Grizz's DIY Heat sink & LED build / showing all colors
 

I put all this in my build tread for the 300 gal 8'er but thought I should do a DIYthread to make it easier to find.

I finally got a chance today to start building the heat sinks for this tank. I have decided to do 2 - 39" x 12" heat sinks both will have 136 LEDs but will have room for more.

Got my main plates of 1/4" aluminum cut & 48 pieces of 1/8" x 1" aluminum flatbars as well.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/6fdf3801.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/f911a280.jpg

First 5 flatbar fins tacked on:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/247d6073.jpg

Now 10:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/e1036f9f.jpg

15:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/231bf249.jpg

20:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/a9ab4266.jpg

And finally the last 3:

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/20854a32.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/88e7e9ee.jpg

As you can see in the 2nd last pic I removed the very first flatbar fin, yes this was planned because I am going to wrap the whole out side of the 1/4" plate with some 1/4" x 2 1/2" flatbars.

I cut some 2 1/2" strips out of a small sheet of 1/4" aluminum on my tablesaw, then cut a notch into them for my 1/8" clear acrylic cover.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/730fb6ac.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/585733bc.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/4eb0079b.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/d8fee96f.jpg

Added a 1/4" x 2" strip across the front but have to add something below the groove to hold the acrylic flat.

LED side:
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/08273d90.jpg

Fan side:
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/57c27ce7.jpg

Added a couple pieces of 1/2" square tube to mount the fans onto the heat sinks.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/f9a36f0e.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/dc8a9e30.jpg

Laid out all the LED boards from Modular LED for one heat sink and came up with this so far.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...7a59c7-1-1.jpg

LED legend

CW - XP-E Cool White
CW HEW - XP-E Cool White High Efficiency
NW HEW - XP-E Neutral White High Efficiency
HN - XP-G Cool White ( used for high noon kit )
RB - XP-E Royal Blue
B - XP-E Blue
G - XP-E Green
R - XP-E Red

Are those tig welds because it's aluminium and whatnot?

excellent. just great. this is LED deliciousness

No tony not TIG welds, I have an aluminum spool gun for this type of work. It's easier to tack with the spool gun vursus needing to use 2 hands for the TIG.

I wish i understood better what this does and how it all works.... Its slow at work and i have a bunch of plate and flat bar just waiting to be cut up.... Just dont know what im even planning for other then dimentions LOL
is there a specific spacing that works best per foot or thickness of plate ect?
Is there maybe a guideline to follow for us LED newbs...
Looks amazing bro.... Hope i get the invite next time i stop in your kneck of the woods

Heres's the piles of LED stuff, LED's, optics, connector, fans & power supplies, 1 EVG Profiilux controll board, adhesive and what nots.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/703b6481.jpg

Drivers, 5 - 120w, 2 - 75w & 2 - 38w (still need to pick-up from Martin)

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...r/a2c33030.jpg

I just used what Martin had figured out for a 48"L x 24"W tank to get an idea of what I needed & asked Martin what he thought I would need. I was going to go with 4 - 12" x 12" heat sinks but decided to go with just 2 - 39" x 12" so that I had a 6" difference on all 4 sides of the tank & between each heat sink.

Any time your down here drop me a line.

Looking good so far.

Are you at all concerned that a slight warpage in the base plate will cause an airgap and render that portion of the sink less effective than those next to the welds?

Looks solid. How many watt are the 136 leds ? I would maybee think of putting another fan to help out with the heat as you may find the transfer lacking from the 1/4 sheet to the 1/8 flat,

Cant wait to see it running over a tank should produce some good light.

There is no way that these will warp, as soft as aluminum is it will actually take a little more heat to warp . Total watts of the LED would be 408w @ 100% which I doubt I will even get close to that.

I am looking for a product I heard about that is similar to Silver Solder. It a matter of heating it up & pouring it in to fill any gaps.

Hey Grizz check out Loctite® Fixmaster® Aluminum Liquid.

it should get the job done and its easy enough to find.

Dude that's the exact stuff I was talking about just couldn't remember what to was called or who was the maker. THANKS

Grizz, I appreciate the crafstmanship and the work you've put in so far but I see a potential problem with the fabrication of your heatsink; with the fins only being tacked a few times there will be barely any thermal transfer between the main plate and the fin. A continuous weld would have been much more effective (or atleast a heavier stich-weld) Do you have any plans to solder/braze the joint between the fin and the plate? If not perhaps using thermal adhesive would have been more effective? Simply having the fin touching the plate (probably a bit of a gap now due to warp and drift from the welds) will not be much better than simply a bare plate.

On a somewhat related note, if you can build a plenum to spread the air from the cooling fans across all the fins they would be much more effective, rather than just cooling the four or five channels directly below the fans.

I really don't want to rain on the parade, just trying to help prevent burning up some expensive LEDs after the plate soaks up all the heat it can and reaches critical temp.

Edit: I just re-read and see that you plan to solder the fins in place. Looks like you've got it covered!

Wait for it...

I'm looking at your first layout of colours. The white seem to be mostly around the edges and the blue/royal blue/other colours are in the centre area. Wouldn't you want to mix them up a bit to even out the colour, or is there a particular reason to have the whites along the edge?

Really looking forward to seeing these LEDs on your tank :)

There is a row of XP-G Cool Whits down the center, they are the brightest of all the whites. They are my High Noon kit & wil be on at the highest % from 11:30 - 1:30.

I am think of adding a 3rd fan to each heat sink but even with just 2 you can feel the air flow at both ends of it.

Ahhh! That's what the HN means! There are so many code words to this LED thing ;)

Ah yes maybe a should add a legend for each LED.

If there is any visible gaps or you want to run stringers.... Just heat up a cone and give her a good few Whaps with the hammer ;)
She will fit right in the gaps and if you have the gas up you will be mint....
Although im sure your more than fine now seeing the shawdy heatsinks i have seen on car amps/ballasts running tripple or more watts/amps the fins are half useless anyways and your way overkill :) .

Not going to do any more welding on them except to connect the fins to the end caps. To much weld and it will warp for sure. There is only 3/8" between fins so the only way to do any more weld in there is with some aluminum stick rods & they are very messy. The Loctite stuff is the answer to bold it all together.

This looks awesome so far! The heat sync is a massive beast, love it.

When looking into the acrylic, did you manage to find some that doesn't pull out some of the light's spectrum? When attempting to make lids for my tank I ran into this issue and ended up scrapping the project. $200 worth of acrylic lying around now :redface:

Are you planning to put any bracing in for the acrylic? That stuff likes to bow like crazy in higher humidity and temp.

Looks pretty impressive so far. Out of curriousity what is the weight of that beast?

Chris

I haven't looked for the acrylic yet but will be stopping at Sabic next time I go to Calgary. I am going to use 1/8" or thinner & will be held in place on all 4 sides by the frame of the heat sink.


I would guess it around 50 lbs each, but I will have to actually calculate the weight.

Well hurry up already..... Im getting itchy trigger fingers with the ebay and more LEDs..... I gotta see this in action

Patience grasshopper, patience :lol: just got my last 2 drivers tonight & hope to work on them some more this weekend in between work and finishing a buddies stand skirts.

I am going to get at least one done & test drive it beside my 2 - 250w MH & 2 - T5's fixture for some comparison.

I'm so STOKED!

That makes 2 of us, wish I could take a week off work and just work on my tank & LED's but it will not pay the bill o I have to settle for what time I have. Also working on a 2800 sq ft dog run to top it all off.

Just out of curiousity, but why are you using red and green LED's? Red shouldn't only be used if you are growing plants. Not too sure why you would want green either...

I built my own DIY LED fixtures, I should probably make a thread too. I wish I knew how to weld, and made my own heat sinks.... I am jealose of your heatsink! The cheapest I could find was still expensive and not custom to my tank (heatsinksusa.com just in case anyone was curious.

I'm interested in the type of acrylic you're going to use. Hopefully we can get the same stuff in Edmonton:

16536 117th Avenue NW
Edmonton, Alberta T5M 3W2
Tel: 780-451-1650
Fax: 780-454-6025

In terms of acrylic don't dig too far into it. Use standard clear 1/8" cast acrylic sheet, it will not warp and will not remove any visible light worth mentioning (0.5% of visible light is removed per inch of thickness). There are difference classes of acrylic for removing UV light but LEDs don't emit UV and you can avoid it to be safe by not purchasing a special type of acrylic. Also optics are acrylic....

http://www.sdplastics.com/acryliteli...FUVtransTB.pdf

And most Rona's carry the 1/8" cast clear for a good price.

I was in Ocean Creations in Calgary a while back and they have a tank that has some LED T5 bulb over it, including a green and red. The guy working showed me the difference with them on vs. off and the colors where out of this world. Mine will be both on separate channels so I can dim them right down to 5 - 10% if I need to.

That what I was thinking as well to use the cast acrylic vs. the extruded. I can get it at Totem as well but will check our local Rona to see if there price is better.

So I read through I think like 40 pages of the RC LED aesthetics thread and it seems to me that if you just where to go with a mix of Natural white, Cool White and Royal blues you would get much better color out of your fixtures. Lots of people warned against just adding a few spread out red and greens as you wouldn't get good colour mixing and would get kind of a disco effect.

Looking at your design I would be a bit worried about the "disco" light effect from the red and greens.

I would love to see what the end result of your build is. Personally I may swape out 50% of my cool whites for natural whites if I'm not happy with my Cool white and Royal blue mix.

I have a combination of a few reds, greens and yellows spread out. I don't use optics and there is absolutely no disco/spotlight effect.

Could it be the optics that give them the disco affect?

Probably, if the optics concentrate the light to a focused beam. With a wide spread I think the red and green would just blend in. The echotech lights have red and green and I haven't heard anyone complain about a disco effect with them.

yes optics can cause disco effects but also running the reds at a high current and having them too spread out. if I were going to include red leds I would make sure I put them on a dimmable driver for sure.

On the RC thread two people said that they wouldn't bother with the red led's but would just use natural white led's.

I guess everyone has their own opinion. I personally want to keep the number of channels of light down to minimum simplicity. but I still would love to see what your tank looks like I'm your new lighting. and maybe some pictures of you playing around w:ith the levels.

I have a Profilux controller and have several channels to utilize but in the end if I don't like them there easy to change & Martin is right here in Red Deer so I can get a different color.

I hope to build the mounting rack soon, get it all wired & fire these bad boys up.