I finaly did it. DIY leds

[RaeRae]

Well I took the plunge last weekend and built my new lights for my new tank.

 

[RaeRae]

I have 56 3 watt cree. 24 cool white and32 royal blue. With a dimmer control and 3 diff dawn to dusk settings. 40 deg optics.

 

[RaeRae]

This is what I ended up with. The hardest thing was getting used to the soldering. And mounting the optics because 25% did not want to stay on.

 

[rklaasen]

Hi, this is something I have been wanting to try. can you tell me where you got the supplies?

 

[Troylee]

Great job man there pretty simple....
Reefledlights a sponsor here has all your needs...

 

[Reef Breeders]

What size are the heat sinks? About how much did this cost?

 

[GR808]

Beautiful job RaeRae.. nice acrylic guard..

 

[RaeRae]

Heat sinks are 23"L x 4 1/4 w x 1" deep. I tried to use or sponser but it just diddnt work out right so I went a different direction. The cost was $636.00. Now That didn't come with the splash guard or cooling fans. I just ordered my fans threw newegg and they should be in this week. I ordered 4 but I do believe Im going to only run 1 on each heat sink. I just tuned them as well last night for the royal blues to get 1 amp and the cool whites to get 1.5 amps. I also picked this up on friday. It measures 32"x32"x24 deep. I guess its time to start a build thread.:bigsmile:

 

[Goobs]

Great looking build. Make sure to post your par, that seems like a ton of LED for that tank.

 

[Reef Breeders]

Where did you get your leds and drivers? For my 90 gallon I want a similar amount of leds, but it looks like that will run me a grand at reefledlights.

 

[ImageX]

he got it from rapidled if you look closely enough it has the rapid led logo on the controller..

also op if you add 2 cool blues per heatsink the colors turn out so much better and easier to take pics.. and you shouldve gotten neutral whites instead of the cool whites.. they cover the red spectrum better..

 

[Reef Breeders]

I saw that a while ago. I decided to do reef led lights, they have much better customization.

 

[Mdedeaux]

I am thinking about setting up some led lights on my 55 gallon aquarium. My tank is 48 X 20t X 13 wide. What size is your aquarium and how many led's would you think would work on my tank?

 

[Reef Breeders]

I would go with 96 leds, 2 separate 18" by 8.46" heatsinks with 48 leds on each in a 50/50 cool white/royal blue ratio. Look up parellel wiring on reefleds.com, if you wire parellel you use half as many drivers and save about 150 bucks per 96 leds.

 

[RaeRae]

Also how high is your fixture going to be from your sand bed. I whent with 56 3 watt crees. 24 cool whites and the rest royal blue with 40 degree optics.

 

[Jerad]

WOW! I am doing a build for a 55g tank and I am using 36 3w LED's with dimming because I figure I might have almost too much light.

I heard a formula for calculating how many you need (doesn't work for really deep tanks):
Length*Width/18 = # LED's

Here is a site for finding your dimensions:
Chart of Tank Sizes

 

[Jerad]

1. How did you end up getting the bulbs to stay on?
2. What width acrylic did you use for a splash guard?
3. what kind of soldering iron and solder did you use?

 

[Reef Breeders]

36 leds is about half what you need IMO, unless you have all softies, then disregard that. I will pm you on wiring and maybe post your answers in a new forum. I know a little about wiring, and did extensive research on wiring led's.

 

[CJO]

I would go with 96 leds, 2 separate 18" by 8.46" heatsinks with 48 leds on each in a 50/50 cool white/royal blue ratio. Look up parellel wiring on reefleds.com, if you wire parellel you use half as many drivers and save about 150 bucks per 96 leds.

Personally, I'd go with more blue than that. At 50/50, assuming you are running at the same current, you'll have about a 10,000K look.

CJ

 

[RaeRae]

I spent a lil extra money and got the heat sink pre tapped. Well worth the extra money. So they are screwed on and a small amount of heat past on each led. The soldering gun is a 40 watt i got from radio shack and the wire is 60/40. And the splash guard is 1/8 inch. AS for how many lights. You will go nuts listening to everyones opinion. Call the people that sell the leds for a liveing and they will be more than happy to help with any info you have. I did ask before I started just so I had a close refrence point to go off from.