LED Lighting

[Anonymous]

I'm about to buy 48 3W CREE LED's for $5.35 each or less.

Heatsink $25
Line drivers $50 (2@$25)
24 LED's $128
24 lenses $31.20
Misc hardware, $15
Fan and 12v plug, free
Solder, wire, tools, Free.


Total for a~250MH, $250, and I don't have to change bulbs for a few years. Figure $75 every 9 months and what does that add up to? After 5 years or so, you're up to $500.

B

 

[Anonymous]

The problem with building these on your own is that the components cost a fortune. I found 3W LEDS for about $15 EACH! At that price I will just stick with my halide and buy a better chiller! Output measurement on these are goofy too. If you ask for a 20K LED then you will get a device that gives you a huge spike of intensity at 20K and very little else. I am trying to just go by lumens so I can compare apples to apples with the factory fixtures that cost thousands!

Discuraging news about that panel. I expect poor quality. I was hoping someone would say it was comparable to a 250

D_.

You would be luck if they gave the light power of a 70 watt halide and the spread was not good. Too point sourced and it makes a spot lighting effect in the tank. A spot of white then a spot of blue. From what I have seen the Cree LEDs are the best as far as strength. I am just not handy enough to DIY such a product. So, MH it is.

 

[Soultwater]

I’ve been thinking of LEDs for a few years now, I really think this can be done right it just may take time. It’s like the flat screen TVs when they first came they cost more than a Ford focus and now everyone has one.

 

[Len]

Excotic has some LED lighting products now that are pretty neat. They aren't bright enough to compete with MH, but they would make interesting options for lower light applications.

Plasma lights are promising ... if they can get rid of the heat. Those things are insanely bright (and efficient on lumens per watt basis). OLED lighting will probably be the thing of the future once the technology matures.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey those heat lamps help my tank not use as much electricity on the heater Not my fault some of you live in areas where you need to use chillers

 

[Anonymous]

Excotic has some LED lighting products now that are pretty neat. They aren't bright enough to compete with MH, but they would make interesting options for lower light applications.

Plasma lights are promising ... if they can get rid of the heat. Those things are insanely bright (and efficient on lumens per watt basis). OLED lighting will probably be the thing of the future once the technology matures.

PLASMA will only work once they improve the kelvin of them. Not many reefers want 5600K or so

Keep an eye on Excotic. I hera more cool stuff is in the pipeline with them

 

[Soultwater]

Light spectrum
The unit of measure commonly used to describe LED intensity is the millicandela (mcd), How does this compare to the hobby when we commonly see light spectrum 6000-10000k ? :idea:

 

[Anonymous]

Light spectrum
The unit of measure commonly used to describe LED intensity is the millicandela (mcd), How does this compare to the hobby when we commonly see light spectrum 6000-10000k ? :idea:

LED's are measured in Kelvin just like other lighting. MCD has nothing to do with color temp.

 

[Anonymous]

Here are those Exotic fixtures you mentioned and they can be retro fit for a reasonable price. The kits are nice looking too.

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant ... e=ecoxotic

I wonder how powerful they are, being they use 1 watt LEDs. What is the PAR on these at 24" when mounted 5" above the tank(recommended height).

 

[Anonymous]

I'm thinking about this for my 30"x30"x24" FO with softies.

http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-35/ ... elf/Detail

Need heatsinks though.

 

[Anonymous]

I think that would be more than adequate for that tank size, hell you probably can do without the optics unless you want your light fairly far away.

 

[Anonymous]

I think that would be more than adequate for that tank size, hell you probably can do without the optics unless you want your light fairly far away.

Funny, I emailed Rapid LED and the guy there said it wouldn't be enough and that I would probably need the 48 LED set. Not sure if he is being truthful or just trying to sell LEDs .

 

[Anonymous]

Well the local club guru of LEDs says the Crees roughly translates to about as much light as twice the wattage in halide, for a bluer spectrum bulb (i.e. not the 10k ones). So the 12 could very well be a 70W MH bulb, and convering that foot print the light might get spread out a bit sure, but if those are low light corals who cares, worst case scenario you can always add another 12 LEDs

The other side is too many people equate softies with low light, they might survive in lower lights but there are some which do like being blasted o' plenty.

 

[Anonymous]

Well the local club guru of LEDs says the Crees roughly translates to about as much light as twice the wattage in halide, for a bluer spectrum bulb (i.e. not the 10k ones). So the 12 could very well be a 70W MH bulb, and convering that foot print the light might get spread out a bit sure, but if those are low light corals who cares, worst case scenario you can always add another 12 LEDs

The other side is too many people equate softies with low light, they might survive in lower lights but there are some which do like being blasted o' plenty.

Ah good to know. Well the idea is to convert this into fish only, since my time is pretty limited lately. However, I'm sure I will be wanting to add something later on (Z&Ps, etc.) Funny thing is, I've had poor luck with Z&Ps under halides, but pretty good luck with them in my nano under T5s, which I'm sure are providing less light overall.

Does your local guru have any thoughts on the lens angle to use? I think my calculation showed that an 80 degree lens may be too much spread (I'm assuming about 30" distance from LED to tank bottom). Wondering if I should go with the 60 degree lens.

 

[Anonymous]

at 30' you may even want to use the 40 degree optics.

 

[Anonymous]

at 30' you may even want to use the 40 degree optics.

Yeah I guess that would give me about a 22" spread at the bottom (if I did my math right). I just wonder how much "lighted" region there would be in the middle of the tank to see the fish. I guess if you spread out the LEDs a bit, you would get better coverage mid-tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Now the other side of that, is it's not quite as cut and dry as the water does bend the light towards the vertical because it's more optically dense.

But as a rough guestimate, with a perfectly flat surface, water ~1.33 (salt water is slightly more but I'm too lazy to find that)

The angle it'll bend after it hits the surface is arcsin(sin20° / 1.33) = 14.9°

So the total spread from the vertical would be
Spread in air + spread in water
6" * sin(20°) + 24" * sin(14.9°) = 8.2" so You'll get an area roughly 16" across.

 

[euhero987]

I have some nice looking ref here., I'am relatively new to this. Can someone suggest any good way to install LED lights

 

[Anonymous]

I use PAR30/PAR38s over my 125(72"x18"x22").

 

[Anonymous]

Looks good my man! I've been playing around with building what are essentially DIY versions of those bulbs (they look a lot less pretty, and need drivers rather than a screw in socket... but they're probably about 1/3 the cost). Kind of nice to spot light certain areas to highlight corals, and not so much worrying about the sand being brightly lit by expensive electricity.