Seth's DIY Cree XM-L LED build

[Stones]

Looking good man, can't wait to see some pics of it up and running.

[Reefer Rob]

There is a massive LED aesthetics thread on RC you might want to read before you go with cool whites. Lots of people complaining the light is very flat, and they add reds and greens trying to improve the color.

I went with about 2:1 royal blue to neutral white and to color is gorgeous. After only 2 weeks it's still too early to say anything about algae growth, but I believe corals also need red spectrum.

[BigAl07]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

... I believe corals also need red spectrum.

Your shallow water coral are adapted to utilize some degree of reds for sure. Plus adding a titch of reds & greens is tend to be very eye pleasing to the Homo sapiens in the equation.

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

There is a massive LED aesthetics thread on RC you might want to read before you go with cool whites. Lots of people complaining the light is very flat, and they add reds and greens trying to improve the color.

I went with about 2:1 royal blue to neutral white and to color is gorgeous. After only 2 weeks it's still too early to say anything about algae growth, but I believe corals also need red spectrum.

Looking at the attached flux distribution for the XM-L's I would say there is no need for any additional green lighting. Red... well maybe, but that might encourage algae growth. I think I'll try out my setup for a while. The only mods I am considering right now is optics and some more royal blues for better actinic lighting and a cooler (K) look




Edit: Looking at the XP-E Cool Whites, there seems to be slightly more green content in the XM-L cool whites

[Reefer Rob]

Yes the optics are nice, they keep the light in the aquarium, not the room. I tried without first and found it had too much light spillage, but it did have a nice T5 lighting effect. With 80 degree optics there is way more shimmer and more of a halide look.

[BigAl07]

Originally Posted by Seth81

Looking at the attached flux distribution for the XM-L's I would say there is no need for any additional green lighting. Red... well maybe, but that might encourage algae growth. I think I'll try out my setup for a while. The only mods I am considering right now is optics and some more royal blues for better accentic lighting and a cooler (K) look

Yes the XM-L's do have a much wider "spectrum" than any of the other LED and are an excellent choice to get more Spectral Diversity in your fixture.

Are you going to run these off of a controller or just manual dimming?

[Seth81]

I'll be running these off of an industrial PLC (Programmable logic controller) using two seperate 0-10 Vdc outputs, 1 for white, another for blue.

Originally Posted by BigAl07

Yes the XM-L's do have a much wider "spectrum" than any of the other LED and are an excellent choice to get more Spectral Diversity in your fixture.

Are you going to run these off of a controller or just manual dimming?

[BigAl07]

Siemens?

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by Seth81

I'll be running these off of an industrial PLC (Programmable logic controller) using two seperate 0-10 Vdc outputs, 1 for white, another for blue.

Ha ha how did you know!? Yeah I got a S7-1200 serries CPU with some I/O modules. Ebay is a wonderful thing!

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by Reefer Rob

There is a massive LED aesthetics thread on RC you might want to read before you go with cool whites. Lots of people complaining the light is very flat, and they add reds and greens trying to improve the color.

I went with about 2:1 royal blue to neutral white and to color is gorgeous. After only 2 weeks it's still too early to say anything about algae growth, but I believe corals also need red spectrum.

Curse you for pointing me to that thread! I read through like 30 pages of it!! holly crap! Well after reading the whole thing I may end up swapping 50% of my cool whites with Natural whites. But I think I will wait till I'm actually done building my tank!