Seth's DIY Cree XM-L LED build

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

would stay away from true blue, realy make tanks look bad.


I like #4 the best but change the true blues up for true violet.

Steve

Do you have experience with the True Violets? if so can you chare your thoughts? Would you run the Violet at a high current? Also any suggestions on where I would buy them? Found some 350 mA 420nm Violet LED's on Ebay for cheap, no idea quaility though. I found some at aquastyleonline, price is right too.

[Seth81]

I've got a thought, slightly against what everyone else is doing. But listen to my reasoning before jumping to a conclusion.

Since I am using XM-L's at 2800mA for my whites which are close to 4x more lumens then most peoples XP-E's at 1000 mA, I will need a lot more of lumens in the red part of the spectrum to balance out the color. So why not add Warm whites XP-E's (much cheaper then XM-L's) on dimmers of course to my existing cool whites and dim as necessary, use the warm whites as more of an accent lights then as my main led's ( I guess I could achieve the same thing with a few red LED's but just worried about red being too red, and disco effects. So this is kinda what I'm thinking about doing now.



I addeded another cluster to my design (5 clusters now, 4 previously) just becuase it helped balance out the load on the drivers better, and better spread too incase I want to run optics in the future. Also i saw some pics with true violet, and I really liked the effect so I decided to through a few in there. I was considering Cyan too, but I would want it to be on a seperate channel from everything else, and from a technical point of view I think 4 color channels is already a bit much.

I've been obsessing about this for the past few days so please let me know what everyone thinks of this config.

I will have to buy three more drivers, tons more LED's and also I had 4 0-10Vdc channels on my controller, two of which I wanted to use for speed control for some Hydor's... I guess I'll just have to buy another output module......I just hope my wife doesn't take my credit card away!!

[Reefer Rob]

Not enough blue
You should run your XP-Es at 700-800 mA
Get XP-G Neutral whites.
Too many True Violets? No experience with these.
Take a break

Try clusters of 3: 1 white with 2 blue/TV (less TV)

...JMO

[Seth81]

So it ain't blue enough eh? Ha ha ok, well let me know what you think of this option:




In this latest version I went with a warmer bin of the neutral whites to mix with my cool white XM-L's. I already have my XM-L's and the drivers @ 2.8Amps which can't be used with XP-E's or XP-G's unless I get very creative, so yeah I am keeping the cool whites, and will just mix in the neutrals. Thoughts?

Also yes you can run XP-E's at 1000 mA according to the data sheet, but probably best to avoid the maximums of any device.

Also true violet is know for popping out the colors in corals as well as it is thought that true violet significantly aids in coral growth as corals use a significant amount of light in the 390 - 450 nm spectrum for photosynthesis. The only spectrum not really covered very well with NW/RB/TV is the cyan 480 - 500 nm range, which supposedly makes oranges and pinks pop. Only thing is that from what I have read, this should be used very sparingly. But it does looks like it may be worth it. I found this comparison on Nano builders, it really helps put blues into perspective.

[Lampshade]

Looks great, i've been watching your build on these and you've done some great research. One thing to look at is what your corals will activly use. With LED's you can put out a wavelength very close to what the corals will need, and also what makes them bright. check out:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/9/aafeature - article on fluorescence, the chart at the bottom shows the excitation wavelength of most common coral's fluorescence
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/20....full.pdf+html - Paper on how corals respond to light, interesting info on polyp extension based one what wavelengths are present.

It's great that you are taking a mix of blue's and some TV. The mix should hit the peak's of lots of different corals providing great results. This is where LED's far surpass any other tank lighting, because you are going to hit everything in the 400 - 550 wavelength, and not just have one peak in there like most halides. Can't wait to see the results.

[Reefer Rob]

You're probably going to want to play with things even after you're done. I would drill and tap your heat sinks so you can change you LEDs if you want to make changes.

Everyone has their own taste in colors. Based on what I like and since your CWs are going to be crazy bright, I was thinking more like this:



Might be too blue for you?

[Lampshade]

Robs suggestion looks good, you can also throw wider lenses on the whites to get less Intensity and more spread to help out.

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

Looks great, i've been watching your build on these and you've done some great research. One thing to look at is what your corals will activly use. With LED's you can put out a wavelength very close to what the corals will need, and also what makes them bright. check out:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/9/aafeature - article on fluorescence, the chart at the bottom shows the excitation wavelength of most common coral's fluorescence
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/20....full.pdf+html - Paper on how corals respond to light, interesting info on polyp extension based one what wavelengths are present.

It's great that you are taking a mix of blue's and some TV. The mix should hit the peak's of lots of different corals providing great results. This is where LED's far surpass any other tank lighting, because you are going to hit everything in the 400 - 550 wavelength, and not just have one peak in there like most halides. Can't wait to see the results.

I read all of the first link, and most of the second link that you suggested, they were really interesting thanks! What I got out of it, is that if one wants to have some really florescent corals, one should have the 390-450nm range covered. And I would expect rapid coral growth in the 400- 500nm range. Which I think a mix of true violets, royal blues and a little true blue maybe the answer.

One thing I noticed though is that the 420nm true violets don't have too much of the 390 - 400nm range. I am tempted to throw one 400nm LED in per lighting strip, or use 410 nm violets. Anyone on here have any experience in the near UV spectrum? Results?

Rob, still not blue enough for yeah eh?! Ha ha! I was looking through some of your pictures, your tank doesn't seem that blue to me, do you mind briefly describing your lighting setup, and any reasoning behind all the royal blues you recommend? I do understand that lighting preference is very subjective. In one of my pics with 3 RB's to 4 CW XM-L's you can see that the light is already fairly blue.

Personally I had hoped to vary my lighting conditions throughout a 24 hour cycle, towards night I would have a very Avatar thing going on with lots of florescence and actinic light , as it got later in the night switch to more of a violet dominated color. During the day I would go with more of a bright white look more like MH's. And in the morning more of a warmer color.

[Nano]

Originally Posted by Seth81

One thing I noticed though is that the 420nm true violets don't have too much of the 390 - 400nm range. I am tempted to throw one 400nm LED in per lighting strip, or use 410 nm violets. Anyone on here have any experience in the near UV spectrum? Results?

I dont have any experience per say, but I recently added a true blue and magenta (or violetish color) panorama stunner strip, and my colors have really popped! its too early to speak for the coral growth though currently