DIY led lighting

[dgruic0712]

Hey all, I’m a fairly new electrician at a steel mill, and want to expand my knowledge in electronics towards the reefing hobby. After doing some research on my own on LED lighting suitable for reefs and there seems to literally be endless possibilities of components that could be used, drivers, power supplies, leds, heat sinks, optics, etc. I’m looking to see what some of you might suggest in terms of what parts to use. If you have a DIY light please share and include what parts you used. Thanks a lot!

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

I built my own 460 watt led light using 10 watt chips mounted to a piece of 6" aluminum channel.

8 400nm purple/uv = 80 watts
8 420nm purple = 80 watts
10 440nm blue = 100 watts
10 450nm blue = 100 watts
10 10,000nm white = 100 watts

I have a 24v 500 watt power supply and run a 5 channel dimming control program using a TC420 controller, http://www.tc420.net.

I'm using a generic lighting diffuser that stand off the leds 3".

I also have a pair of 80 watt T5's (ATI coral plus and blue plus bulbs) with room to add two more if needed, but so far not needed.

 

[Kampo]

look into a pre made array from Blueacro, or nanobox. both give a great basis to build your own light. not a ton of savings putting together your own array with seperate leds. another option is look at the Radeon Clone thread on here. there is a nice chinese sourced clone of the radeon LED board people are messing with, I'm watching it closely, looks to be the ticket for a nice diy array.

Personally I have 2 DIY reef lights, all based on the Blueacro Acrostar Half Mega Pro 20k. my 20in cube at home is setup dual channel with that and use a TC420 for a contorller with a couple 1amp LDD drivers. my work tank is a Fluval Flex 14 with a single acrostar puc, and I have those just wired up with a 700mah driver with no controller other than a timer.

 

[User]

I built my own 460 watt led light using 10 watt chips mounted to a piece of 6" aluminum channel.

8 400nm purple/uv = 80 watts
8 420nm purple = 80 watts
10 440nm blue = 100 watts
10 450nm blue = 100 watts
10 10,000nm white = 100 watts

I have a 24v 500 watt power supply and run a 5 channel dimming control program using a TC420 controller, http://www.tc420.net.

I'm using a generic lighting diffuser that stand off the leds 3".

I also have a pair of 80 watt T5's (ATI coral plus and blue plus bulbs) with room to add two more if needed, but so far not needed.

Nice

Any details in your wiring? 12v COB’s with a 24v pack- so 2s XP?

I’m working on one that’s 48v 6.7 amp supply and doing 4S 6P with 700mA LDD dimmable drivers. 4 channel dimming. It’s still in bits right now, just need time to put it together

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

Nice

Any details in your wiring? 12v COB’s with a 24v pack- so 2s XP?

I’m working on one that’s 48v 6.7 amp supply and doing 4S 6P with 700mA LDD dimmable drivers. 4 channel dimming. It’s still in bits right now, just need time to put it together

They are rated at 12v COB's, but if you actually run them at the also rated 10 watts, it ends up being less than 12v. My original plan was just run all the chips in parallel, but the TC420 is only rated at 4 amps per channel. 4 amps at ~10v is only 40 watts per channel. The only option was to increase the voltage to get the 100 watts per channel. So I have one chip each 440nm and 450nm wired in series, the 400nm and 420nm are also wired in series, the 10k's are also wired two chips in series. Then the pairs are wired in parallel in 5 separate channels. The white is on one channel. Then I have the remaining 4 channels broken up as blue/purple and right/left side. That way I can run the lights higher on one side and keep a wider variety of high/low light corals by placing them on the appropriate side. Otherwise, I would have just run each color as one channel. I'm actually running my power supply at 21.7 volts, that just so happens to be where the chips actually draw 10 watts with my wiring.

 

[paphater]

We've got a decent thread going that covers drivers and heat sinks.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-radeon-clone.409451/

 

[mainereefer]

Sorry guys I built led lights before you could buy using heat sinks from ac units
No days you can buy a couple cheap China led and make a heck of a light with a little electrical knowledge...
$40 for "300" w light cant beat them
3w led ran at 1.7w from factory
Change out driver and run it controlled and dimmable... 500w light under $100

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

$40 for "300" w light cant beat them
3w led ran at 1.7w from factory
Change out driver and run it controlled and dimmable... 500w light under $100

Are you talking about modifying a cheap Chinese reef led?