+Jakedoza Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 I am going to try and be pretty informative here.. I have not gotten my LEDs in yet but here is what I ordered.. I bought 1 lot of 5 of these.. http://www.aliexpres...holesalers.html and I bought 2 lots of 5 of these.. http://www.aliexpres...holesalers.html These ship out of China, so they will take some time getting here.. I elected to get the expedited shipping for an extra $20.. My total was a little over $100.. I had some difficulties finding drivers for these because I wanted to fire all the whites with one driver and all the blues with one driver. If you don't know the formula for finding the right driver for your LEDs here it is.. If you want to run them in series, you multiply the voltage by the number of LEDs in the string and keep the same current.. For example: I have 5 LEDs I want to fire.. They are 20w, 35v, 700mA each.. I would need a driver that puts out 175v @700mA to fire these in series... If you want to run them in parallel, you keep the voltage and you multiply the current by the number of LEDs in the string.. Same LED string wired in parallel would require a driver [email protected]... I elected to run my LEDs in parallel.. There are some advantages to this. If one goes out.. they all don't go out.. I wanted dimmable drivers for my LEDs as well.. so, I began to hunt.. This is what I found.. I probably could have saved some money by getting the drivers out of China as well, but I elected to go with Mean Well dimmable drivers. For the Blues I purchased: http://www.powergate...wer-supply.html and for the Whites I purchased: http://www.powergate...wer-supply.html Here I spent about $155 with shipping.. In total I'm out about $260 for LEDs... When they get here, I get to put them together. Stay posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Definitely interested to see how these come out. I've looked at some stuff on that site but been skeptical about ordering. Let us know how fast the expedited shipping is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sifuentes31 Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Man you got my idea!! Really want to know how it all comes out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 17, 2012 Author Share Posted May 17, 2012 LEDs came in today... I have to say that I was very surprised that they beat the drivers here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zilkerfish Posted May 17, 2012 Share Posted May 17, 2012 Those look nice! What will you be using to control them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 18, 2012 Author Share Posted May 18, 2012 I will be using These.. with 100K potentiometers for now... A controller will come later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 18, 2012 Author Share Posted May 18, 2012 Today was a fruitful day.. I made a trip to Lowe's and bought some hardware and some U-channel to mount the LEDs on... Measured where I wanted the LEDs and then set them up to drill holes for mounting.. Mounted with thermal grease underneath for heat transfer.. Now for the fun part... Running wire, soldering and heat shrink.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 18, 2012 Author Share Posted May 18, 2012 Wired up the drivers and tested.. Pulled down the canopy and removed the old lighting... Amazing how fast if comes apart compared to how long it took to put together.. Installed the new LED light strip and tested.. and now for the moment I have been waiting for.... All in all it cost me about $300 to light my tank... It is a 135 Oceanic.. 72"x24"x18" PAR readings to come.. When I get a PAR meter to test with.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+o0zarkawater Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 Looking good Jake. How do you like the color combo you ended up going with? In that pic are they all turned up 100%? Can't wait to see it in person on Sat. I'm glad someone else was inspired to check out those panels. I know Francis has all his LED stuff, he needs to talk you into helping him get it all set-up, cuz I'm way lazy compared to what you did in 1 day. Do you monitor your temps very closely? I'm wondering how the LED with that long heat sink will compare to the T5's. I don't remember what kind of fans if any you have in the canopy, or plan on installing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 18, 2012 Author Share Posted May 18, 2012 Took about 5 hours in all from start to finish.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sifuentes31 Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 TOO **** COOL BUD!!! For sure let us know the PAR readings for the tank. Man i'm really stoked on doing the same now. I almost bought all those little LED's but glad i waited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+olaggie01 Posted May 18, 2012 Share Posted May 18, 2012 Man those are huge LEDs. Definitely keep an eye on the temps and don't run them at 100%, you'll nuke everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted May 19, 2012 Share Posted May 19, 2012 Man those are huge LEDs. Definitely keep an eye on the temps and don't run them at 100%, you'll nuke everything. +1 Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 19, 2012 Author Share Posted May 19, 2012 Yes, In that photo they are 100%.. For the photo only though.. I'm running them at about 50% probably for the next week and then turn them up slooowly over the period of a month or so.. Thanks guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sifuentes31 Posted May 19, 2012 Share Posted May 19, 2012 So how do the colors look compared with that of the t5's? It looks purple and thats the way i like it. Also, did you add the potentiometers or were they part of the drivers? If you had to get them seperate where did you connect them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 19, 2012 Author Share Posted May 19, 2012 I have the whites on a driver and the blues on a driver... so I can adjust them individually to what I like. The light is comparable to my t-5s with the exception of the blue LEDs.. They are WAY more blue than the t-5s ever were.. The Pots did not come with the drivers. I purchased them at Fry's. The drivers I purchased have two output wires to connect a dimmer of sorts. That is where I connected the Pot on each driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sifuentes31 Posted May 19, 2012 Share Posted May 19, 2012 Wow that's neat. Can you give me the part numbers on those pots. I think i'm going to do your setup for my tank. I had been eyeballing those big LEDs but wasn't sure on them. Now for sure i'm doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nwehrman Posted May 19, 2012 Share Posted May 19, 2012 I would be interested in the part numbers also! Thanks. Looks great on the tank! Nicole Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 Tim (timfish) came by today and did some PAR readings on my new LED setup... I took PAR readings of the t-5s that I had in my tank back in December... The results were about 120 in the center on the bottom of the tank with 10 48" 54w t-5s and around 400 at the water level. That was with 540Watts of t-5 lighting... With 200w of LED lighting I am getting the following: Blues only: LEDs are about 10" from water surface 100 at surface 55 8" under 45 10" under 40 14" under 40 bottom of tank 24" under... Whites only: 170 at surface 70 10" under 50 12" under 50 bottom 24" under ALL lights at 100% 300 at surface 120 10" under 110 14" under 100 bottom 24"under Take about 10 points off of each number on the edges of the tank otherwise the lighting is very even. Thanks Tim! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 Your welcome! Neat project Jake! (But isn't that a typo on the last reading? It should be 100 PAR @ 24" right?.) Were the T5s mount as high as teh LEDs or higher or lower? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Monnat Jr Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 Don't forget that silicon-based detectors only "read" about 80% of the light from blue and white LEDs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 Your welcome! Neat project Jake! (But isn't that a typo on the last reading? It should be 100 PAR @ 24" right?.) Were the T5s mount as high as teh LEDs or higher or lower? Ahh fixed... Thanks again. The t-5s were mounted at about 12".. The LEDs are about 5.5in off the surface of the water Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 Don't forget that silicon-based detectors only "read" about 80% of the light from blue and white LEDs. I think I have read that article before and have forgotten about it.. I probably don't want to run my LEDs at full strength if that is true.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Monnat Jr Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 Don't forget that silicon-based detectors only "read" about 80% of the light from blue and white LEDs. I think I have read that article before and have forgotten about it.. I probably don't want to run my LEDs at full strength if that is true.. There are a ton of threads all over about people damaging their coral when switching to LEDs. I'm following this on RC now: sps liking lower light w/leds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Jakedoza Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 The LEDs were getting a bit hot so I added some more u-channel, built a "tunnel" above them and inserted a fan.. I also built some lens covers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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