General DIY LED thread

[dadarara]

where do you buy your leds please?
do you know a particular seller on ebay or Aliexpress maybe?
should I go for steves leds ? it more trustworthy ?
ledgroupbuy.com
www.ledsupply.com
RapidLed

 

[BradB]

For whites, I am a big fan of BridgeLux Vero. For less money, better efficiency and easier assembly, use fewer LEDs at the expense of spread. My typical setup is 4 over a 48x48 inch tank - you could get away with 2. I added a 5th to see if it helped with my spread, it does not.

You will probably be happier with warmer whites and more blue. Cool blue and fewer blue leds for the same color temperature is more natural, more efficient and cheaper. But warmer whites bring out reds and yellows in fish and corals and work much better than trying to add red LEDs.

For Royal Blues, I am a big fan of the discontinued Luxeon 16 LED chips. But about $10 gets you a 100W Chanzon on Amazon, which is useable. I run mine around 40 watts. No point downsizing to save money or for a better spread, unless you are real picky about dimming. I am not sure the lowest you can run them, but it is pretty low. For $10, I wouldn't hesitate to run them as low as 10 watts if you need the spread.

You do need some regular blue, and I'd recommend cyan (even though am not using it right now). Steve's, RapidLed or LedGroupBuy are good choices for 3 watts. You might get lucky and find something good that's 100w or 50w on ebay, alliexpress or amazon. I've had better luck with finding good blues than good cyans.

I am not a fan of optic lens and I don't run anything between my LEDs and the water. This took some expensive trial and error to learn how close to the water I could keep my LEDs, although you could always error on the side of caution. I have an enclosed canopy and after trying this with passive cooling, learned I needed a fan.

A 48x48 tank is easier than a 48x24 to do this way. The closer to the side of the tank you are willing to go, the better your spread but the lower your efficiency. I think you are fine, but other people are much pickier about this than I am.

You should be able to do this barebones under $100 but a $500 budget is much more realistic if you want a quality set up.

 

[vtecintegra]

Anyone order from ledgroupbuy.com lately? I'm working on a new DIY light, and ordered a heatsink. No email confirmation, no easy way to contact from them website, last facebook activity seems to be from 2017. The Lumia 5.2 puck seems to have been out of stock for months and months. Curious if this is still a legit source for DIY led stuff.

 

[BradB]

I haven't ordered from ledgroupbuy.com since 2015, but they did ship what I ordered.

 

[vtecintegra]

Got the heatsinks I ordered from ledgroupbuy.com, so they are still up and running.

 

[dadarara]

Advice please.
I have 150by50cm. Mixed tank
Also already have 9 heat sinks 30*9cm
so I will place 3 groups of 3. Estimate that each one can hold about 50w passive.
which should I go for ?
3w leds /700mA - 16 leds per fixture
5-6w leds /1000mA - 8-10 per fixture
what I don’t see clearly is spread vs depth penetration.
My logic says 3w will give better spread with quantity and the 5w better penetration. Thinking maybe the cost will be more or less same. Maybe less drivers ??
What’s more efficient vs power and heat ?
will I be able to drive this with one 48v 350w meanwell power supply ?

 

[vtecintegra]

I'm not an expert but:

3w x 16 leds x 9 fixtures = 432w, too much for 350w power supply
6w x 10 leds x 9 fixtures = 540w, too much for 350w power supply

700ma x 9 fixtures = 6.3 amps, good for the 350w (7.3a) power supply
1000ma x 9 fixtures = 9 amps, too much for the 350w (7.3a) power supply

Most 3w leds are around 3v. 3v x 16 leds = 48v, not recommended to run at the limits of the 48v power supply. Most people run 3v x 14 leds (per string) = 42v, good with a little head room.

I've got that 350w power supply. Mine has an automatic fan built in, that runs every so often and is clearly heard in a quiet room. I'm going to swap it for two 250w ones I have laying around. The 250w are being discontinued for the 350w and 200w versions, though, and maybe hard to find.

No experience with 6w leds, but I guess the same principles apply. Watts is watts, the more watts, the more heat.

I've went from long strings, to pucks (Lumia 5.2), and now going back to long strings + pucks. The new revelation is to blanket the tank with light, vs concentrating leds in the puck formation (why T5 works so well). My four pucks cause so much shadowing I'm kicking myself for throwing out my long string fixture. Thus the popularity now of running T5 + leds or the led light bars. Your spread with 9 fixtures should work ok, but I would do 8 in two sets of 4 running length wise.

 

[BradB]

More watts per LED with fewer LEDs is generally less efficient and worse spread - but I'd still recommend as few LEDs as you can get away with, especially if you are just starting out. The more complicated a thing you build, the less chance it will work, and the more maintenance and repair.

I use LDD drivers. Do you plan to do the same? 350 watts is plenty of power.

 

[dadarara]

Thanks guys for the input.
yep I am going for the LDD. the cheaper option I think about 7$ per unit.

I was checking the specs of Orphek V4 Atlantic and they have 78 leds of 5W . which get us to 390W. they use HLG-240H-48A. so 240W means what? that they drive them 60% only?

 

[vtecintegra]

Basically yes. Seems to be more prevalent in the commercial world to use higher wattage leds and drive them at lower power levels. Theory is they last longer, generate less heat, are more efficient, and probably a few other things I don't recall.

 

[dadarara]

is there any benefit in building a mix between serial and parallel string topology ? less voltage of the power supply ?
whats the negative? are people doing it in the DIY ?

 

[oreo54]

Thanks guys for the input.
yep I am going for the LDD. the cheaper option I think about 7$ per unit.

I was checking the specs of Orphek V4 Atlantic and they have 78 leds of 5W . which get us to 390W. they use HLG-240H-48A. so 240W means what? that they drive them 60% only?

Well above post explained most of why...
I like to think that the watt ratings are a " class" defined by the max power they can run at at normal conditions.

There are some diodes that will run just fine above their " class ratings" but those are premium priced and usually still need " ideal" conditions to continually run at that power.
I suspect a lot if diy- ers figured that out eventually.

Oh and the ps rating needs to be above the actual wattage, at least 10% is a rule of thumb.
Soo ps ratings aren' t important except to not go below real system requirements.
That could be 10000w power supply and it doesn't t mean anything really.

And 120 "lumens per watt" vs say a 70 " lumens per watt" diode makes wattage somewhat secondary to photon yield per diode.
A fixture running at 100w could be much weaker than one at 70 watts based in diode efficiency
700 (70 x 100) "lumen photons" vs 840 (120 x 70) "lumen photons"

Instead of under driven think gently run...
And yes most diodes produce more light per unit of energy at lower currents.. but you need more diodes to match a part. gross output.



.

 

[oreo54]

is there any benefit in building a mix between serial and parallel string topology ? less voltage of the power supply ?
whats the negative? are people doing it in the DIY ?

Negative is in failure modes.
Say you build 2 parallel strings using a 1400 mA driver
That means each is at 700mA.
IF one side fails open all 1400 goes to the remaining string possibly causing thermal runaway at worst, over heated diodes and damage at best.
Of course the more strings dilutes this a bit.
There are circuits and ic' s that are used for this. Simple fuse (say 1000mA on each leg) can be used as a safety factor.
Then there is output changes due to diode variability.

Now that' s for constant current arrays.
Constant voltage arrays (almost all small strip led lights) are a different story.

Just part of it.
People do do it ..not "common usage" in diy though.

Practically speaking ..using good high dc voltage ac/ dc drivers vs more little ldd's and a power supply...cost us similar.

 

[dadarara]

looking for 430nm 1-up 3w leds.
where would be a good place to buy them?
Steves doesn't have (420 and 450 only)

 

[dantimdad]

Try LED group buy's site.

3UP Exotic Hyper Violet LED - 430nm

430nm high power DIY LED - Hyper True Violet 420nm

www.ledgroupbuy.com

 

[Ls7corvete]

I just ordered a heat sink and meanwell from rapidLed. The heat sink is half off, the meanwell was 40% off, and you can use the thanksgiving discount as well. Great deal.

Just thought I would give you guys a heads up, if you have a build planned.

 

[dantimdad]

I just ordered a heat sink and meanwell from rapidLed. The heat sink is half off, the meanwell was 40% off, and you can use the thanksgiving discount as well. Great deal.

Just thought I would give you guys a heads up, if you have a build planned.

Are they pretty much out of aquarium related leds and just into pot now?

 

[Ls7corvete]

Are they pretty much out of aquarium related leds and just into pot now?

Looks like it, it also seems like the pot stuff is pricey.

 

[vtecintegra]

I just got the last batch of solderless violets they had. They had already pulled them from the website. I told them without violet, that pretty much rules out anyone that wants to build reef lights, but it sounded like they made the decision to move on to the other market a while ago. No plans to produce violet in the future. I really like the solderless with the Maker's heatsinks. Doesn't get any easier.

 

[Matt Carden]

Is it acceptable to solder connection wiring to led star pcb after being torqued to heatsink with thermal paste? I am planning to try one to see how hot the heatsink gets from the solder process.