Wanna Try building a LED light

[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.

[mseepman]

I just built a small LED fixture last weekend from stuff I got from www.rapidled.com. They were great to deal with but a little expensive. I haven't started it up as I ran out of time and had to go on a business trip before I got to test for shorts.

I will be doing a big LED fixture to cover my 290 when I get it going and I would order from ETG as they will do any order over $50 and have a way better price. Plus you get XP-G's and XP-E's which are more efficient. I will have about 180 LED's over the tank as a plan right now.

PM me if you want info on contact ETG. I can also give you a link to get meanwell's at a reasonable price. You want to use the ELN 60-48D as it's dimmable and can be controlled by an RKE, APEX or Profilux if you get back into a controller.

Try www.heatsinkusa.com if you want to get some heatsinks. Though shipping can be ugly. If you find a canadian source for Heatsinks then please let me know as i haven't found any.