FYI, you can ship stuff to a place in Point Roberts, WA, and just drive over there to pick it up and bring it back yourself. The US border guards there know that's what you go there for, so they just ask you straight up "what are you picking up?" Then when you come back, just be honest, and you may not get dinged. I ship stuff there all the time, and havent been dinged (knock on wood!).

This is one of the places I use:
http://www.thelettercarrier.com/

You basically register on their website, then mail stuff there under your own name, but use their address. When your package arrives, they'll either email you or give you a call, and you go pick it up (just bring photo ID). It costs $3-4US per package to use their service (price depending on the weight of each package).

From Burnaby to Point Roberts takes like 30minutes.

You save a LOT of money over 'international' shipping from the states. There's a place in Blaine, WA that does this too, but they just started charging a one time annual fee now in 2011.

And you wont have to deal with brokerage fees from UPS :P

Just another option for you to consider :)

<deleted post - may have contained inaccurate information - sorry!>

I understand your thoughts on Ohm's Law and it seems right. The issue seems to be between the theory and what really happens when a string fails. Others who have done parallel builds have found that without the fuse, the amperages accross the remaining strings increase and either shorten the life of your LED's or destroy them. Could this be based upon how the first string failed? Maybe the worry is if the LED fails open?

<deleted post - may have contained inaccurate information - sorry!>

I did a little more reading and perhaps my quick assessment of the behaviour of these circuits is in error. I figure that I better acknowledge my simple analysis before someone else points it out. As I said, I don't know anything about LEDs.

I'll do some more reading before posting again. Sorry if I derailed the thread. I think it's important to really understand what's going on here, but perhaps I'm not the guy to explain it.

My explaination is accurate if a diode were simply a resistor, but of course they are not. The electrical charecteristics are different and that is what I need to better understand.

- Sorry!

Milad,

Am I correct to assume that on the left side of the terminal blocks, they are all jumper together?

Thanks.

Not all jumped together, the ones for each driver are jumped together.

Ive also changed the design and im not using the meanwell 240s because they dont dim all the way. they only dim to 50%

hi milad,

gust checking what the progress is !!

any updates ?

Im going back and forth and back and forth of the heatsink design

the latest rendition is a linear design with two long skinny heatsinks. until I nail this down its not moving. Give me another month or so before you see pictures.

Malad, just curious on the progress?

Heatsink is in, went with a solid piece 6 feet long

For the LEDs I decided im going to use myself as a genuine pig for a new board design we are working on. I should have the new board within the next two months. Once I have the LEDs on the new board, it will literally be a 30min install process.

I will be going with the new XM-Ls NW/CW and XP-E RB.

Cool, thanks for the up-date. looking forward for the finished product.

I've never seen a build thread without any pictures at all. It appears you are waiting for the end result but most people like to show how they got there. For the LED newbie, all that technical talk without photos just creates confusion.

Well build thread was happening, stopped, redesigned, redesigned, redesigned, and now its getting back on track. The only thing I have to take pictures of is the heatsink.

I like to really plan things out before I do them!

This thread isnt going to be your standard build thread such as one for a for a tank where it lasts days/weeks. Since the design is going to simpilized as much as possible so anyone can follow it, i expect it to be lots of planning and 30-60min of building.

well.... where is it :mrgreen:

Steve

updates?

Only update I have is im waiting on the new LEDs/Boards to get to me. I was assured they would be ready for production within the next 5 weeks.

I do have to say, ive done much more research into corals and what they need in terms of light and this build is going to be interesting.

I do have to say, ive done much more research into corals and what they need in terms of light and this build is going to be interesting


do you mind to share this info, and background, to bad for that knowledge to stay wihit you, while you could share !!

For you Kevin, ill share. But you must understand im not an expert on what im about to talk about, ive just been really sticking my nose in books, articles, studies to get the information I need.


There is alot of science behind plants/corals growth. They have what is called chlorophyll A and Chlorophyll B. There is much more A than B but there both important.

A peeks at 425ish 453ish and 660ish. B peeks at 455 and 660.
The LEDs we bring in are the Royal Blue which peeks @ 455. This is great. We also now have an ultra violet that peeks at 425. Again, amazing for the corals/plants.

What we currently don't have is something that peeks at 660. We are working with a manufacturer to bring in a 455 + 660 LED. This would be an LED that is mixed, which is also called magenta. So very pink, not super nice to look at but in theory should make corals go crazy - Similar to a fat kid in a candy store.

What im going to be testing is running these magenta LEDs when I am not home. Basically right in the middle of the day so the corals can color up and grow. Before I get home, they would be off so you see the nice pleasant 14k look. In the future I may also add a motion sensor to have the magenta LEDs shut off is someone is near by the tank.

So what everyone has been doing works great. Royal Blue and Cool Whites are really popping corals, making them grow, etc. What im going to try to do is take it to the next level and see if I can get the correct mix of Royal Blue and 660red for "off hours" to make the corals pop even more and grow even faster.

Here is the activation spectrum im talking about:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2361330/LEDG...m/Spectrum.jpg

It is the mix of A and B.
So as you can see, having the ability to "dial in" the LEDs is a huge bonus over other lighting.

hey Milad,

In theory 660nm should make the corals grow while 450-460nm (blue and royal blue) makes them color up and I've tested the concept with a custom built PAR 38 bulb, the result were far from pleasing.

The test was done in 1 system, where I had put a custom (5RB, 3CW, 1R) into the sump with adequate flow and movement and only limited the spot for corals to 6x6" with the PAR 38 hung above it at 6" so I'm getting a ton of PAR. The display uses PAR38 with 5RB and 4CW only. Since its the same setup the parameters are the same for the test and what I found was this.

Almost every SPS coral I put under the custom red PAR38 bulb had turned a brown color. There is a bit of color but majority of them lost that shine they had when they were under the none red LED. The test was started since last christmas and it is still going on today since i had a few times where I had gotten busy and the parameters were not optimal. But now that I have stablized the paramaters and my display is coloring up, the corals in the sump under the custom red PAR38 is still the same.

Which leads me to think that corals dont need as much red spectrum as we think they do. Infact from reading a few papers green spectrum seems to do more for corals then reds,and from my experience at 660nm everything just turns brown. Theres no point imo to bring in magenta colored multidie LED when in the end it'll turn all the SPS brown. Even if i was to cover up the red LED in that PAR38 bulb the result of the colors dont come back instantly, chances are they wont come back for a good 2-3weeks.

Read up a little more on the Orphek line of products. According to them, they've teamed with marine biologists to produce LEDs specifically designed to provide the spectrum certain corals need and do well under. So the engineering/experimenting appears to have already been done by some highly educated and specialized individuals. Too early to tell whether it's smoke & mirrors but I'm inclined to believe them. Still, no personal experience, but feedback from customers with Orphek products appears to be mostly positive.

Thats good too know. Ill keep it in mind when im doing the testing. Im going to be testing several different versions of intensity of the 660nm mixed with the 45nm. Its supposedly proven by their biologist to work but I want to test it out in person to see if its smoke and mirror or what.

Actually the LEDs we are bringing in our designed by the biologist/specialist not me. Their customers are huge industrial grow houses. What do the orphek guys use?

And just to give everyone the idea how im going to test it is that (depending on if the fish room is up when I get the LEDs in) I will have different areas of the tank or even in the fish room covered by the different LEDs to see how much of a difference they make. So same water. Im going to try to have the same flow also as much as possible.

so my 180g will be broken down into 3 sections. 1st Section with even 660nm 455nm. 2nd section with more 660nm than 455nm. 3rd section with basic 14000K look.

I hear a lot of people talking about ratios of 2:1 blue to white and such an I wonder if that is based on fact or hearsay or optimized for color rather than growth.

I can only speak for my own personal experience which is 1:1 Cool White to Royal Blue. I've never seen growth like I am getting right now with 1:1, I maybe have my Cool White turn down just a little to make the corals look nicer.

Although could also be down to getting a new Reef Octopus skimmer haha. Too many variables in Reef keeping to really get the best test results I think. With two identical tanks one can go astray with with just simple small anemones stinging your corals at night and throwing your results completely.

I also think back to the "solid recommendations" various store owners would give for T5s and how they were all completely different haha. I think after changing the bulbs multiple times over the years the only thing changing was how the tank looked and not the actual heath or growth of the coral. Moving to LED was most definitely a very significant change for growth and color but I wonder if you end up getting back into the same argument about the different T5s only now with LEDs. Is changing the color slightly really affecting coral growth or is it just more pleasing on the eye. It would be great to see some solid test results the only problem being by the time you are done the testing those LEDs are obsolete and a new range are on the market.

Cant loose sight of the fact also that light is only one portion of how corals feed, depending on the coral of course. So the perfect LED setup in a tank low in nutrients may not be as good as the wrong setup in a nutrient rich tank.

Martin

There is no question from what ive seen that LEDs are a hot damn for growth. The 2:1 people are suggesting is more for aesthetic then anything for growth - I dont think most people would notice a major difference between the two but it does make it cheaper because Royal blues are much cheaper than Neutral Whites. What im trying to do is push the limits on growth and still have the aesthetics piece.

The whole system is modular also so if I start seeing the brownish colors imisky is talking about then I can easily swap out the LEDs.

660 nm makes the corals grow, yes... but... it does so by promoting the growth of zooxantellae, which in turn the coral feeds on. Unfortunately zooxantellae is brown which makes the corals brown out. It's kind of like giving a plant a ton of nitrogen fertilizer: yes, it grows fast but ends up all long and leggy... You get the effect you were looking for but you lose out elsewhere.

If you break out the physics textbook you can figure out how much red light there actually is at a certain depth where you find the corals. You loose a lot of red quite quickly as you go deeper. We are essentially keeping our corals in tide pools compared to their natural habitat, so to get the best behavior out of them you want to simulate the spectrum of light they experience at the depths they naturally reside rather than giving the zooxanthellae what they want (more red).

If you tell me what corals you are experimenting with, I can take a pretty good stab at which zooxanthellae clades are in your corals; from this I could give you pretty much the exact spectrum that clade absorbs (most importantly the absorption peaks). I'd echo the above comment of trying more green than red.

One thing to bare in mind is that all of this will make them grow better but not necessarily look better. You see the coral based on whatever light is not absorbed by the coral (it's own pigmentation + the zooxanthellae) or the light that is re-emitted through florescence. You need to strike a balance between the coral's health and growth and this left over amount to get the best of both worlds.

It pretty much covers everything for SPS. LPS and softies under the 660nm spectrum does absolutely nothing, they dont lose there color nor do they seem to grow faster.

Ive been testing and playing with PAR38 custom versions for about a year and a half now. What I find is what plants need is NOT what corals, especially SPS needs. Coming from a heavy planted tank before my first sw tank, and reading a ton of hydroponic papers it is evident and tested that blue spectrum make the plants grow short with more nodes of leaves while red makes them shoot upwards with fewer nodes of leaves.

Though corals use the red spectrum it just browns them, from the lighting scheme you described earlier of turning the reds on while you are away and turning them off while you are there definitely wont work 100%. That's just not how corals and there symbiotic algae work. If only that was the case we would all be doing that, the chances are you'll be staring at brown corals even with the reds off.

Ron99 and I have tested with green LEDs a little while we were working on an LED light, and it's quite interesting because the green LED florescent some orange, pink and red corals while the red LED did absolutely nothing in enhancing color.

As for the intensity of the red spectrum, it didnt change the outcome. I couldnt adjust via ramping down the LEDs power, what i did test though was coving up the 1 red emitter 25% at a time, and even at 3/4 covered the corals didnt recover from the brown.

Another thing to keep in mind though milad, the more spectrums you add the more "bands" of color is going to show up in the shimmer. The PAR38 with only RB and CW has white and blue shimmers. The one with the red emitter is tri banded white, blue and red shimmers. and adding in a green made it 4. IMO that makes mixing LEDs a bit weird, since the spectrum is so narrow mixing them + the physics behind refraction of the surface agitation = a tank that looks like a disco ball. haha, its hard to get used to that, as it is hard for some to even get used to the white and blue colored shimmers from RB and CW emitters alone.

Great stuff guys. So what happened when you had the green on for extend amount of time?

I've never had the green LEDS on for an extended amount of time due to the sheer fact that it just made the tank look epic weird. Would you like to see green colored tank? :) Maybe the intensity of the green was too strong at 3w and i never checked with it running at 1w or less, perhaps that would be something to test out. But 3w green is definitely overpowering and should probably be used just enough so you cant see any effect in the overall change in color of the water but still enchance the colors.

So now the question in my head is, how well would a 660nm Reds work on an algae turf scrubber that is going into the new fish room.....

one thing you have to remember as the spectrum goes up the lower the penatration into the water.. so in reality the corals that we get in the hobby (typicly deeper water corals) never see any magenta or green wave length, so adding them to our tanks is pretty much a waist of money.

now where the magenta is good is for terestreal plants, there are several companies out there making LED "grow lights" one of the bigger ones is run out of kelowna or vernon (can't remember what they said) but I was suposed to get togeather with them and work on a tank light. I decided on working on my own as I have a contact with a LED manufacturing company in china (went to high school and am good friends with one of the owners) as of now I am still designing but that might be where it stops with the production of only one proto type. the problem is the patent BS, we can't sell into the US unless I want to pay huge royalties and quite frankly with out the US market I will most likly lose money on the venture. Milade, you are in a perfect spot with your group buy venture as you don't have to worry about that and if ou keep your boards as parts that is awsome also.

the only recomendation I would have is to forget about the magenta and green.. they have been tried and found to be a waist of time, but rather concentrate on the blues and whites.. I am probably going to be ordering a couple of each color from you so I can play with the "look" for my prototype build I am trying to combine TV, RB, and a nutral white or maybe even a warm white, which reminds me.. you don't have a minimum order do you? I am probably looking at 2 of each.

oh and your 4 channel controler, can it run 8 leds? and do you need anything else with it or just plug it into the wall?

Steve

Ya I think im in a great position and really what im trying to do is help the community. The website has been running for a year and I havent made a cent off it yet (and let me tell you ive put in so much time into it). Ive just been putting the money back into inventory and contracting people to make new products that people want (DIM4 controller) and trying to streamline the whole process as much as I can for everyone and get the prices lower.

We didnt have min quantities but Im starting to put them in place as of yesterday. Everything is going to be at least in a 6 pack or 12 pack. This is going to allow us to reduce the group buy time to every week. Almost 95% of the orders are above 6 LEDs so its not a big deal I don't think. Im also going to try to get the Canadian shipping lowered somehow.

The controller is really nifty. Its designed to run either 3 LEDs in series (CREE LEDs) or bunch of controllers PER CHANNEL. So that gives you huge potential to mix it up. We have some nano guys running 4 different types of LEDs on each channel and they use them for main lights. We also have the big tank guys running 3 channels of drivers and using the 4th channel for moonlights. So lots of configurations.

So here is a video of the controller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Skk...layer_embedded

I will be using this on my build instead of the Apex controller I currently have for couple reasons. I needed something to control the fans and something to control the moonlights. This is going to do both. I also didnt want to spend the extra cash to get the moonlight module and the additional variable speed ports on the APEX.

So I have the heatsink and controller, just waiting on the LEDs to get into production so I can get them in and start wiring things up.

interesting. since you built the board from scratch did youmake it so you could just plug it into 120v or do you need to power it with 12v?

Steve

It needs 12v. Most people have a 12v around the house. We also gave the flexibility to them to use different current for different setups. So if you are just doing drivers, you need a very low current power supply (500mA). If you are doing LEDs directly then you can get a 5A power supply.

I also got the update on the new LEDs. Prototypes are in route to Vancouver as we speak. I should have them early next week if not tomorrow. I have a PAR meter in route also. Im going to run some numbers comparing a CREE Setup vs the new LEDs (i might do some 150w MH just to get an idea.

If everything looks good they will go into production and I should be getting them sooner than later.

HiYa Milad

Its been a while between updates on this and I was curious to see your advancements and progress to date.

Any chance you could share were your at please.

Thanks
:biggrin:

Milad moved to regina and had to sell his tank... Dwerbs now owns his tank. Bu plans to build something I believe are in the works


Sent from nowhere in particular

Oh -ok thanks for the update:idea:

i retract my comment i havemilad mixed up with another reefer i know my bad ..not to surewhere milad is now i was tired when i replied sooo notsure wherehe is sorry