Seth's DIY Cree XM-L LED build

[Reefer Rob]

There are no pictures of my current setup out there yet. They are all of my old 180, which was lit by 3 250W halides with T5 supplementation.

My current setup is a 75G standard with 56 3W LEDs, 18 NW and 38 RB. You've obviously been doing way more reading than me, but I decided on this because people had posted on they got a nice balanced color and a 14K look. I think its a little bluer than that.

My decision was really about aesthetics, but the corals are really responding fantastic. I'm trying not to get too excited about it since its only been running for 3 weeks, and there could be problems with LEDs I might not notice for a few months, but... oh no here I go again.

The colors change of the few corals I have has been amazing! A couple of the remnants from my 180 that I've been growing out under a 150W halide, that were never really that exciting, have morphed into truly stunning corals. With your added colors you may get even better results, who knows. Like I said, just make sure its easy to change them if you don't like what you're seeing.

[Seth81]

Well I think the winning plan is below. It should allow for more then enough flexibility that I should be able to dial in a lighting option I like. I would consider running optics on the Cool Whites, Neutral whites, and the royal blues. I only would consideroptics becuase I have a very tall tank 38" to be exact, so light penetration may be an issue. I hit a little snag with the tank so it will be a while before I will actually have the fixtures over the tank.

The wiring is going to be messy as I had only planned on Cool whites and Royal Blues. It would be a little less messy if I bought another 100 W 2.8 A driver so I could split my Cool whites up better, but cost is starting to be a factor. For those of you potential DIY'ers I really don't think there is much of a cost savings by doing your own lighting, by the time everything is said and done, I am sure I would have spent at least $1200 plus many many hours of research. But in my case with an odd shapped tank, the desire for full lighting control, and me being super particular DIY is the only option!

BTW the snag is that the shop I had lined up to build my curved wooden panels is no longer able to do it. And apparently curved wood panels take like 60 - 90 days to manufacture...plus they need my steel frame while they do the build.

[Seth81]

So I ordered all the new/replacement LED's. I got the royal blues and the Neutral whites from Cutter, and the TV and UV from Aquastyle online. I like Cutter as you have choice of bin, but they take forever to ship from Austrialia. Now its just a matter of waiting! I'll post on this thread again when I get everything installed.

A big thank you to everyone who has been participating in this thread!

Cheers for now

-Seth

[Seth81]

Just thought I would update this with a few things I have learned from running my DIY lights for a while now.


1. UV and True Violet LED's bring out a little bit of extra color, and at night I can make the tank glow purple instead of blue...but IMO don't seem to be worth it if I were going to be doing it over.


2. Running XML's at 2.8 amps is a difficult venture. I was using thermal tape, becuase it can be removed if necessary, however at 2.8Amps the star PCB's tend to get hot enough to make the Thermal tape adhesive start to let go, and if nothing else is holding the PCB against the heat sink...prepare for burnt out LED's! I have burnt out at least 5 XML's because of this thermal tape and am now going with arctic silver compound for a more permanent bond. Also a heat sink fan is 100% necessary!


3. I really like the Color I get with Warm White and Cool white mixed. Cool white by itself is missing something, and warm white by itself does not look good.


4. I do like the amount of Royal blue LED's I have. With my whites fully on I can still get a nice color. And for night time I have to cut back my blues to about 65%


5. If you are troubleshooting LED's do not attempt to trouble shoot while your LED driver is energized!! I burnt out an entire bank of LED's this way.


I will be adding a 5th CW led per LED strip, mostly becuase I can...so why not? Ha ha ha...

[mseepman]

Good to see the update. Did you take any pictures lately? How are the corals liking your light?

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by mseepman

Good to see the update. Did you take any pictures lately? How are the corals liking your light?

I haven't had many SPS coral long time, infact my first SPS was only two weeks ago. But my softies like this frogspawn are doing very well. My rose bubble tip and my green bubble tip actually hide from the light and they are near the bottom of the tank. I've had some Zoa's for about a month, and they are doing excellent at the bottom third of the tank, they are staying nice a close to thier host rock and aren't extending at all, and they have grown lots of new polyps. My Divisa (kinda like frogspawn is also doing amazingly well seems to have gown a lot, I don't see much skeletal growth though.


I'll try to get some tank wide pics once I fix my burnt out XML's.
Unfortunately I order them from Australia, so it takes a while.



I only recently (like yesterday) figured out how to take much better more true to life night shots, now if I could only get the shooting through thick curved glass thing down...

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Seth81

1. UV and True Violet LED's bring out a little bit of extra color, and at night I can make the tank glow purple instead of blue...but IMO don't seem to be worth it if I were going to be doing it over.


2. Running XML's at 2.8 amps

you think that the XML's might just be a bit to powerfull for the TV to overcome? the systems that the TV makes the big difference on are the ones where all the LEDs are the same type. so all 1000ma or 800ma ect.

Steve

[Seth81]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

you think that the XML's might just be a bit to powerfull for the TV to overcome? the systems that the TV makes the big difference on are the ones where all the LEDs are the same type. so all 1000ma or 800ma ect.

Steve

Well the UV effect during the day is not even noticble in the least. But at night it does seem to make the green colors more vivid then the royal blues.



Below I took two shots of two pieces of Acropora with the exact same camera settings (in manual) and also with same white balance. You'll notice when the UV/TV's are on the Acro in the foreground is much brighter green and the on in the back as well. This effect is very much deminished on the acro in the background as I turn up the royal blues, becuase the royal blues will wash out the faint green produced by the UV/TV.

Keep in mind I have about 80 watts of Royal blues vs 36.5 watts of UV/TV. Also the Royal blues really made the reds in the tank pop more so then the TV/UV. But this could just be becuase I have much more RB wattage.

[Seth81]

Two more pics I took with UV at full and RB at half power