Upcoming LED Project.

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

I am getting ready for another new LED project. This will not be for a reef tank, but should be perfectly capable of being used on one. I recently set up a 90 gallon in-wall cichlid tank. For the lighting I purchased a 48" Fixture with 2 250w Halides and 4 65w CF's. I love the light, but hate the heat, especially since it is in a small, enclosed room.

Yesterday I placed an order for 2 50w high powered LED's and drivers. These are each capable of producing more than 3000 lumens. I am planning on placing these in the fixture in the place of the halides. They are reported to produce a 20K color and so would make a great, inexpensive solution for a large reef tank.

My total cost will be less than $150 for everything. I will keep updating this thread on the progress, though it may be a couple of weeks before I receive the LED's.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Well, apparently the new LED's shipped today. I also ordered the heatsinks and fans for the build. Now I just have to wait for everything to arrive.

 

[dv3]

sounds like a plan ..will be interesting to see the results

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Well, I am still waiting for the LED's to arrive, but I have pretty well finished the rest of the build. I decided to make it 48" both for the ease of hanging it and so that I can add some blue LED's to it later if I decide they are needed. I decided to build my own fixture rather than tear apart a perfectly good fixture. I plan on selling the otherone as soon as these are done.

I used two 5" x 6" heatsinks from heatsinkusa. Each heatsink has two 70mm fans on it. I decided to use two fans so that if one goes out the LED will still be cooled. I used aluminum angle to hold everything together. Here are a few pictures of the build. Nothing fancy, but will definitely do the job.

 

[KhensuRa]

Was just looking at those LEDS on ebay today. Excited to see them in action.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Was just looking at those LEDS on ebay today. Excited to see them in action.

Hopefully I will have these this week. The LED's that I ordered are actually 30,000K but, based on the 20,0000K 30W that I already purchased, I expect it to be more of a 20,0000K look. The 20,000k looks more like a 10K halide. I got everything from www.topledlight.com. They have up to 300W LED's, though they only have upto 120W drivers.

The 50W driver was $22 and the LED's were $38 each, and shipping was free. I have not seen any 30K LED's anywhere else, so I don't know if that is a lot or not. Once it is done I may have to bring it to a meeting sometime. We will see how it does.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Still waiting for the LED's. Apparently, they did not ship until two days ago because of Chinese New Year. I also ordered 6 RB Cree XT-E and a Buckpuck for moonlights. I hope to have everything together and ready to go Monday night, except for the 50W LED's. Maybe they will come on monday too.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Well I got a nice surprise in the mail yesterday. NO... I did not get the 50 watt LED's, but i did get everything else. I got the new Cree XT-E Royal blue LED's attached to the fixture and everything is working well. For now the plan is to use these as moonlights only so I am only running them at about 15%. If I find that I need some additional actinic supplementation then they will be used for that, though I am hopeful that will not be the case. Here are a few more pictures of the progress from today. Hopefullt there will be more to come VERY soon.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

I finally got the 50W LED's today and got them mounted and wired. These things are awesome!! they are a lot smaller than I expected. The 30w that I had previously ordered was twice the size of this 50w. Unfortunately, as soon as I plugged the fixture in both of the chinese drivers blew up. I used drivers from the 30w that I had bought to test the 50w LED's and they work well. They are WAY under powered, since the drivers are rated at 30w and 1A, while the LED is rated at 50w and 3.2A, but the color is great. I definitely think these are about the same color as a 15-20K halide.

I will be ordering a new driver for these tomorrow and hope to have it before the meeting, but i'm not sure it will be here on time. We shall see.

 

[KhensuRa]

I bet that 50w led is going to bright as a mofo...

If you get done by the meeting are you going to bring the whole unit to show everyone? Except for the people who don't care to see "it"...

 

[tlsrcs]

If you get done by the meeting are you going to bring the whole unit to show everyone?

+1

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

That's the plan, but I don't know if the drivers will be here. Here's to hoping.

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Just a quick picture of the 50w LED next to a 3w LED. You can see that the 50w is not much larger than the 3w.

 

[deadrock]

That's awsome I will be stealing some ideas from you . The led yhou have looks much differant than the one I am ordering, can you control white and blue seperatly?

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

That's awsome I will be stealing some ideas from you . The led yhou have looks much differant than the one I am ordering, can you control white and blue seperatly?

No, Mine does not have two seperate colors like the ones you ordered.

 

[deadrock]

I was just looking over your pics of the build and it makes me laugh , I work on everthing in my living room also lol. It makes my wife happy

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

According to the tracking number I was given, my new drivers should be here on Wed. If everything goes well with the new drivers, I should be able to bring the light to the meeting on Sun.

 

[tlsrcs]

That would be awsome! id like to see it atleast...

 

[lpsouth1978@msn.com]

Wow, Talk about frustration!!! I finally got the replacement drivers today and only one of them works. I talked to the manufacturer for almost an hour about getting a replacement to no avail. They said they would only replace it if I first returned the faulty driver. I would also have to pay the shipping for the new item. Because they are in china that would mean that I would have to pay about $60 to get the replacement, when I only paid $66 for two of the including shipping. Needless to say, I am not real happy at the moment.

On another note, I did get some pictures of the one working LED over the tank. I could not get a good picture of it by itself, so I placed a 30W 20000K LED over the other half of the tank and was able to get a great picture. you can totally tell which side has the 50W over it. It is a lot brighter and has more blue in it.

Here is just the 50W over the tank:

And the 30W and 50W:

 

[kmcmurtry]

Lookin' good! Wish I was near that handy