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75 Gal LED build Completed !!!


dshel1217

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I finally finished my LED lights. I’ve been working on these on and off since the summer. I built the outside two of the summer and added the middle around x-mas. The breakdown is…

21 royal blue

14 neutral white

14 UV

6 Color pucks- 4 red ,4 blue, 4 green --- All each of the three colors is on single large LED

7 Cool White

6 Meanwell drivers dimmed with a control box (diy ), each color is dimmed independent except for a few.

3 temp controlled fans – they automatically speed up if the temp on the heat sink increase which very rarely happens

post-1908-0-21570000-1359773920_thumb.jppost-1908-0-77904700-1359773947_thumb.jppost-1908-0-55537700-1359773975_thumb.jp

Note for those thinking about doing a DIY LED

  1. Use cat 5 cable for dimming and powering LED . They are common, easy to connect and keep everything together. I think you can have 9 separate lines in one cable.
  2. Draw schematics- really helps keep everything together and good for troubleshooting
  3. Label all your wires- schematics are great but if you have multiple same colored wire it will it will save hours off your builds
  4. AC/DC converters and power cords are super cheap at the Good will computer center (the power cords are around $.95 and $4 for ACDC)
  5. Get your fans from a computer web site they are quieter, longer lasting and better quality than the LED site sell and normally close to the same price
  6. Make everything detachable via Cat 5, or computer wire connecters ect.

Most of these tips I learned the hard way DON’T make my mistakes. End of Report

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Wow bud nice set up. Do you have a picture of those RGB LEDs and the pucks? Just curious how they look. Awesome build.

Here is the color pucks, Im pretty happy with them except they are a pain to solder. The solder pad are about half the size of of the normal leds. Ohh all LED are Cree

post-1908-0-86331700-1359826153_thumb.jp

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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally finished my LED lights. I’ve been working on these on and off since the summer. I built the outside two of the summer and added the middle around x-mas. The breakdown is…

21 royal blue

14 neutral white

14 UV

6 Color pucks- 4 red ,4 blue, 4 green --- All each of the three colors is on single large LED

7 Cool White

6 Meanwell drivers dimmed with a control box (diy ), each color is dimmed independent except for a few.

3 temp controlled fans – they automatically speed up if the temp on the heat sink increase which very rarely happens

attachicon.gifDSC_1385.JPGattachicon.gifDSC_1387.JPGattachicon.gifDSC_1401.JPG

Note for those thinking about doing a DIY LED

  1. Use cat 5 cable for dimming and powering LED . They are common, easy to connect and keep everything together. I think you can have 9 separate lines in one cable.
  2. Draw schematics- really helps keep everything together and good for troubleshooting
  3. Label all your wires- schematics are great but if you have multiple same colored wire it will it will save hours off your builds
  4. AC/DC converters and power cords are super cheap at the Good will computer center (the power cords are around $.95 and $4 for ACDC)
  5. Get your fans from a computer web site they are quieter, longer lasting and better quality than the LED site sell and normally close to the same price
  6. Make everything detachable via Cat 5, or computer wire connecters ect.

Most of these tips I learned the hard way DON’T make my mistakes. End of Report

Are you manually dimming or do you have it setup to an RK or Apex?

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I finally finished my LED lights. I’ve been working on these on and off since the summer. I built the outside two of the summer and added the middle around x-mas. The breakdown is…

21 royal blue

14 neutral white

14 UV

6 Color pucks- 4 red ,4 blue, 4 green --- All each of the three colors is on single large LED

7 Cool White

6 Meanwell drivers dimmed with a control box (diy ), each color is dimmed independent except for a few.

3 temp controlled fans – they automatically speed up if the temp on the heat sink increase which very rarely happens

attachicon.gifDSC_1385.JPGattachicon.gifDSC_1387.JPGattachicon.gifDSC_1401.JPG

Note for those thinking about doing a DIY LED

  1. Use cat 5 cable for dimming and powering LED . They are common, easy to connect and keep everything together. I think you can have 9 separate lines in one cable.
  2. Draw schematics- really helps keep everything together and good for troubleshooting
  3. Label all your wires- schematics are great but if you have multiple same colored wire it will it will save hours off your builds
  4. AC/DC converters and power cords are super cheap at the Good will computer center (the power cords are around $.95 and $4 for ACDC)
  5. Get your fans from a computer web site they are quieter, longer lasting and better quality than the LED site sell and normally close to the same price
  6. Make everything detachable via Cat 5, or computer wire connecters ect.

Most of these tips I learned the hard way DON’T make my mistakes. End of Report

Are you manually dimming or do you have it setup to an RK or Apex?

I am doing manual dimming at the moment but I hope to switch over to a controller. Im going to build my own controller with the help of cap obvious.

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post-1908-0-68184600-1361209858_thumb.jp

Your setup looks great. Do you have a diagram of the fixture with your led placement? Can we see a full tank shot?

I dont have a diagram of my led lay out, I did at first but I ended up changing it around. But if you are in my area and want to stop by shoot me a pm and I can show you the whole deal.

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dave are these the same LED's I saw on your tank before? or did you add more to it?! Looks pretty bright!

I added the third unit after xmas probly brighter, but my camera picks up the white alot. It doesnt look this bright in person.

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Do you feel like the UV added enough dimension to be worth the effort?

You can’t really see the UV light, if anything they look purple, with that being

said they don’t add much, if any, to the overall appearance.

But they do add to the light to the far left wavelength range. Mine are the 405nm type. In my opinion

they are worth the $4.50 each price tag.

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  • 1 month later...

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