out.

The advantage of the Meanwells is that they are an all in one device. They are constant current drivers for the LEDs that run directly off 110V AC out of your wall. Each LED will draw around 3.5V so a 24V power supply with a buckpuck will only drive 6 LEDs. That power supply could probably do 6 buckpucks. So you would use one power supply and 6 buckpucks per 36 LEDs. You would need 22 buckpucks and 4 of those power supplies. The 48V Meanwells will do up to 13 LEDs each so overall using 10 of them is slightly simpler and cleaner solution.