Milad's 72in LED build

[Milad]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

one thing you have to remember as the spectrum goes up the lower the penatration into the water.. so in reality the corals that we get in the hobby (typicly deeper water corals) never see any magenta or green wave length, so adding them to our tanks is pretty much a waist of money.

now where the magenta is good is for terestreal plants, there are several companies out there making LED "grow lights" one of the bigger ones is run out of kelowna or vernon (can't remember what they said) but I was suposed to get togeather with them and work on a tank light. I decided on working on my own as I have a contact with a LED manufacturing company in china (went to high school and am good friends with one of the owners) as of now I am still designing but that might be where it stops with the production of only one proto type. the problem is the patent BS, we can't sell into the US unless I want to pay huge royalties and quite frankly with out the US market I will most likly lose money on the venture. Milade, you are in a perfect spot with your group buy venture as you don't have to worry about that and if ou keep your boards as parts that is awsome also.

the only recomendation I would have is to forget about the magenta and green.. they have been tried and found to be a waist of time, but rather concentrate on the blues and whites.. I am probably going to be ordering a couple of each color from you so I can play with the "look" for my prototype build I am trying to combine TV, RB, and a nutral white or maybe even a warm white, which reminds me.. you don't have a minimum order do you? I am probably looking at 2 of each.

oh and your 4 channel controler, can it run 8 leds? and do you need anything else with it or just plug it into the wall?

Steve

Ya I think im in a great position and really what im trying to do is help the community. The website has been running for a year and I havent made a cent off it yet (and let me tell you ive put in so much time into it). Ive just been putting the money back into inventory and contracting people to make new products that people want (DIM4 controller) and trying to streamline the whole process as much as I can for everyone and get the prices lower.

We didnt have min quantities but Im starting to put them in place as of yesterday. Everything is going to be at least in a 6 pack or 12 pack. This is going to allow us to reduce the group buy time to every week. Almost 95% of the orders are above 6 LEDs so its not a big deal I don't think. Im also going to try to get the Canadian shipping lowered somehow.

The controller is really nifty. Its designed to run either 3 LEDs in series (CREE LEDs) or bunch of controllers PER CHANNEL. So that gives you huge potential to mix it up. We have some nano guys running 4 different types of LEDs on each channel and they use them for main lights. We also have the big tank guys running 3 channels of drivers and using the 4th channel for moonlights. So lots of configurations.

[Milad]

So here is a video of the controller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Skk...layer_embedded

I will be using this on my build instead of the Apex controller I currently have for couple reasons. I needed something to control the fans and something to control the moonlights. This is going to do both. I also didnt want to spend the extra cash to get the moonlight module and the additional variable speed ports on the APEX.

So I have the heatsink and controller, just waiting on the LEDs to get into production so I can get them in and start wiring things up.

[StirCrazy]

interesting. since you built the board from scratch did youmake it so you could just plug it into 120v or do you need to power it with 12v?

Steve

[Milad]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

interesting. since you built the board from scratch did youmake it so you could just plug it into 120v or do you need to power it with 12v?

Steve

It needs 12v. Most people have a 12v around the house. We also gave the flexibility to them to use different current for different setups. So if you are just doing drivers, you need a very low current power supply (500mA). If you are doing LEDs directly then you can get a 5A power supply.

I also got the update on the new LEDs. Prototypes are in route to Vancouver as we speak. I should have them early next week if not tomorrow. I have a PAR meter in route also. Im going to run some numbers comparing a CREE Setup vs the new LEDs (i might do some 150w MH just to get an idea.

If everything looks good they will go into production and I should be getting them sooner than later.

[ignobolis]

Originally Posted by Milad

It needs 12v. Most people have a 12v around the house. We also gave the flexibility to them to use different current for different setups. So if you are just doing drivers, you need a very low current power supply (500mA). If you are doing LEDs directly then you can get a 5A power supply.

I also got the update on the new LEDs. Prototypes are in route to Vancouver as we speak. I should have them early next week if not tomorrow. I have a PAR meter in route also. Im going to run some numbers comparing a CREE Setup vs the new LEDs (i might do some 150w MH just to get an idea.

If everything looks good they will go into production and I should be getting them sooner than later.

HiYa Milad

Its been a while between updates on this and I was curious to see your advancements and progress to date.

Any chance you could share were your at please.

Thanks