DIY led help

[joshuashih1]

will 1 of thishttp://www.ebay.com/itm/271027471339 and then cut to 1 foot lengths and then placed next to each other and then 1 of this Aquarium Reef Coral LED Strip Aqua Blue 490 Light 36" 3 ft 60 Stunner LEDs | eBay and cut to 1 foot lengths and placed next to each other and then on the same support next to the white leds is that enough to have corals if not what is it strong enough to have and how would I improve it to make it so it can have anenimis (spelling) and if it can then what kind of lighting corals like low to med or lighting requirements.

 

[grozier]

I don't think the wattage would be strong enough? 15w. for the 3' strip isn't very much I would check the wattage on other led systems and compare. Some of those lights are brite ,but don't carry through the water like they should.

 

[joshuashih1]

so what exactly would I find what I want at under $60

 

[grozier]

hard pressed to find a good light for that price unless you can find one used on the net?

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I use a 48in stunner royal blue 453 for my night light. I agree, my coral just close up do to the lack of lighting. I does nothing besides letting me see my display. If you do one by yourself, leds will cost 2 bills a piece and depending on your set up youll need about 30 of them. Thats 60 bucks plus heat sink and power supply, better off doing it right tje first time

 

[dralan552]

I may be a little late but if go to rapidled.com they have LEDs that the correct light spectrum LEDs along with head sinks... though depending on the type of build it may not save enough Mooney to be worth the extra work..

 

[Northstar24]

Call rapidLED and tell them what size tank you want to light with LED's and they'll set you straight. It's definitely going to cost more than $60 though. Those stunner strips are meant for color rendition, not keeping corals

 

[RocketSapp]

Well, I have been researching on what I need for a saltwater tanks and buying things and testing them as I go. Here is what I found for LEDs if you are a big DIY kind of guy with any electronics experience. I ordered 10 of the 10K and 10 of the 455nm LEDs and tested them with a variable power supply and a 2.7K Ohm resister. These are super bright LEDs and very close to the 750 mA @ 3.2V. A string of 6 of them were bright enough we were not able to look right at them when we powered them up.

I am wiring up the 10white X 10blue to put on my fresh water tank to see how well they do. I found a laptop power supply that provides just a bit more DC voltage than I need for $15 at a electronics supply \ surplus store.

For the saltwater tank I am going to buy the 50 of the whites (10K), 50 of the blues (455nm) which bring them down to .55 each, and 10 of the UVs (410nm) which are higher at $1.80 each. While cleaning up my office at home and tossing out printers and things that were just in the way, I found a printer power supply that is a 32 volt with an amperage rating that is allowing me to run around 6 or 7 strips of 12 LEDs.

The LEDs are being mounted to two sheets of aluminum and then heat sinks from the same electronics supply company mounted onto the back of it. I currently have 8 of them (I think) and they were less than $2 each.

For controlling the brightness the way I want I am using an Arduino Micro-processor board and their PWM boards with a MOSFET transistor. The Arduino Micro normally runs for around $20.00 each, and the potentiometers and MOSFETS may come to around $10 total.

So my complete DYI setup has the following cost involved.

$73.97 for LEDs
$20.00 for Sheet metal and Heat Sinks
$20.00 for MicroController
$10.00 for additional electronics
$5.00 for wire and solder.

$128.97 not including power supply which I am getting for free. It might be an additional $20 to $25 to get a power supply as well. So lets call it $21.03 which brings you to a total of $150.00 for the lights. Even if you did not want to do the micro-controller and was just going to have them lit 100% of the time, you are down only $30.00 which is still twice what you were wanting to spend. If you buy only exactly the number of LEDs that you need you might be able to get the price down some, but it will still not be $60 or less.

10K 3Watt LEDs on the star heat sinks

10 Pack $7.99
10 Pcs Cool White High Power Star LED Lamp Light 3W 3 Watt 220 240LM 10000K CCT | eBay

50 Pack $27.99
50 Pcs Cool White High Power Star LED Lamp Light 3W 3 Watt 220 240LM 10000K CCT | eBay


455nm Royal Blue 3Watt LED on star heat sink

10 Pack $7.99
10x 3W Royal Blue Power LED 455nm Plant Growth Light with Star Base | eBay

50 Pack $27.99
50 Pcs 3W Extreme Royal Blue Power LED 445nm Plant Grow with Star Base | eBay

UV LEDs 3Watt on star heat sink

10 Pack $17.99
10 Pcs 3W UV Ultra Violet High Power LED Light Lamp 410nm with Star Base | eBay



Tim Sapp

 

[Northstar24]

Well, I have been researching on what I need for a saltwater tanks and buying things and testing them as I go. Here is what I found for LEDs if you are a big DIY kind of guy with any electronics experience. I ordered 10 of the 10K and 10 of the 455nm LEDs and tested them with a variable power supply and a 2.7K Ohm resister. These are super bright LEDs and very close to the 750 mA @ 3.2V. A string of 6 of them were bright enough we were not able to look right at them when we powered them up.

I am wiring up the 10white X 10blue to put on my fresh water tank to see how well they do. I found a laptop power supply that provides just a bit more DC voltage than I need for $15 at a electronics supply \ surplus store.

For the saltwater tank I am going to buy the 50 of the whites (10K), 50 of the blues (455nm) which bring them down to .55 each, and 10 of the UVs (410nm) which are higher at $1.80 each. While cleaning up my office at home and tossing out printers and things that were just in the way, I found a printer power supply that is a 32 volt with an amperage rating that is allowing me to run around 6 or 7 strips of 12 LEDs.

The LEDs are being mounted to two sheets of aluminum and then heat sinks from the same electronics supply company mounted onto the back of it. I currently have 8 of them (I think) and they were less than $2 each.

For controlling the brightness the way I want I am using an Arduino Micro-processor board and their PWM boards with a MOSFET transistor. The Arduino Micro normally runs for around $20.00 each, and the potentiometers and MOSFETS may come to around $10 total.

So my complete DYI setup has the following cost involved.

$73.97 for LEDs
$20.00 for Sheet metal and Heat Sinks
$20.00 for MicroController
$10.00 for additional electronics
$5.00 for wire and solder.

$128.97 not including power supply which I am getting for free. It might be an additional $20 to $25 to get a power supply as well. So lets call it $21.03 which brings you to a total of $150.00 for the lights. Even if you did not want to do the micro-controller and was just going to have them lit 100% of the time, you are down only $30.00 which is still twice what you were wanting to spend. If you buy only exactly the number of LEDs that you need you might be able to get the price down some, but it will still not be $60 or less.

10K 3Watt LEDs on the star heat sinks

10 Pack $7.99
10 Pcs Cool White High Power Star LED Lamp Light 3W 3 Watt 220 240LM 10000K CCT | eBay

50 Pack $27.99
50 Pcs Cool White High Power Star LED Lamp Light 3W 3 Watt 220 240LM 10000K CCT | eBay


455nm Royal Blue 3Watt LED on star heat sink

10 Pack $7.99
10x 3W Royal Blue Power LED 455nm Plant Growth Light with Star Base | eBay

50 Pack $27.99
50 Pcs 3W Extreme Royal Blue Power LED 445nm Plant Grow with Star Base | eBay

UV LEDs 3Watt on star heat sink

10 Pack $17.99
10 Pcs 3W UV Ultra Violet High Power LED Light Lamp 410nm with Star Base | eBay



Tim Sapp

Before going ahead with your plan here, have you verified that these LED's are high enough quality for keeping corals? All LED's are not created equal, and just because they're 'bright enough that you cant look at them' does not mean they are capable of growing coral. I'm not saying its not possible, but it pays to make sure

 

[RocketSapp]

Before going ahead with your plan here, have you verified that these LED's are high enough quality for keeping corals? All LED's are not created equal, and just because they're 'bright enough that you cant look at them' does not mean they are capable of growing coral. I'm not saying its not possible, but it pays to make sure

The variable power supply I used put them all right at about 3 watts each. They are plenty bright and the power they are consuming puts them right where I expected them to be. There was some variance in some of them but so far they have been with in tolerances as advertized.

I wish I had a better way to test the color range in them... What I may do is take a photo of them with a gray card behind them and then pull them into Photoshop RAW editor. I can set the white balance off the gray card and look to see the color shift in the image. A gray card and setting the white balance in Photoshop (or light room) tells the software that the point selected on the gray card is right at 6500K. It should show me a color shift higher than that which should give me an idea of how far off 6500K they are. It's not exact but it will at least give me an idea of where the color range is setting.

(Anyone in DFW have a light meter lying around?)

Tim