6 Foot LED Build

[Jaws]

Hey guys. I've had this vision of an LED build in my head for quite a while now and its finally coming to life. It's a total of 216 3W Cree LED's. 144 royal blues and 72 cool whites. I'm putting it above a 180G tank which I realize is way too much light at 100% but the idea is flexibility to upgrade to a bigger tank if I want to one day, as well as being able to turn the LE.d's on one foot at a time starting on the left side of the tank to the right similar to a Vertex light but for half the cost. Since I already have a Profilux, it will integrate with that and the lighting and intensity will ramp up and ramp down from left to right as the sun rises and sets. It will also have full storm simulation like cloud cover and lighting.

Gareth from Progressive Reef was the biggest help in this build. He helped me design it, order the parts, and is heading up the build as well. I'm hoping he can jump in here with some insight and maybe some pictures to talk about the build. Thanks again Gareth.

[Hustler]

Im watching
Ive seen the hydro UFO's going on a reef and they seemed to kick butt.... I know someone out there could build a bigger version....

[StirCrazy]

going to be cool, but thats going to be a very blue tank.

Steve

[Jaws]

That's the nice thing about that many LED's though. You can play with the intensity of each spectrum to try and get the right color temperature.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Jaws

That's the nice thing about that many LED's though. You can play with the intensity of each spectrum to try and get the right color temperature.

but if a 50/50 of cool white and rb gives you 14Kish what are you going for LOL.. have you bought the LEDs already? might want to give the true vilote and nutral whites a look.

Steve

[TheManicFishkeeper]

This is going to be the largest build I have ever been a part of (LED wise). There were a number of challenges. First of all, WEIGHT. This many LED's needed some serious heatsink action to bleed off the heat produced by this many diodes.

We went with 6 x 23" x 7" Heatsinks to control the heat. This will quite adequately cool this many LED's (with some extra fans) but moutning them was a bit daunting. This much Aluminum is fairly heavy and to further complicate things, the wiring was going to span across multiple heatsinks. We had to attach them in pairs for the wiring to work for "left to right" style dimming.

I decided to use Angle Anluminum to anchor the two together. I drilled 4 holes per heatsink and used self tapping metal screws to attach the angle aluminum to the ends. This actually proved to be fairly difficult choosing the right sized pilot hole for the screws. After a few turns through the thick aluminum the screws would start to bind. Third times a charm apparently and I was able to sink them in nice and tight.

I have to mention this right off the bat. Whenever possible, when drilling aluminum this thick, use a drill press. It can be very difficult to keep the drill steady enough to drill through 3/8" of aluminum.



Here is the bracket/angle aluminmum installed after several attempts. Sunk nice and tight to the heatsinks this prevents them from wiggling around and puttin tension on the wiring (to be installed later today).



And the first pendant is ready for LED's. This is the first of three I am building today. My plan is to finish one completely, so I can iron out any bugs for the remaining two before commiting.

.

[reefermadness]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

but if a 50/50 of cool white and rb gives you 14Kish what are you going for LOL.. have you bought the LEDs already? might want to give the true vilote and nutral whites a look.

Steve

Personally I have 20 RB and 6 CW and it still is not nearly as blue as my 20k Radium. Those cool whites are super yellow and need tons of blue to wash it out. I would have gone more at least 3 RB to each CW.....but I like it 20k +actinic look.

To me a 50/50 is no where near 14k. The 2:1 ratio of RB to CW is more like 14k to me.