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Redoing my LEDs, need an opinion on layout


  

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NW grabs quite a bit of the other side of the spectrum. I also don't want to continue to add more drivers to this to control each channel (reds, greens, etc) when the same colors will end up showing in a NW LED.

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I'd be tempted to add a red and violet or two. But I've been getting great results in my pico with just cool white and royal blue alone. Not into long term by any means but I love the color and even my macro algae's been growing like crazy.

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I respectfully disagree, the peak of CW spectrum is ~450 nm and that fits well in the zooxanthellae spectrum of photosynthesis as the first peak is also around 450nm. The other CW peak is kind of flat and cover 500 - 650nm which is also in the range of photosynthesis.

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I respectfully disagree, the peak of CW spectrum is ~450 nm and that fits well in the zooxanthellae spectrum of photosynthesis as the first peak is also around 450nm. The other CW peak is kind of flat and cover 500 - 650nm which is also in the range of photosynthesis.

this is what I'm basing my aesthetic opinion off of. I agree with alot of what is going on in this thread:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1885076

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  • 3 weeks later...

they are, redid.

i got a new heatsink which has tslots that i can move around the LEDS at will from Heatsink USA.

http://www.heatsinkusa.com/8-460-led-t-slots/

i had to have them cut it to spec and then drill the mounting holes myself.

I used BJB solderless connectors so that I could reposition during the testing phase. If I could do it again, I would have used very long test leads for the testing phase and then get the thicker gauge wire installed when you have your layout setup, alas I didn't do that.

The BJBs are pretty cool, although pulling out cables once they were inserted was not super easy. You have to reset the clamping mechanism after you remove the wire, or it wont work.

ORClHq7.jpg

My LED breakdown ended up being 13 RB (wish it was 14 but i was short on screws for the BJB), 6 neutral white, 1 blue, 2 warm white 2 cool white. The RBs are on a meanwell 48D @ 1 amp and the others are on another 48D at 800 mA.

8WEWM2g.jpg

KLTku2Q.jpg

Another pain in this build was that the thermal grease is not easy to get under the LEDS once theyre wired in position. My solution was to take on of the 1,000,000 hair clips around the house and bend it such that I could put a small dab on the LED star.

t3YizXC.jpg

Finished product

LUXTXfz.jpg

I'm running at 50% to get the stock used to the new lighting scheme, I'll increase 10% per week until I'm at full strength. Overall the color isn't *super* different, but I do think that is looks much better than before.

I still need to address and measure the heat on the heat sink, that sucker felt pretty hot....

FTS shot this evening.

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The ratio of 2 to one in favor of blue over white is what I like but I would change out a couple of the RB for 400nm - 410nm UV/violet and maybe a cyan. The reasoning being chlorophyll a uses wavelengths as short as 350nm with peaks at 430nm and a secondary peak at 662. Chlorophyll c2 has peaks at 450nm and 630nm. There's also peridinin which is an accessory photopigment associated with chlorophyll a has a wide absorbion band from below 400nm to 550nm with peaks at about 440nm and 480nm and another minor peak at about 680nm. Personally I like to have more CW than NW but NW is a very good choice to get the green, yellow, orange and red wavelengths needed to excite some of the fluoresing protiens used by corals.

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Problem with running the UVs is that they run at a lower amperage than the rest of the string. I considered it, and may in the future upgrade to, an additional channel to run them. Same story with the cyan, I couldn't justify an additional driver to control such a small led count in which dimming is critical to avoid color banding.

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  • 2 weeks later...

R4OFtyb.jpg

I changed my heat exchange setup a bit. Most heat sinks have a fan on top to blow cool air across the fins. Due to height restraints, that wasn't a possibility. I was hopeful that the two fans (push/pull) that I had might provide enough air to do the job, but my tank temp was rising higher than I would have liked, so I added a centrifugal fan to shoot air towards the exhaust fan across the fins. Seems to be working well so far and is very quiet.

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