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

[burrows14]

WOW! Looks great Ron. Im very impressed

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

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:

which optics did you go with on the LEDs?

Steve

[Ron99]

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.

[derekc85]

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?

[Ron99]

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.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Ron99

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 I think green will have the same results of when people were trying the red ones mixed in. lead to more algae.

Steve

[Skimmerking]

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.

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

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 I think green will have the same results of when people were trying the red ones mixed in. lead to more algae.

Steve

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 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.

Originally Posted by asmodeus

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.

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.

[Canadian]

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?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Canadian

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