LED and Electronics General Q&A

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Philosphy behing this thread.

I started this thread to answer many questions all at once due to sudden influx of inquires about LEDs.

I will not answer too deep into the topic because it takes at least 4 years of college and a my whole life minus 6 when I was a kid to understand electronics. There are still new products/techs coming out every mintue so don't waste time on this unless your are making a living on it. So, google is what you need to find out more info. I will only answer whenever I feel like.

Everyone is welcomed to chime in as long as it is correct info. because electricity is a dangerous thing to deal with. Mis-using an soldering iron could be VERY dangerous too. Therefore, whoever, attempting things in this thread must execise great cautions. Like use of heat sink, remember to unplug your iron whenever you are stepping away, watch you experiment at all times when electricity is on(we don't want to hear about a fire or explosion or such)....... too many to list.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Reserved

LED

Comment for aquarium application
It best to use for shifting the color tone and moon light application in a tank.

If you want to fool around with LED, you must have a LEd testor, and an soldering iron somewhat around 30W. In general, using high wattage iron will burn your electroncis and hard to control the solder. Fiddling the 30W iron on electronic parts long enough will still over heat the component, so you need to develope the skill in soldering. Quick to the point, precise dip is best. Use flux wax to clean and make better solder points. Use an aligator clip as a heat sink when soldering if you have a higher powered iron and need to get the job done immediately.



Most commonly seen are the 5mm LED, these are inexpensive but making them to be useful in reef environment are tedious.

They cost like around 25 cents in smaller qty. 10 cents a pcs in huge qty.
Most of these LEDS operates at a max of 3.2-3.3Vf, therefore, if you put 3 rechargable batteries in series you will burn the LEDs because 3 rechargable batteries = 1.2V x 3 = 3.6V. Also different color LEDs usually have a different max forward or backward voltage.

4 x LEDs running at 12V is not as bright as 3 x LEDs with proper additions of resistor. Therefore, to obtain optimal brightness and energy effectiveness for illuminations, you need a full spec sheets of them. That makes DIY projects hardly optimal enough for replacing MH or such.

The shimmering effect of MH lighting is easily obtained with LED using the narrow angle ones. The penetration is also very high compare to flourescent light.

Annoucement
Some time next week, I will post a pic of running the blue in a small tank so that you have a better idea how many is sufficient for your application. I will use the high flux ones since I am all out of the regular 5mm blue LEDs. Stay tuned.

FIRST BATCH OF PICS

Pics of Green Black Sun are taken with a cel phone so pic quality is low.

Under "MY DIY" 0.4W of blue LED (make up of only 2 LEDs)

Under 0.4W of "MY DIY" LED plus a 1.44W commercially /v blue LED

Under 0.4W of "MY DIY" LED plus a 1.44W commercially a/v blue LED and 1.44W commercially a/v white LED

Under 2 x 36W VHO Actinc 03

Under MH 175W and 2 x 36W VHO Actinc 03 (need to take another pic to show better comparison)

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Reserved 2

Power Supply


DC power supply is not same as ballast!!! Of course, DC power supply is not the same as ac power supply. Pay extra attention to the label for ac or dc output.

So a DC power supply saying that it's 400W will not burn your array of LEDs that use 10W if the voltages of the power supply and the LEDs are matching. However, if the output voltage(V) of the DC power supply is of higher voltage(V), then your array of LED will be running more current and thus your LEDS are running over 10W and burn. In another word, if your DC adapter says its 12V regulated
and your array of LED says the input voltage to be 12V, then you are good to go. Don't worry about the wattage.

If your array says it uses 10W of power while your DC adpater can only supply 4W of energy, the adapter will heat up and burn. This could be dangerous when your adapter started to melt, poisonuous gas, sparks and cause all hells to break loose.


***** NOTE: READPOST #23 *****

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Reserved 3

Other components to the LED arrays


-LED Testor
-Multi-meter

-perf board
-resistors
-potentiometers (some people call them pots) Kimoyo, thanks for the correction. Ask Radio Shack kids, they should know what those are.
-soldering iron
-soldering wax/flux
-rolls of solder (bad coffee-good catch)
-thin electric wires (use solid ones)


If you know more about electronics, you may want to use current dividers instead of resistors.

 

[FRY]

led tester,multi tester,potential meters??????

all you need is a vom meter

 

[Pseudo]

:spin: He missed the oscilloscope.

 

[bad coffee]

and the roll of solder. the iron is pretty useless without solder! I use lead free flux core.

B

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

led tester,multi tester,potential meters??????

all you need is a vom meter

LED testor will save you tons of work and give you very quick light intensity difference in the design. You will want it once you used it. Try testing 1000 pcs of leds, to make sure they works before soldering, using the multimeter(like your vom meter), you will know what I mean. Or for another scenario, try changing your design from using 20mA to 30mA. Without the LED testor you have to re-wire your whole thing! With the LED testor, you just plug the LED in!!!

Potentiometers are not meters!!!! They are pots for you to adjust resistance thus changing voltage-devices for fine tuning the final product or during the design phase.

 

[kimoyo]

Potential meters are not meters!!!! They are pods for you to adjust resistance thus changing voltage-devices for fine tuning the final product or during the design phase.

Do you mean potentiometers aka pots?

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Do you mean potentiometers aka pots?

Yes, I mean potentiometers.

Thanks for correcting my spelling. Keep on having problems with my memories these couple years.

 

[cali_reef]

:spin: He missed the oscilloscope.

Nobody use those anymore old timer, how about a Time Domain Reflectometer ?:fishhit: You will need that to find all the bad connections for the first time soldering iron user.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Nobody use those anymore old timer, how about a Time Domain Reflectometer ?:fishhit: You will need that to find all the bad connections for the first time soldering iron user.

Thanks for pointing out HAHAHA


Cali, looks like you are an engineer too.

 

[cali_reef]

<---- Being sarcastic.. I don't think anyone here have the extra $$ for one of those.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

<---- Being sarcastic.. I don't think anyone here have the extra $$ for one of those.

I know---
my "hahahaha" is about the "old timer" joke.
my "thanks for pointing out" is about you start the tease first.


We know---
time domain reflectometer is usually for checking cabling.


Who tease who is not important-just something to crack up for. It's fun.

 

[FRY]

http://www.dansdata.com/caselight.htm

 

[junglebase]

I guess that just about covers all the potential questions a newbie like me will have regarding electronics and LED's.....lol

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Some pics under different LEDs.

Pics of Green Black Sun are taken with a cel phone so pic quality is low.

Under "MY DIY" 0.4W of blue LED (make up of only 2 LEDs)

Under 0.4W of "MY DIY" LED plus a 1.44W commercially /v blue LED

Under 0.4W of "MY DIY" LED plus a 1.44W commercially a/v blue LED and 1.44W commercially a/v white LED

Under 2 x 36W VHO Actinic 03

Under MH 175W and 2 x 36W VHO Actinc 03 (need to take another pic to show better comparison)

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

More comparison pics for the LED vs Flourescent and MH. Check the first page.

Note the ratings of the power is competely out of phase. So far I have no time to do DIY the simliar power consumption nor same par, nor ........ blah blah blah. Just a random comparison whenever I got a chance.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

I found that eggcrate is great for mounting the general LED in aquarium applications.

If you want to check it out, I have a raw testing unit in my club.

I also found that you should consider building somewhat like 48W-60W(depends on wavelength choice) of LED to replace a 2 x 65W PC light.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

As I promised earlier, I will come back to this thread once a while.

Here are two more pics showing you the difference.

VERY promising is all I can say.

The first pic is of the original 72W Flourescent lited tank
The second is a <15W LED, somewhat optimized, lited tank

Note: the shadow on the 2nd pic, it shows LED, when designed properly, can have the shimmering effect many people like about MH.

Note: the 2nd pic is actually brighter and whiter, at least to human eyes and the camera's CCD, at <15W of LED

Note: the temperature is so much lower than the flourescent. The bulb of the flourescent is untouchable and at burning temeperature while the LED is only warm.

Not shown in this pic. I also make a manual color tone/temperature controller and found that LED is the easiest to control comparing to flourescent and MH.

Now, the next step would be a field test of how well the corals do under them. Now, if someone who are marine biologist, please send me some more info about the zoa in corals and their mode of living. I read quite a bit but still feel need more to comfirm some concepts.

1st Pic: Under 72W of Flourescent Light
.

2nd Pic: Under <15W LED, some what optimised by Wingo)

I have put together, for your convenience, materials to make this DIY and details is available in the following thread
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/vendor-sales/13596-led-diy-projects.html

If you plans to build big big stuff, of course, it's best you get them online yourself.