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Another PAR meter request - Updated with some results


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After the awesome insight of Mr. Dana Riddle, I am finding that I need to quantify my experience with my solo LED DIY pendant before progressing. Anyone have one available or can loan?

TIA!

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I have one, it an apogee. I am willing to come to your house and test your lights for a fee (how much depends on where you live in relation to me for my time and gas) I don't loan it out as it was very expensive.

Send me a message if your interested and we can try to work something out. I am very busy right now with kids sports, but that will calm down in the next week or so.

Troy

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  • 4 weeks later...

I ended up borrowing the Apogee from RCA a bit back and have finally gotten to run some tests. I have a few questions and need confirmation on how to correct for blues. But I feel results are promising and I think I only have a few changes to make to the LED selection for my pendants.

Here is a peak at the proto to test:

  • power consumption
  • heat and control
  • led quality
  • par

This coupled with an arduino gave me the ability to control each string with its own channel and dim either with potentiometers or via clock with an RTC module.

med_gallery_2213_632_1217204.jpg

This is based off an Evil cluster created by a member on another forum.I changed things up a little and utilized all parts I already had save for the led's drivers and reflectors themselves.

Here are the colors obtained with each channel at 100%, 750mA.

Royal Blue - Steves LEDS Luxeon M x 2

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"Cool blue" Cheap part from DX in the 470nm range x2

med_gallery_2213_632_2487976.jpg

HyperViolet x2 from Steves LEDS x2

med_gallery_2213_632_2292039.jpg

And a 4000K Bridgelux 30W Neutral White x1

med_gallery_2213_632_111213.jpg

I was really hesitant to even go this route for testing until I saw some numbers for PAR and color mixing. I had to see it for myself. Mind you, this entire process has been a year in the making and through 2 house moves and a job change......

Mixed

med_gallery_2213_632_4441293.jpg

This is 100% on all 4 channels at 750mA, 9" off water surface in a 24" tall tank.

PAR ranges from 70/80 on the outer rim of the pendant to 314 at 2 inches in front of the circ pump and 515 at the surface directly below the pendant (9"). Lowering this pendant to 4" above water can reach a peak of 760 at the same point by the pump and 1760 at surface.....all @ 750mA. All these modules are rated up to 1A. Did I mention this peaks at 55W? Add in AC>DC loss, DC>DC loss and added fan power and we are ~75W. I will need 4 of these on a 72" tank taking that to 300W for the whole tank....PEAK. Not bad.

I have had these dialed down for the past 3 months testing growth, good and bad, and visual appeal. The current settings are 35%NW, 100% RB, 35%CB and 70%HV ramped during the day starting @6>11, hold for 2 hours and ramp down 1pm>9pm. Though this is conservative, I have not had alage (any!) or coral recession with this pattern. I have started to ramp things up and I have a lot more numbers to be shared another night.

Keep in mind I knocked a lot of stuff around while taking these readings and didn't clean anything....the tank is in shambles and not picture worthy.

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