LED revival
 

well about 1.3 years ago I started playing with LED's for suplementry lighting for tanks, I got good results but cost wise it wasn't realistic to do on a larger tank. well sence I got a 45 gal tank sitting in the garage screaming for me to rebuild the cabnet I have decided to take up the LED bug again. (also having a new job where I have lots of spart time, allows me to do a lot of stuff at work)

this was the results I got on my 25 gal tank back then
http://members.shaw.ca/s.l.s/diy/led/index.html

has anyone continued with this ? ie. played with newer brighter LED's and such?

right now I am looking at setting up a system that will use a wack of LEDs for dusk and dawn graduated lighting, so I will use both 470nm and 430nm LED's and maybe some 385nm ones also, so in the AM the 385's would come on first, then the 430's would light up adding to the total, and finaly the 470's would come on line. I think this would make a stunning visual effect and I am even thinking of carring it on by going with progressivly lighter blue LEDs leading into white lighting, and then reverse everything at night time. need less to say the timer is going to be a pain in the you know what :mrgreen: but I have a couple ideas I am flipping around and once I make sence of them :eek: I will be looking for a second opinion :mrgreen:

I know Kyle was playing with some new ones and he was going to send me one to try out for a bit (and do a PAR test on) but that never materialized. so if anyone has a luxton star and driver for it I would love to be able to do a PAR test on it to see if the extra money is worth it.

at any rate any ideas / questions / complaints are more than welcome.

Steve

Are the pictures of your original set up an accurate representation of the actual colour and brightness?

If so, I think it would be ideal for a deep water species tank.

Darren is monkeying around with all kinds of timers and controls, I don't think he persude the LEDs but I'm sure he has some ideas for a timer control.

Is that something you could use for moonlights? Or is there something better? Wasn't Gujustud working with LED's for lighting a nano?

Walter

Troy,
the bottom pics (the brighter ones) are a accurate visual of the 25 gal tank with 3 LED's. the darker two is to show how actinic lighting screws up a digital camera :mrgreen:
If Darren would start posting again that would be great, but he only stops in to sell stuff laitly :sad:

Walter personaly I felt that test set up would be to bright for moon light but maybe with the lower wave lenght bulbs (like the 380's I am looking at getting) it might be dim enuf. Or maybe using a LED with a greater difusion pattern, like a 120degree focal instead of a 15 or 20.

Steve

Steve, I had a look at two blue LEDs that are a part of the Coralife hoods and they are very close to the brightness and colour of your tank in the pics.

are they for night lights?

Steve

hey Steve, I do have some 5 watt led'skicking around and some drivers for them, I can send them to you bare, so you would need to solder them to the driver temporarly, and they would need a heat sink similar to a computer heat sink as these things have huge thermal issues....

PM me your address and Ill loan them to you....

Since someone brought of the LED topic again. I was wondering if someone could post a basic DIY setup of how to get them working for things like moon lights and things like that.

I had a web link on everything you needed to know to make LED stuff, Let me try find it for you here.

Steve

Hey steve if you are planning on running your lights like that I can make you a controler for them...All you would have to do is tell me how many led's you plan on using and what time's you want them on and for how long.....

At the Home show in Edmonton, someone had a booth showing LEDs for lighting outside of houses.

Might still have their card.

Found the card for the exterior LEDs. Might be something there for adapting to a DIY hood.


http://www.starlexinc.com/index.shtml

I had a 2g freshwater planted tank running on LEDs, they were only the 8000mcd LEDs, and I'll tell ya 12 of them lit up the tank way better than the 2 13w pc's they replaced...

I just finished testing out some 20,000mcd LEDs (from LKCWTC on ebay), ordered 100 more - for the new 5g nano for my desk at work. Nice color, probably in that 12-14k range.

Just trying to come up with a good way to mount them - was going to install them in drilled acrylic - but then I realized - acrylics a very good insulator - and heat is an LED's biggest enemy... So I'm trying to find another more elegant solution.

Andy

what do you use to power them, and which are the 12-14k ones? the blue or the ultra white? for the price this guy's selling these at, they look like fun to play with!

I just use a typical 12v wallwart - puts out a pretty consistant 14.4v - which is perfect for driving arrays of 4 (3.6v to each), add in a 700ohm resistor - and you've got 20ma @ 3.6vdc.

Watch for his auctions that start at >10$ I got my first 20 LEDs for 7.99. The most recent purchase wasn't only 28$.

And the blues are much too blue for regular use - just the regular ultra bright white or whatever he calls them.

Andy

shouldent be a problem with using an acrilic mount, LED light lights come sealed in acrylic blocks and they last for 10 years...

for what it is worth I am going to encase mine in acrylic (liquid that hardens) in small strips as I won't be able to change a bulb or anything once I cast them. this will make them totaly impervious to water and they will even be able to be used submerged (got a few accenting ideas I want to try out also :mrgreen: )

STeve

In theory thats right, in application, I learned from the 2g that it's not.

Mounting within acrylic (or in my case on the 2g within epoxy) the heat tends to be captured and retained. Results in a short lifespan. Yes the LEDs themselves are made of acrylic - but the amounts are minimal, surround several of them in a small area - and they do retain the heat a little too well.

My plan at the moment is to find a nice hunk of aluminum to drill, aluminum is very efficient at moving heat away - and transfering the heat - thus keeping the LEDs running cooler.

Andy

so how do we explain my solid acrylic LED night lights I have had for over 5 years? if we shorten the life span from 11.45 years (running 24 hours a day) to 5 years at 24hours a day then we still get 10 years average life @ 12 hours a day. now another option is to have a fan blowing on the LEDs to aid in disapating heat, I can't see the problem as I can hold on to my leds for ever after they have been running for a few hours so not much heat is produced.. .

Steve

But you're forgetting one major issue... The older LEDs did not have near the same power (mcd ratings) - or heat production the new ones do.

I could take some radio shack LEDs and encase them in acrylic and it wouldn't be a problem - try that with the newer >12,000mcd units and it is an issue.

Andy

the one watt leds I have get hot, hot enough that they are to hot to hold, the 5 watt led's I have get smoking hot and must be run with a heat sink unless testing for only short amounts of time, they will make your skin go sssssssss and leave a nasty blister....


you will see what I mean Steve.....

Loving LEDs this evening.

After spending much of the day drilling for the the 5g's array, I realized I was going to have more than a few leftover.

So I figured some augmentation of the 2x20w NO's on the 65g right now would be a good thing. Mounted (superglue) 16 of them to a 36" peice of eggcrate, then wired them up. The 2x20w NO's got removed, as they were easily being outdone by the LEDs.

Of course, we'll see how long they last... Tried something 'different' this time. Used my standard 12v 1.2Ah wall wart (actually puts out 14.4v), used 4 LEDs in series, no resistor. I tested a series like this all last week - and it didn't burn any out, strangely even without resistors they're only drawing 34mA. Spec's list a Vmax of 3.6v and max current of 30mA, so they are being overdriven slightly.

I'm thinking I may have to get a few more white and blue LEDs, may just do the 65g up with only LED lighting.

Andy

this thread is useless without pics and diagrams and store locations to buy mats :)

Best place to buy LEDs is by far ebay - you'll pay under 1$ each there (most retailers will charge at least twice that). Personally I like the ones lckwtc is selling, but to each their own.

iagrams - there's a thousand websites explaining wiring LED arrays, just do a google search.

Pics - Might have a few coming later today if I decide to go nuts and light up the 65g totally with LEDs. Not going to post the duct tape and bindertwined version I'm running now :)

Andy

I buy mine from distrubitors, about 1 buck each and no shipping accross the boarder.

Steve

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...12935gled1.jpg
That's how I'm wiring up the 5g. Red for positive, black for negative - that blue wire connects an array thats split on either side of the AC300.

http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...12935gled3.jpg That's about as close as you get to a running picture, anything close to overhead results in black with white dots :)

Andy

hmmm. How many times you electrocuted yourself on that thing? :)

It looks pretty clean and simple - which is good for me if I ever try to attempt it.

Low voltage, low amperage - so I haven't - I could probably lick it and get nothing more than the equivalent of a 9v battery lick.

Figured I'd post pictures while things are pretty clean and easy to see - planning to dip the whole bottom in "liquid electrical tape" before putting it into service.

Andy