DIY LED Using 10 Watt Arrays

[mseepman]

If you're looking to keep costs down...look to Donald's machine for the rails. One of the owners has a reef tank and they are priced much better than the big box stores.

[Ryan]

Tagging along.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by mseepman

If you're looking to keep costs down...look to Donald's machine for the rails. One of the owners has a reef tank and they are priced much better than the big box stores.

Hey thanks Mark. Last bunch I used to fabricate my current MH/T5 setup I got at Princess Auto in Kelowna. I assume Donald's machine is in Vernon?? NM, found it in the Vernon phone book.

[mike31154]

Time for an update. I've got a little more work done on this. SeaHorse Fanatic has a similar project going built by a friend of his. This is what provided the motivation for me to finally get started on a LED fixture for my system.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=81619

I checked out the local machine shop for aluminum stock that mseepman recommended, but they only had larger, thick material & I'm looking to keep the mass & weight of my build to a minimum. They recommended I try another local machine shop, but I was on my way to Kelowna that day anyhow, so went to Princess Auto where I had scored some reasonably priced square & angle stock before. Ended up getting some thin 8 foot lengths of 3/4 aluminum angle for about $15 ea incl taxes.

I haven't made up any kind of plan on paper or otherwise, kind of doing it on the fly. Still waiting for heatsinks, power supply & additional LEDs I've ordered, customs is taking their time in processing the shipments. grr. Since I have the aluminum & hardware to get started, I put together one 4 foot rack with two heatsinks.



Had some thicker angle stock left over from building my MH/T5 rack, so used those pieces at each end of the lighter stock. Threaded with 8-32 tap & used stainless bolts to fasten.

Here's a detail view of the business side of the heatsinks with 10 watt LED arrays loosely positioned. Will endeavour to keep the wiring neat & tidy, using small terminals or soldering wires together & covering with heatshrink tubing. I'm thinking heatshrink will provide protection from moisture, but we'll see.



Here's the flip side of the rack, showing the fans on the heatsinks. This will be facing away from the water surface. I threaded the heatsinks to allow use of stainless bolts for fastening. Tried 6-32, but one didn't hold, so went with 8-32 here as well. Mounted the heatsinks diagonally since this provides the best clearance for the fans to do their job of cooling. They're plenty secure with two 8-32 ss bolts.



Spacing from center of one heatsink to the next is approx. 6 & 1/2 inches. This will allow installation of at least 6 arrays equally spaced along the 4 foot rail. I'll start with that, or maybe 5, & see how that goes. The thing I like about using this material & fastening with bolts, is that if I need to modify the set up, it's as simple as drilling additional holes. Electrical hookup should also be easy to modify, with a minimum of soldering. Also still thinking I might add a few MR16 bulbs to the rail as needed. This will allow me to spotlight a certain coral or area of live rock with a custom LED colour of whatever works for that area. Just need to figure out a way to fasten the MR16 bulb socket to the rail. Shouldn't be too difficult.

I'm thinking 3 of these rails for my 4 foot tank. One down the center & two along the outside. Not quite sure whether I'll hang them or make up something to set them on the tank rim. Either way, I plan to install the outside rails so that they can be swiveled to point slightly inwards. A single bolt through the end brackets with a wing nut to allow friction fit with quick adjustment should do the trick.

[mseepman]

Looking good so far. Anxious to see how this turns out.

[mike31154]

A little more progress on the project since the 12VDC 240Watt power supply & 10 additional heatsinks finally arrived yesterday. Still waiting for 10 10Watt 10,000K LED chips. Chuckle, all those 10s make my eyes go buggy.

Power Supply. Adjustable from 10.07 to 13.58 VDC with the variable resistor. I will probably set it at close to 12 VDC & use separate variable resistors or drivers on each output line to control current & brightness of LEDs. With a potentiometer on each output line, I'll be able to control 3 colours of LEDs individually. This is pretty much mandatory, since different colours of these LED arrays tend to have slightly different maximum voltages, anywhere from 9 to 12. For example, the Royal Blues' rated forward voltage is 9-10 volts, so running them at 12 will sure as hell make them brighter, but I reckon they wouldn't last too long.



I've now mounted 6 heatsinks on to the first rail with 3 each of the cool white 6,000-7,000K LEDs & 452-455NM Royal Blues. The LED chips are only held on with heatsink compound at the moment. I'll see how secure that is once the compound cures & may leave it at that instead of securing additionally with screws. The tiny screws required are hard to source.



Original idea was 3 of these rails, but having assembled the one, I think I may reconfigure to have 2 rails only, but with 8 LEDs per rail vice 6. My 77 gal is just under 16 inches inside dimension front to back & 3 rails would be too much hardware with these 10 Watt arrays.

Now it's wait for the remaining LEDs, shop for additional hardware - potentiometers & wiring for hookup. Have a couple more heatsinks on hand, so I can get to work building the second rail.

[hillegom]

Great build, following along.
I have been wanting to build one as well, still just learning.
Where are you getting all the components, if you don't mind me asking.
Thanks

[mike31154]

LEDs, heatsinks, power supply are all from Asia, via the well known online auction site. Need to plan ahead & be patient, look for deals, be careful of shipping scenarios. Hardware, aluminum etc. I'm trying to get local as much as possible. So far Princess Auto has been the most cost effective for aluminum stock in the sizes I need. Think I'll visit Circuit City today to see what they might have in wire & potentiometers. PA can be a good source for those things as well, but I'm not driving to Kelowna today.

[Stones]

Very promising looking build so far. It's nice to see someone veer off the beaten path as almost all LED builds I've seen have been done with the 3 watt chipsets on a huge heatsink.

Which website did you order the LEDs, heatsinks and power supply from if you don't mind me asking? Looking to possibly do a LED build for a planted discus tank and this may be a better option than going with 3 watt LEDs as I had originally planned.