DIY Radeon clone?

[Jrod381]

Wow these builds are awesome, curious to know does anyone have any par numbers?

I myself was looking at the Noopsyche lights for my upcoming build, but if I can make my own radions g4 that would be the obvious choice for growth and color.

Does anyone have a master list or of all the links to the products needed to make your own g4 I’m willing to try this my 75 gallon before the big build

For the new 8’ tank I’m thinking I would need 6 total fixtures. I’m thinking of doing a hanging canopy similar to as seen in the picture but with these lights

 

[Jrod381]

Just sharing my diy clone radion

Curious to see you clone after it was complete @Soulreefer

 

[Jrod381]

I took some pictures real quick. If you want more specifics on something let me know. Really the hardest part I found was getting a good solder joint on the arrays. The array is aluminum so you are basically heating the entire thing instead of just the contact point. With a higher wattage soldering iron it probably wouldn't be a big deal.

What I did was to pre-tin all of the contacts and then mounted them to the heat sink. To mount them I drilled and and started the self tapping screws. Then I cleaned everything off with goof off cleaner and then applied the thermal paste and tightened everything down.

When you wire the arrays, you want to run the +/- to the opposite of the second array on the fixture. So say power is coming in to + side of array 1, it would leave on the - of array 1 and connect to the + of array 2. It's the same for connecting two fixtures. You can't see the +/- in the picture but you get the idea. I also added a single royal blue and UV led in the center to act as moon lights. To mount those I used thermal epoxy. I was hand tightening everything but I did have the head of one screw break off, which you can see in the picture. I think it was just a bad screw as I was able to really crank on the rest. I just drilled a new hole in the array, I'm hoping it won't cause an issue in cooling.

To connect the the fixtures I used the plugs in my part list. It really made it easy making sure everything is connected as it should. With including the fan and moon light wiring it worked so that I used every plug wire. I used the plugs so if I ever have to pull one off the rack it will be easy.

To mount the fan, all I did was drill a hole in the heat sink and ran a zip tie through the fans mounting hole. I did the opposite corner for the other side of the heat sink.

To wire the fan, you want to cut off the three pin connector. The middle wire is the + wire and the wire with the dashes on it is the -. When you wire the fans up + will always go to + and same for -. I also included a second set of wires in case I found that I needed to add another fan to keep the fixture cool. I'm going to try and run a heat test this weekend.

I pulled all of the driver boards apart to make an enclosure but I can take more pictures when I reassemble it. For each driver the boards will have a +/- connection on one side and a connection for the control signal on the other. Because I'll have 6 fixtures and each driver can handle 2 fixtures, I tied all of the drivers in to be controlled by a single channel on the controller. If you are going to have more than two fixtures it may help to map it out.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. I can take more pictures of the drivers and controller once I get those put back together.

@paphater do you have any photos of the fish product, also we’re you able to put lenses ?

 

[daniel0123456789]

So I have decided to do a 3 puck build with 5 LED supplementation. 2 mint as per, 2 steve hyper violet, 2x 3 led star (6 led in total 4 royal blue, 2 cool blue).
LDD: 1x700, 2x1000, 2x1500 with a steve 8 ray LDD (quick question, can I connect 2 LDD to a single channel on the same board? or I will need another board altogether? )

What power supply can I use?
Total V: 222v. Total leds:65 leds. Total watts: 255 watts
This one: https://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-se-350-48/?

heatsink with enclosure: https://www.ledgroupbuy.com/6-x-20-premium-diy-heatsink-and-enclosure/

 

[oreo54]

sum up the V(f) of each series string, pick highest sum.. add 3-4V.. pick ps equal to or higher in voltage than that..

(quick question, can I connect 2 LDD to a single channel on the same board? or I will need another board altogether? )

Not following this..
1 LDD.. 1 series string.
you can do 1 ldd w/ 2 series strings but you 1/2 the current to each.. (not recommended)
you can dim multiple LDD's w/ one channel on the controller. (PWM wires in parallel)

Need more design info..

 

[daniel0123456789]

@oreo5457

Thanks for chiming in. Base on PSU 48v limit I went back to the drawing board and redesign the fixture. This is the math:

And this is the drawing

I will be using a steve's 3star that can connect 3 leds on 3 different drivers. and probably arrange them a little more logically. Any recommendations?

 

[oreo54]

Bluefish wire looks odd. Shouldn't be on he output of a driver.
To power it just use a DC step down board off the main DC out on the power supply.
Channel one looks too close w voltage but many Meanwell power supplies have voltage tweaks. Of course You now run into driver limits.
Won't hurt to have slightly less DC out than the diodes draw at that current. Might consider dropping to 500mA on that channel.Will prolong their life as well. Not critical though.


As to arrangement..I always recommend only like colors on each channel
Violets..w or won't blues. Blues..green/cyan(can be on blue)...ECT.

Suggest PC Amber for amber though (I see you are pobably limited to CREE's on the pucks though). and mint is a bit of an outlier in color grouping.. has blue and yellow sort of.. so cyan-ish? green? blue?..

Hmm you look to be running the supplements through the puck strings.. Are you accounting for the added voltage?
OK.. see the added chart.. Your over voltage on some..

Regardess of the LDD rating you can only get 44-45V out of a 48V power supply..
43.2 ~ 52.8V adj range (approx) for an LRS-350-48 but you are over voltage on some of the drivers..

 

[daniel0123456789]

Bluefish wire looks odd. Shouldn't be on he output of a driver.

I will figure out the wiring of the bluefish when I get it. I've no idea how it works.

Regardess of the LDD rating you can only get 44-45V out of a 48V power supply..
43.2 ~ 52.8V adj range (approx) for an LRS-350-48 but you are over voltage on some of the drivers.

Any idea how to fix this? get a bigger PSU? drop some of the supplement leds? what would you do to fix the voltage?

Thanks again.

 

[oreo54]

Add a channel.. Like I mentioned earlier you can control more than one LDD from a single channel on the blue fish. The'll work "together" but at least you decreased ind, channels..
Like ch 1, 6
6 being supplemental everything but mint..30.5V
dimming 6 plus 1 together isn't much of an issue as to color..
Throwing a little "blue" in w/ the violet channel isn't a big deal AFAICT.

 

[daniel0123456789]

Add a channel.. Like I mentioned earlier you can control more than one LDD from a single channel on the blue fish. The'll work "together" but at least you decreased ind, channels..
Like ch 1, 6
6 being supplemental everything but mint..30.5V
dimming 6 plus 1 together isn't much of an issue as to color..
Throwing a little "blue" in w/ the violet channel isn't a big deal AFAICT.

NOW I understand what you meant! I wish you never die! I willl add 1 more LDD

 

[User]

Working on it.

any working versions of this array so we can get an idea? Thanks!

 

[User]

my lights been over my new tank since sunday. so far so good. most corals are doing great. couple are still grumpy from the change. one thing i'm noticing though and not sure if light related or not, but I had a few zoas I fraged 6+ months ago, that never died but never really fully opened up again after I fraged them. they are fully open today for the first time. so not sure if its something they like better with the new light spectrum wise, maybe there just getting more par? I dunno my old lights were prolly better quality spec wise (blue acro half mega pro pucs) but this light is more the kitchen sink method of hitting the spectrum (10 different LED colors in total in the light vs 5 in the blue acro)

what did you go with in this light?

got any pics?

Cheers

 

[janos]

Why did this tread stopped??just start to enjoy

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

While I'm still planning out my DIY build, I decided to get a visual frame of reference for myself, having never played around with aquarium lighting, and picked up a few of these:

33.25US $ |New Type Aquarium Light Led Xr30 3535 Led Packing Plate - Light Beads - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

Now, to say the information available on them is limited would be an understatement. I doubt they use what most would consider "quality LED" and don't expect them to last for years. However, at $33 (35) shipped I could replace the boards about 22 times before I come to the cost of a Radion. This is primarily an exploratory venture for me to actually SEE what these colors look like and what look I like and what I don't...and no just go off of a Spectra chart of pictures online; and with 8 individually controllable channels should be fun. But hey, if these work out, I might just grab a stack to keep as replacement boards.

Grabbed makers 12" (the beefy one) which can passively dissipate 100W, so with a fan these should stay nice and cool. Steves 8-up driver board and enough 700ma drivers to run all channels, plus a couple of 600ma and 350ma in case I need to under-drive something. All powered by a Meanwell LRS-350-48 which should have more than enough juice to power 4 pucks; can drive 2 pucks 8 channels using 5 drivers. All in all, $143 for 4 pucks and another $148 for everything else; not bad.

I also have a few K16s, HyperViolet 4.0s, Mints, and Sunplus Cool Whites on hand, along with some ebay 395 and 410 UVs to play around with supplements. I really wish EcoTech still sold the TIR lenses by themselves, would be interested to see if they fit these pucks.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Anyone know of a board mounted plug I can solder to the 8 contact pads on each side of the Puck? Something that doesn't need to be reflowed and can be soldered by hand?

Trying to avoid re-soldering a bunch of connections if board needs to be replaced or taken off.

 

[oreo54]

There are dozens of choices..
How about Cat?

Flat Silver Satin Modular Cables Plug to Tinned End, RJ45 (8 conductor)

The flat silver satin modular patch cables, featuring a RJ45 plug on one end and tinned wires on the other, are designed for quick and easy

www.cablesondemand.com

You can use joiners in between pucks..
At 700mA or less "should" be fine for interconnects..As to power delivery???
Do suggest not running violets or less at 700mA though. 350mA is good.

don't take my word for it but PoE implies Cat6 can take 16W per "channel"..(24V x .7A)

Power Over Ethernet: What Is "PoE"? — Everything You Need to Know

Power Over Ethernet (or "PoE") is a technology that delivers power and data over a single Ethernet cable to power devices like IP cameras and VOIP phones.

www.versatek.com

Personal opinion 20ga has always been my "bottom line" though others have run cat5-6 ect at 22-24ga

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Yeah I was a bit dubious about using 23AWG CAT 6 I have on hand, but I've seen people use it. Guess I'll go with 22 or 20 AWG and Wago connectors.

As for the violets/UV I'm a little torn. On some ebay pucks they list upto 1000ma for the diodes, which I know they can't do for any worthwhile amount of time. I was hoping these guys were using more or less accurate rating and stating 700 milliamp, but I was still hoping to run them at 600ma.

 

[oreo54]

Diodes can take it ..usually.. it's the lens that's an issue..

You just speed up browning w/ higher currents...

To my understanding .. it's the "organics" in the silicone/plastic lens that brown due to the high intensity photons.
You can't really avoid it..

Now if glass lenses ...... which they aren't.. a different story.

Never found much in Chinese that's err.. "accurate"..to a standard but that's why they are $1 for a dozen..

Put the 700's in and start dimmed .. Same difference.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Anyone know what these molex connectors are called? (ie. Model, nomenclature)

Been digging through their site but striking out.

 

[Alin0]

Hi, its possible to use these led https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Channel-...-Aquarium-Light/233279290975?var=532781586470
to upgrade an old radion G2 ?