DIY LED Using 10 Watt Arrays

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Al is Aluminum. My lights use Aluminum bars connected into a heatsink. Dissipates heat well.

Small, light-weight heatsinks will have more trouble dissipating the heat from 10w emitters so you'll probably have to continue using fans.

Ok, I thought by Al you may have meant AI as in Aqua Illumination, a heatsink from the company that makes LED fixtures which you used in making your DIY. So how thick or heavy are these bars? Some photos, dimensions etc. would certainly help me visualize what you're talking about. The new heatsinks I have are advertised to work without the need for fans as well and they've been doing the job on the center row of lights for a couple of weeks now. So if I were to consider what you're proposing/using, I'd need more info. Where did you get them?

[mike31154]

Here's what I've come up with for a cover. Mostly built, but need to fine tune, stain, cut vent holes, trim the edges & figure out the hanging scenario. The existing brackets for hanging don't protrude far enough through the new top. I suppose I could hang it from the top itself, but then I'd need to bolt the top to the frame & I'd rather have the top easily removable, so just resting on the frame. I'll figure something out.

Ended up getting a sheet of 1/8 mahogany plywood & fastening that to the end pieces. Amazing how stiff 1/8 ply can be when you're trying to bend it. I had to make two more semi arcs to support the plywood & make it bend properly in the center.

[mseepman]

Nice job Mike. I like that look a lot! Do you have to drill for fans still on top?

[hillegom]

looking good

[daplatapus]

Nice job Mike. I actually kind of like the 3 ribs on top.
FYI, when you have to wrap a curve like that, see if your supplier carries wiggle wood. It's a 1/4" plywood, but all the layers are oriented the same direction so it can roll up to something like a 4" diameter circle. Extremely useful, and you don't end up with those little curling edges that are always trying to straighten them selves like regular ply does.

[mike31154]

Some progress on the cover and replacing outer rails of lights with larger heatsinks, sans fans. Heatsinks are mounted on larger 1 inch aluminum u-tube than when I did the center one, so more material to draw away heat. The center rail has been running fine without fans & the 3/4 inch u-tube for some time now, no issues with the LEDs, so not sure whether I'll redo that one with the 1 inch material. Still need to yank the old rails & mount the LEDs on the new ones, but lights are on at the moment. Might get it done tonight.

Came up with some artistry to vent the cover. A bit of work with all the drilling, but I think it should look & be pretty cool once I have it stained & mounted.

[hillegom]

wow nice
You are not only into electronics, but an artist as well
Well done

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Nice job Mike. I actually kind of like the 3 ribs on top.
FYI, when you have to wrap a curve like that, see if your supplier carries wiggle wood. It's a 1/4" plywood, but all the layers are oriented the same direction so it can roll up to something like a 4" diameter circle. Extremely useful, and you don't end up with those little curling edges that are always trying to straighten them selves like regular ply does.

Thanks for the heads up on the "wiggle wood". I'd never heard of that. Too late in the game for me now to rebuild the top, but certainly will keep my eye out for that stuff for future projects. I had also considered veneer, but that's pretty thin & actually quite costly compared to a piece of 1/8 " plywood. You can probably see the 'waves' along the bottom edge of the cover in the photos where the standard plywood didn't co-operate. I'll have to apply something along there to straighten it out, perhaps some gold coloured aluminum trim. The thing is starting to get heavy now though, with the larger heatsinks & cover.

[mike31154]

Took longer than I had hoped to get the additional dimmers I needed after cooking the one that was overloaded with too many 10 watt LEDs. They finally arrived yesterday & I've wired them in so each of the 3 LED rails now has 2 dimmers controlling the mix of white & bue. Previously I had 2 dimmers on the center rail, but only a single dimmer for each outer. Should have fixed that long ago, but let it slide until there was smoke. Bad idea.

At the moment the center rail has fired up & I'm still waiting for the outers to kick in which won't be for a few more hours. Once they're on, I'll adjust & take voltage/current readings. Everything should now be well within the 8 amp limit for each dimmer, even when I crank the voltage to near max. Vf for the LEDs.

This is how it was:



Here's the latest config. with larger power supplies & 2 more dimmers:



I've dispensed with the voltmeters since I wasn't really using them for daily monitoring. Since I don't have a controller & simply use timers to run the lighting schedule, I'll dial in a voltage, check that & current with my multimeter & see how things go with the livestock for a while. It appears nothing suffered too much during the past month with none of the Royal Blues running, so I'll just play it safe for a while & keep things running at a Vf that's comfortably below the max Vf for the LEDs.