hey Ron, where are you ordering your Ardunio parts from?

Steve

robotshop.ca which has a 5% off coupon code for the next few days.

Go
 

Just tagging along for future reference.... cool project
________
ford edis picture

I will take some photos of my led array and post them.:idea:

Ron, I have a 12V 3A power supply. 4.5 x 2.25 x 1.25 inches approx.
I would trade for a sps frag or whathaveyou

Thanks Dietmar. I have a box of old AC/DC adapters so if I don't have a suitable one in there I'll definitely take you up on your offer. I have a few frags I can spare :smile:

Sounds good. Except, I wouldn't want the frag right away. I still have that 120 to build. When it gets done, things would even out. You get the PS now, I get the frag later.
Its only taken more than a year to build the stand!

After lots and lots and lots of wiring I have all the LEDs working. I decided to get fancy and do everything with molex connectors so stuff can be removed/replaced easily. But it looks a bit like wiring spaghetti right now. I'll clean it up as I mount it all in the housing. Here's the drivers and wiring and all the LEDS wired up:

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/254_23/Wiring-vi.jpg

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/254_23/Drivers-vi.jpg

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/25...llWired-vi.jpg

And here it all is fired up.

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/254_23/AllOn-vi.jpg

Still need to mount optics, pick up some fans and I'm waiting for the Arduino parts which should arrive this week and I can figure out the controller.

AWESOME! Looks very nice

Ron that's pretty impressive! Watch out you might get sued for copy right infringement considering what happened to solaris ;).

I can't want to see it on an actual fish tank with with some PAR values!
Levi

Re: 48" LED Array - Well Underway
 

t

Whoops, not sure what happened with that last post :redface:

Thanks guys. I say bring it! I'll take on Orbitech and their marginal patent!

So just out of curiosity, in air, 18 inches away from the LEDs and no optics yet: 260 PAR. This is gonna be good :mrgreen:

Tagging along!

Very interesting thread :)

For some added LED info, I just did some PAR readings in the iReef pico. it has 6 Cree XR-E LEDs being underdriven by a 350mA dimming buckpuck that I actually have turned down a little from full power. No optics are used, just bare emitters. PAR readings were about 170 near the top of my rock which is about 4 inches below the surface of the water and about 5 inches below the LEDs. Par drops to about 80 near the bottom of the tank about 10 inches below the water line.

just wait till you can crank it up and let it go it should be nice and bright under there.

Bill

A bit slow as I need to redo a few of the molex connectors and pick up a few little bits for assembly. But I did a quick test in air again with optics. At 18" with 60 degree optics the PAR jumps to about 375 vs 250 without optics.

Ron99,

The max voltage for the Arduino is 9VDC. There is also an onboard voltage regulator which will regulate the voltage down to 5VDC for the electronics.

May need the use of OP amps to drive the Meanwell LED driver. Vancouver Reefer (Canreef member) may have something since he's been down this path with his setup. I believe he used the LED Pucks which is similar to the Meanwell.

There are also other threads on about LED lighting on some of the other aquarium forums.

I've also been toying with the idea of using the Arduino as a platform for my aquarium controller - pH, temperature and lighting.

Good luck!

The Arduino specs say 6 - 20 volts as the limits for input with 7 - 12 volts recommended. I have a 12V power supply that will feed the Arduino, three 12V fans and, with an LM317 voltage regulator, the 10V for the PWM signal to the Meanwells (via a transistor controlled by the PWM out of the Arduino) so that is all figured out. Just have to build that part :). The main thing I need to figure out will be programming the Arduino as I'm not a programmer.

I have followed many threads on LEDs on reef central and nano-reef and have built a basic array for my pico tank already (6 LEDs and one dimming buckpuck). The array itself is all wired and works fine without dimming right now. Now it's on to assembly in the housing and then building and programming the controller.

P.S. Big thanks to hillegom for the power supply. I owe you a frag or three when your new tank is up and running:thumb:

Thanks Ron.
Will look forward to a frag or so. Nice to be able to help with that big project of yours.
Surplus here for surplus there.

Also check out reefprojects.com for code.

Pointless to re-invent the wheel especially when all this stuff is open source.

never mind Ron said it.

Thanks for the link though.

Steve

Thanks for the link Byee, I'll check it out and see if they have useful code for me. I have an LCD input shield for the Arduino which has a small LCD display and several buttons so I would like to make it a self contained adjustable controller rather then just uploading code to it to make changes to settings.

Ron where from NFLD are you from

The far west coast of NFDL, White Rock BC :lol:

I was actually born in Montreal, grew up in Toronto and have been in BC for over 18 years now.

Ron let me know if theres any help i can give you regarding the arduino coding, i have an army of coders at my disposal, not... but let me know if theres any part of the code you cant seem to get and maybe i can send some help your way.

Thanks Eugene, I appreciate the offer. I am just getting to the Arduino part this week so will see how it goes.

Ron99,

No worries! Glad I was able to help.

The whole reason I bought my Arduino was because of reefprojects.

I've had mine for about 9 months now but just 2 busy with stuff for around the house.

So after struggling with the controller for a bit I realized that it is going to take me a little while to sort that part out. I have also been getting some algae and cyano showing up on my rocks which I am fairly certain is due to my old T5 bulbs (15+ months old) I decided to just set it up without the controller for now and I can add that in later.

Here's a pic of the enclosure wired up with fans and drivers:

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/25...reWired-vi.jpg

I also took a picture of the tank with the T5s using manual settings on the camera. Other then cropping a bit I didn't enhance the pictures at all as I wanted it to be a comparison between the two lights:

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/25...ankwT5s-vi.jpg

And here it is with the LEDs using the exact same camera settings:

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/25...nkwLEDs-vi.jpg

It's definitely more blue with the LEDs and to me the coral colours look a bit nicer. It is also a bit dimmer to the eye so lumens are probably less but that is normal with blue LEDs. However, here's the important info...PAR readings.

With the 8 x 54W T5HO fixture I had about 300 PAR near the top of the tank, around 240 or so near the middle and about 160 at the bottom. This is running the lights about 3.5 to 4 inches above the water.

Now with the LEDs at about 7.5 to 8 inches above the water PAR was a bit over 500 near the top of the tank, about 400 in the middle and about 290 at the bottom. Holy photons Batman!

So I raised the fixture to about 15 inches in height for now as I can't dim the LEDs yet. Par is now about 350 at the top of the tank, 280 in the middle and still around 200 at the bottom of the tank. Remember, this is with the fixture 15 inches above the tank:

http://hotimg23.fotki.com/a/70_70/25...EDsHigh-vi.jpg

Also, the shimmer is really noticeable compared to the flatter T5 lighting. Oh and the bloody fixture weighs at least 50 pounds if not a bit more :surprise: I think I will pick up some heftier S hooks to match the heftier chain I have already switched to!

Great work! looks really promising

WOW! Looks great Ron. Im very impressed:biggrin:

which optics did you go with on the LEDs?

Steve

Re: 48" LED Array - Up and Running...Mostly
 

Thanks guys. I'm happy to have it running as the T5s were overdue for replacement but I didn't want to spend over $250 on new bulbs when I was working in this.

Steve, I used 60 degree optics. Actually, a few emitters at the front of the array have 80s and the rest of the front row do not have any optics yet. I was short a number of 60 degree ones which I have on order but haven't received yet.

nice build:

if you dont mind, can you share the parts list for LED's, drivers, config etc?

how much did it cost you at the end? are the LED's replaceable?

Most of the details are in the thread but I'll summarize again:

80 x Cree XR-E LEDs; 40 cool white Q5 bin and 40 royal blue.
8 x Meanwell ELN60-48P drivers. Each is capable of driving up to 13 LEDs. 4 are driving the blues and 4 for the whites.
60 degree optics for the Cree LEDs
3 x 12"x15" eBay surplus/salvage heatsinks
1 Free surplus Hamilton Lighting housing
Lots of misc. wire, connectors, screws, aluminum etc.
An Arduino microcontroller and associated electronic bits to make the controller - still to be completed.

My costs are somewhere between $1200 and $1400 but I haven't done an exact accounting.

Since the drivers are capable of handling an additional 24 LEDS I will probably add a few 3 or 4 near UV (395nm) LEDs as an experiment and to bring out the coral florescence a bit. I will most likely run them without optics as I want them more for some supplementary wavelength rather than producing PAR. I also read a bit about using some green LEDs to bring out coral colours and am toying with the idea of similarly adding some green ones without optics for that purpose.

Have you thought of going full UV instead of near? I think the UV is something were missing in the Led light set ups and they will make your corals pop like crazy. as for the green, I wouldn't waist my time, unless you got nothing better to do :mrgreen: I think green will have the same results of when people were trying the red ones mixed in. lead to more algae.

Steve

So you are saying there Ron that those lights have better PArs then the 8x 54 w t-5's and what is the life span of the LEd's and if one blows how easy is it to change.

really good work man.

Thought about it Steve but the near UV ones at 395nm were had for $15 vs. closer to $100 for true UV-A at 365nm. I'm looking at options for 365nm but until the cost comes down I won't be trying them. As for the green ones, it's just a notion right now. I'll probably let the nano-reef.com crowd experiment with that first :biggrin: However, I don't think a bit of green will have the same effect on Algae that red would. The red is really into the spectrum algae likes for photosynthesis. Green is much closer to the blue end of the spectrum. If I did it I would only use maybe six emitters with no optics just too add some colour to the tank and help the red and orange pigments pop a bit. the blue and UV are great for the green pigments and to some extent the red but green apparently really brings out the reds and oranges.

Yes, better PAR than my fixture which is a Sunlight Supply Sunblaze fixture. It's a pretty good one with contoured reflectors etc. but I am sure some of the others with true individual reflectors and active cooling will give a bit more PAR than mine. It was doing a great job and SPS were growing just fine under it. However, the LEDs have really blown it away with nearly twice as much PAR with about half the energy consumption. That's the beauty of LEDs as a light source. They are way more efficient than other methods.

Their life span, as long as they are adequately cooled, should be 50,000 hours. At 8 hours per day of lighting that is nearly 8 years. I am saving $250x8= $2000 in bulb changes alone not to mention using less electricity. Changing them is not that hard. Unsolder the wires and pry it off the heatsink (I used adhesive pads but if I had drilled and tapped the heatsink then it would just be a matter of undoing the screws holding the LED down). New adhesive pad and new LED and resolder the wires and you're good to go.

Great build. And you've done a great job of documenting things for everyone to mimic should they so choose.

But I have to comment on the PAR. Your old T5 fixture is not a very good comparator for a moderately good T5 fixture. Your PAR values with the T5 fixture are abysmal and not reflective of typical high quality T5 fixtures with 54W lamps (presumably your reported T5 PAR values are with new lamps as well given you're comparing this to brand new LEDs). Secondly, the PAR values with your DIY LED fixture are still quite low. Every time a discussion about LEDs comes up the comparison to 250W and 400W MH is made. These numbers clearly show they aren't even close in the manner in which you've designed this fixture. I've maintained that until real numbers for PAR are measured and reported the propaganda of "equal to a 400W MH" is absurd. So far the data I've seen do not support the marketing BS. In all honesty, did you expect the PAR values to be that low?

And as far as lifespan goes: again there is no long term data for PAR as far as I know (unless you have info I haven't seen yet). T5 lamps have a reasonable lifetime but their effective PAR drops much faster. At this point we don't have any good data to support the numbers being batted around about 50,000 hours lifespan. Sure, the emitter may continue to emit light for 50,000 hours but at what PAR?

Andrew, you have to go do some reading in this thread, he is getting higher par at 5 times the distance. T5 was at 3.5" and he is still getting higher PAR at 17" above the tank, which he did becasue he didn't have his dimming setup done yet. At 8" he was over 500 PAR where at 3.5 with the T5 he was at 300 PAR, Also this is with 60 and 80 degree optics, no one ever said thoes optics will give you 250 - 400 MH levels, it is 40 degree optics you need to get that, the best you will get with 60's is around a 150 watt MH which he is pretty close to as a 150watt mh isn't much higher than a good T5 set up. if you want a good comparason maybe Ron will take a PAR reading at 3.5" with the LEDs then you can see how much more punch he is realy getting, I am going to guess that he will be around 700 at the surface and probably close to or over 400 at the bottom, but thats a guess.

now as for the PAR output, you are thinking along the lines of a gas filled cathode tube. you can't think that way with LED as there is no gas to break down and change the spectrum. it has been showen there is absolutly no shift in spectrum in a LED over its life, only a 15% decrease in intensity, so there is no reason to think other than a 15% decrees in PAR as there will be no spectrum shift to compound the drop as it does in MH, PC, CF, ect. so if we look at that the average MH has a 20% drop by the time it is changed, and most of that drop occures int he first 6 months, floressents have a even steaper drop off, so going with LEDs after 5000 days (10 hours per day) you will have 15% less intensity with no spectral shift so you should not get nusence algae ect..

Steve