Multi-colored LED Build

[DerrickH]

Im assuming since your using multiple colors, your cyan and such will be wired into your "white" circuit. and Blues on their own? Im going to swap out some of my whites for the violet LED. Luckily, my LED are held in place by plastic beveled screws and thermal paste. So will be 7 RB on my outter sinks, and 5 CW and 2 UV on the outter sinks.

Center sink will be 12 RB and 8 CW/NW and 4 UV. Im hoping this will yield some pop and brink out the purples/pinks.

I though about just adding 10 more LED to each outter sink for a total 72 3w LED's. Not sure yet, would need 2 more drivers.

[victoly]

Lookin' good thus far. Would it be possible to use wider lenses on the colors that you have less of to give a wider spread? Might help to eliminate some of the bad color banding juju.

[JasonJones]

Victoly- Not using any optics to try and help eliminate any banding, so I should have as wide of spread as possible.

Derrick- The red, turquoise, and RB mix are all wired into the white driver. I will try to post up the drawings I did of the LED layout and wire diagrams tonight to make this more clear.

The LEDs are wired in this configuration:

Driver 1: 3 NW, 3 CW, 2RB, 2 T, 2 R

Driver 2: 9 CB, 2 B, 2 V

[victoly]

Oh ok. I'm just running straight LEDs (no optics) as well. This setup is so similar to the Radions, i wonder how they avoided the color banding?

[JasonJones]

The LEDs on the radions are extremely close together, that is my guess. I really don't know how the color banding on here will be. The little test I did last night did not mimic real conditions, so I am holding off any judgments until I throw the lights over a tank.

[victoly]

edit *wrong window* ignore this post

[JasonJones]

So I have the light mounted above my tank now and have several observations. The lights are currently mounted about 12" above the tank. This is to simulate the 24" depth of the tank they are going on and because that is as far as my adjustable hangers will go with the way they are holding the light.

I am pretty impressed with the color. I prefer the color I get from 3 ATI Blue +, an ATI Purple Plus and an ATI Aquable special. With that said, the color is 95% as nice. The only place I really notice a difference is my red planet and taste the rainbow acan. They don't quite have the red they have under the T5s. Everything else looks as good as under the T5s, or close enough that it isn't noticeable. I think the color is much better than a 2 color LED build.

The color banding is really not bad at all. I did not notice it at all in the tank when it was running. I also tried waving my hand in front of the light at various angles to see the effects, nothing. I was happily surprised by this.

The disco ball effect on the sand still bothers me. I don't think it is any worse than normal LEDs, but I dislike that about LEDs. I do not notice any color banding in the sand. It is not enough to really drive me crazy, but it bothers me. I look forward to running the light for a couple of days to see if it grows on me.

Overall, I am pretty impressed so far. Certainly making me consider LEDs more seriously for my next build. I am going to continue playing with it tomorrow and mount the LEDs the correct way. I also want to see how it looks closer to the water surface to see if it changes anything.

I will post up more details of the system and the more finished product tomorrow.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Have you tried experimenting with dimming the different color LEDs and seeing how it affects the color? I know making small adjustments with my dimmers makes a whole new color temperature in the tank

[zilkerfish]

Nice work!

[JasonJones]

Have you tried experimenting with dimming the different color LEDs and seeing how it affects the color? I know making small adjustments with my dimmers makes a whole new color temperature in the tank

I did play with it, much more than I expected. I spent about 15 minutes finding the color most comparable to my current set up so I could try to make the color as close as possible between the two to give a fair comparison.

It is pretty fun playing with the dimming function, but I also find it almost frustrating because certain corals look better at different settings and it is hard to find the color that brings the best average of colors.

Zilkerfish- Thanks. It has been a fun project so far.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

Have you tried experimenting with dimming the different color LEDs and seeing how it affects the color? I know making small adjustments with my dimmers makes a whole new color temperature in the tank

I did play with it, much more than I expected. I spent about 15 minutes finding the color most comparable to my current set up so I could try to make the color as close as possible between the two to give a fair comparison.

It is pretty fun playing with the dimming function, but I also find it almost frustrating because certain corals look better at different settings and it is hard to find the color that brings the best average of colors.

Haha yeah, it's almost an art form getting the color perfect, but I like the freedom and control to choose how my corals look at any certain moment

[victoly]

As I've been doing a bit more reading, have you considered using a diffuser for the whole fixture? You'd lose some PAR, but that's not usually an issue with LEDs. I'm considering adding in a few "warmer" colors to my fixture, as it is aesthetically pleasing, but i feel like it is lacking in the red department.

[JasonJones]

As I've been doing a bit more reading, have you considered using a diffuser for the whole fixture? You'd lose some PAR, but that's not usually an issue with LEDs. I'm considering adding in a few "warmer" colors to my fixture, as it is aesthetically pleasing, but i feel like it is lacking in the red department.

Yeah I have considered it, I think I have talked about it somewhere in here. It would be interesting to play with some. Dave Fason on Nano-reef has found some sort of glass diffuser that seems to be the superior product, but he says it is very expensive and is keeping it to himself for his small LED company. It would be nice to find out what it is. I would really like to have access to a par meter before I play with diffusers too much. Especially because the tank this is going on is 24"

[JasonJones]

Thought I would stream of conscious some of the things I learned through this build for others going forward.

- The superglue "tack weld" method worked really well. It took less than a second to pop them off later and reglueing using the proper 2 part thermal adhesive was a piece of cake.

- When using thermal adhesive, mix it and let it sit for a minute or two before using. Holds the LED in place much better. You have about 4 or 5 minutes working time when mixed

- Be extremely careful when adjusting the internal pot on the meanwells. I knew that and stripped the first one anyway--Treat it like a small piece of glass. The good news is, if you strip it, you can pick up a new pot at radio shack for a $1.67. Very easy to desolder and resolder.

- RapidLED has amazing service. Glad they are a sponsor. They helped me figure out what to replace the stripped pot with and are sending me a new faceplate to the dimming kit (stepped on it)

- If you are using a project box to hold the drivers and such, and you are going to use multiple connectors for the dimming and LED power wires, make sure the connectors you use are different so you don't inadvertently plug one into the wrong connector.

- Soldering the UV or Violet (different places use different names- 420nm), the pads stink and are really hard to get to accept solder.

- If you use a project box, you will have to cut off the pigtails coming out of the meanwell drivers to make them fit in the box. Just solder wires to the driver wires and it makes it more flexible so everything fits in the box.

- DO NOT TAPE ANY CONNECTION, SOLDER IT. This ensure the connection never comes apart. I also used 3:1 shrink tube from Partsexpress, much better than the 2:1 you can buy at Radio Shack. I also bought black expandable wire cover from there that really cleans everything up.

-25 LEDs running at 550-600ma barely warms a 4.25 x 16" heatsink without a fan in open air.

- Finally, having more time to sit back and watch the light, the more impressed I become. I would put the color up against anything else I have seen. I would love to put a radion next to it to compare.

Here are a couple other random pictures.

internal pot replacement

My tank with the LEDs running

[victoly]

Looks friggin amazing. I'll be directing my hatchet wielding wife to your house after she sees me ordering more stuff from RapidLED. Do you wish that you could more finely tweak the smaller color constituents, or are you happy with the way that they all dim simultaneously? I'm thinking about adding a small third channel with a few more LEDs (reds, UV, cyan) to supplement my 2x12 rb/cw.

[JasonJones]

Tweaking smaller colors would be interesting. But I think the cost to advantage ratio would be pretty low on a build this size. Perhaps if I was doing a 100+ LED build. Also, I would be afraid I would sit and play with the adjustments constantly.

I wish I had a better camera to take photos with, but you are stuck with Iphone pictures for the moment. On the tank shot, you can get a decent idea of coral color under the lghts, which was the point of posting it. Taking pictures with the iphone is always a challenge, but taking LED lit pics with an iphone is absurdly hard.

[JasonJones]

I just found diffusion material that is very cheap and extremely effective. It has been tested and shows an average of only 5% light loss. Costs $15 shipped for a roll that is 17 3/4"wide x 6'5" Long. I have one on order and am willing to share with anyone who wants to try it out.

Here are the before and after videos someone posted. Watch in 1080p.

Before:

After:

Here are the figures he tested.

w/o Film (x10^3):

1=445

2=480

3=506

4=462

5=466

6=432

7=451

8=446

9=437

10=458

11=464

w/film (x10^3)

1=425 (-4.5%)

2=465 (-3.1%)

3=496 (-2%)

4=446 (-3.5%)

5=443 (-5%)

6=414 (-4.2%)

7=416 (-7.8%)

8=411 (-7.8%)

9=413 (-5.3%)

10=430 (-6.1%)

11= 432 (-6.8%)

Total Avg light loss=about 5%

[zilkerfish]

This post is awesomely useful! THANKS!!! I'm about to do a small 6 LED build and eventually want to do a large one for my 90 gallon.

[victoly]

Do you know what the LED breakdown in those videos was? Looks like just B/W to me. I'm interested in the diffuser material!

[JasonJones]

He says it is full spectrum, you can see multiple colors on his thread. It can be found here: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=296282&st=0

[victoly]

I'll give it a shot! Let me know what you want for it.

[JasonJones]

I'll give it a shot! Let me know what you want for it.

You are welcome to come try some. I have more than I could ever use.

I put some on my wife's tank today. The LED fixture on her tank is only NW, RB and Bs. I think in a 4:7:1 ratio.

Before:

Here is what the fixture looks like with the diffusion material applied:

The shimmer now is nice and looks more like a halide. I am really pleased. After:

Dave had a chance to check out the multi-color LED fixture on Friday. Hopefully soon he can share his impressions so you have info from a neutral observer.

If someone can tell me how to embed the youtube vides, I will do that. (Figured it out)

[dshel1217]

To everyone following this thread I did get a change to come by and see Jason’s LEDs. I can honestly say it’s one of if not the nicest LED setup I’ve seen. He placed his LEDs in small batches this, in my opinion, help the colors merge together and minimized the disco party effect. Not have lens also really helped alleviate the color banding issue. Optics are really not need.

One of the issues I had with LEDs in general is the lack of colors in the LED spectrum. LEDs have a very tight wavelength range (i.e. UV LEDs 410 to 430 if that big of a range). This causes some colors in the tank to not come out as well. T5 bulbs have a there primary range but they do have other ranges that peak as well. What Jason did is to alleviate this problem by adding different color LEDs such as UV, turquoise, and red. I really think this helped a great deal in bringing out more color in this tank. After seeing his setup I think that red LEDs are underrated and need to be used in more LED setup.

Also I would like to point out that Jason pushed less amperage through each LED then the recommended level. For example, .7 a instead of .8 to .9a . This is going to make the LEDs run cooler. I’m definitely going to do this when I make my LED project because I plan on making my heat sink out of aluminum channels.

Overview,

• Use different color LEDs
  
• Under power the LEDs if you think heat maybe a problem or coral bleach
  

Overall A+ Jason, and if you are thinking about making your own LED setup this post is a great resource.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

looks great. I guess I'll have to add some more colors when I build my next LED set up

[JasonJones]

Everything is finished up and the light is now installed in the hood of the RSM 130 and put back on the tank. I thought I would share a few thoughts I have looking back over the whole project.

- The color really is outstanding. I was testing the lights a final time over my tank today before installing them. My roommate walked in and commented that it is hard to tell the difference between the ATI t5s I am running and this fixture.

- I would add a couple more red LEDs if I were to do it again. I have one more on order to add to the fixture. I only notice the diminished reds when looking at my red planet. My red LPS's still look good.

- The diffusion material really makes a huge difference. The fixture now has the nice mellow shimmer of a halide fixture. Happy with how that part came out.

- I would like to experiment with using more violet LEDs. I have seen some fixtures online using equal numbers of royal blues and violets.

- The LEDs are incredibly powerful. I had them mounted 12" above my tank and running at 70% for three days. One chalice started bleaching that has been about 5" below my Aquatinics TX5 for extended periods with no problems.

This has convinced me to use LEDs on my upcoming build. It may be a mix of T5s and LEDs, not sure yet. But the main point is, this has convinced me the technology and aesthetics of LEDs has finally arrived.