100gal Build: New Pics

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by lastlight

I can't imagine any of this being easy on account of your paws!

Off to a great start there. The welding stuff is way over my head but looks impressive. You have thermal paste under those directly on the aluminum as well?

Yeah definitely harder without thumbs!

Thanks and yes there is thermal paste under each LED.

[mseepman]

Nylon screws sound good until you need to tap. Plus they are know for slightly backing off over tim due to expansion/contraction of the heatsink. Then your stars don't have good connection to the sink and all h*!l breaks loose. Things are looking great on here though!

[sphelps]

While I wait for my new washers I thought I'd work on setting up and testing the rest of the electronics and it seems I've found an issue. The 24V power supply won't put out more than 14V, the lowest is 10V. I would have expected a range of about 20-28V so I'm thinking something maybe half of something isn't working properly. Anyone familiar with this?

[sphelps]

Nevermind, I need a new multimeter

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Nylon screws sound good until you need to tap.

bah, I have lost track of how many holes I have tapped. kinda therapudic to me.

Steve

[sphelps]

Some updates:

Covered the inside of the canopy with aluminium tape


Installed fixture and setup heat tests, this is operating at 100% on all LEDs except the yellows which I haven't gotten working yet (might be driver issue).





Hottest point I could find was at 113F according to this measuring device, other methods I used were not over 100F. This was taken after about an hour of steady state. I also doubt I'll be anywhere near 100% power, 50% is more likely closer to my lighting needs.



The test was not done without fans, without the fans I suspect it will reach well over operating temp with this many LEDs at 100%. Once the fixture is done I will do some more testing but I think I'll be installing a thermo switch to protect the LEDs from overheating in the event of fan failure.

[Skimmerking]

right on Man lights looks great

[sphelps]

OK so I'm now working on getting the fixture with work with the LEDcontrol4 module and the profilux controller. So far I've had limited luck on trying to figure out how these things connect and I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple people who know more than me. So if anyone has ideas please post.

This is the LEDcontrol module:
http://support.aquariumcomputer.com/...2011-02-11.pdf

And this is the driver:
http://stevesleds.com/uploads/Quad_L...de_1.27.11.doc

What I need to know is exactly what pins from LEDcontrol connect to the driver. I'm assuming pins 2-5 on the LEDcontrol connect to Pin 2 on the corresponding drivers but I don't know what connect to Pin 1 on LEDcontrol and if I need something to connect to Pin 4 on the drivers.

Any help would be appreciated

[sphelps]

OK so I was unable to get the PWM controlling working however I believe it's possible with some further investigations, it's just unfortunate that a product that is geared towards the DIY market has such little support and documentation. Realistically a decent manual with examples of how to connect typical drivers would be helpful instead of the typical spec sheet that tends to focus the details on what it can do rather than how.

Anyways I've installed the fixture with the manual dimmers to get a feel for what this thing can do, here's a FTS with 100% blue, 10% red, and 50% white (the color I'm most happy with):

Not the greatest picture but my camera did have issue balancing the color.

Anyways my final thoughts are not great, overall this style of lighting isn't for me and I'll either sell it as is for what I can get or rebuilt some kind of hybrid.

These are my problems, some I feel are related to how it was built but others on LEDs in general.

• Main issue is it doesn't work for rimless tank, having an open fixture means when I sit in my living room I have 126 LEDs shining in my eyes.
• The color isn't as good, the corals simply don't reflect the same colors as they do with other options.
• Overall brightness isn't impressive, running close to capacity over 300W of LEDs seems comparable to 200W of T5s, to my eyes anyway, yes PAR may tell a different story.
• The fans are still noticeable, considering that I went through great lengths to eliminate the slightest noise even the quiets fans are a nuisance.
• It's overly complicated, I just can't get over it, I feel it will be a constant problem in the future with too many parts to fail. One driver already failed from ESD, although this was my fault during construction.
• The controller was a big fail, although possible far from plug and play like I was hoping and told by some.

All in all, I'll be investigating other options and I'll take what I can get for this fixture.

[sphelps]

Some quick macros under the LEDs, nothing crazy just trying it out.