Leds Combination

[baseballfanatic2]

Is it better to use...

mix of coool white, red, and green led

or a mix of cool white, neutral white, and warm white?

What’s the ideal led layout? Doing a build, and wanted to know what’s the best color combo “in your opinion”

think king about doing

4 royal blue
3 blue
2 cool white
1 warm white
1 neutral white
1 uv
1 violet

ratio.

not sure if green and red are needed.
Thoughts?

 

[oreo54]

10 people will get you

Is it better to use...

mix of cool white, red, and green led

or a mix of cool white, neutral white, and warm white?

What’s the ideal led layout? Doing a build, and wanted to know what’s the best color combo “in your opinion”

think king about doing

4 royal blue
3 blue
2 cool white
1 warm white
1 neutral white
1 uv
1 violet

ratio.

not sure if green and red are needed.
Thoughts?

10 people will get you 10 opinions.

What yours sort of looks like using "generic" diodes.

 

[baseballfanatic2]

10 people will get you

10 people will get you 10 opinions.

What yours sort of looks like using "generic" diodes.

Where’d you get this? What would you say is the best mix?

 

[oreo54]

Where’d you get this? What would you say is the best mix?

FIRST. I don't do reefs.. FW design is more my thing and a Loooong story as to why I even post here but over the years things get fairly obvious from both the science and common usage..
Wide blue band
Low red (under 20% ) of total par
UV is "arguable" but as to leds problem is cost and longetivity.
IR is the new kid (740-ish)

Looks matter to some
# of photons /unit area is important.

Soo that said my "theoretical" design covering above criteria and not minimizing # of color choices.

And some qualifiers:
Choose 400 and 410 to sort of average a 405nm LED so technically I'd have picked that.
I don't use green. Inefficient diodes and frankly seems sort of iffy when one can substituent cyan for similar use.
Also lot of green in any white led.
Cyan appears to be somewhat more "active" and cyan is one of the more dominant colors at depth in seawater.
Cyan/amber/whites are more for "viewers color" though (RGB=W)
Chart is normalized to 3W diodes thus you will see large numbers (orig listing is 1W)
different brands of diodes have different outputs so gets err messy in estimates.

No consideration of personal tastes AND again theoretical based on best guess.

So one way I'd build it IF I wanted to.

* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
LED UV (400nm) x3
LED UV (410nm) x3
LED RoyalBlue (440nm) x6
LED Blue (460nm) x9
LED Cyan (500nm) x6
LED Amber (590nm) x3
LED DeepRed (660nm) x3
LED CoolWhite (8000K) x9
----------------------------------------

* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------
Luminous flux : 2,170 lm
Radiant flux : 13,841 mW
PPF : 54.4 umol/s
TCP : ‑ K
CRI : ‑
λp : 457 nm
Color : #5858FF
----------------------------------------

* PERFORMANCE @ 60cm & 90° (compulsory)
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 12.3 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 1,919 lx
PPFD : 48.1 umol/m²/s
----------------------------------------

by SPECTRA 1.0β @ 1.023world

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

Has less RB than most would consider but some in the whites to compensate.
Can't really adj. to "daylight" and CRi is horrible
A "20000K class" look.
For comparison (sorry "old" classification":

you prefer a more natural 14000-10000k looks things change.


fun tool:

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

 

[baseballfanatic2]

Th

FIRST. I don't do reefs.. FW design is more my thing and a Loooong story as to why I even post here but over the years things get fairly obvious from both the science and common usage..
Wide blue band
Low red (under 20% ) of total par
UV is "arguable" but as to leds problem is cost and longetivity.
IR is the new kid (740-ish)

Looks matter to some
# of photons /unit area is important.

Soo that said my "theoretical" design covering above criteria and not minimizing # of color choices.

And some qualifiers:
Choose 400 and 410 to sort of average a 405nm LED so technically I'd have picked that.
I don't use green. Inefficient diodes and frankly seems sort of iffy when one can substituent cyan for similar use.
Also lot of green in any white led.
Cyan appears to be somewhat more "active" and cyan is one of the more dominant colors at depth in seawater.
Cyan/amber/whites are more for "viewers color" though (RGB=W)
Chart is normalized to 3W diodes thus you will see large numbers (orig listing is 1W)
different brands of diodes have different outputs so gets err messy in estimates.

No consideration of personal tastes AND again theoretical based on best guess.

So one way I'd build it IF I wanted to.


Has less RB than most would consider but some in the whites to compensate.
Can't really adj. to "daylight" and CRi is horrible
A "20000K class" look.
For comparison (sorry "old" classification":

you prefer a more natural 14000-10000k looks things change.


fun tool:

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

Thank you very much for your reply! I agree with the green and cyan. I might switch out the green for cyan now. What’s your take on more blue than royal blue? I personally think blue makes colors pop more than royal blue

 

[oreo54]

My estimate has 3 regular to 2 royals Peak emission was 457.


2:2:3:2 violet:rb:b:cyan

Absorption vs emission of flourescent pigments.

Believe ONE consensus is 450- 460nm is peak pop though you start to border on "windex look" that isn't very "popular"

Not sure about the history but believe some orig "black boxes" were normal blue and some whites normal blue plus phosphors. Think their "'success" was limited though the spectrum across the board was rather err narrow.

Point is RB is a proven key component.
DIY and channel selection allows one to do a lot of "in house" tweaking w/ little overall par loss if one err overbuilds channels. Part of it's advantage.

Not sure I totally agree here but an interesting discussion but not going to argue:

420 or 460 atinics

So which one is better, 420nm or 460nm. Of course we are talking about color spectrum's here. the 420nm is blue and 460nm more violet. 1)Which one makes coral color come out more? 2)Which one is more beneficial? Any tank pics with your actinics and what kind they are would be awesome.

www.nano-reef.com

 

[baseballfanatic2]

My estimate has 3 regular to 2 royals Peak emission was 457.


2:2:3:2 violet:rb:b:cyan

Absorption vs emission of flourescent pigments.

Believe ONE consensus is 450- 460nm is peak pop though you start to border on "windex look" that isn't very "popular"

Not sure about the history but believe some orig "black boxes" were normal blue and some whites normal blue plus phosphors. Think their "'success" was limited though the spectrum across the board was rather err narrow.

Point is RB is a proven key component.
DIY and channel selection allows one to do a lot of "in house" tweaking w/ little overall par loss if one err overbuilds channels. Part of it's advantage.

Not sure I totally agree here but an interesting discussion but not going to argue:

420 or 460 atinics

So which one is better, 420nm or 460nm. Of course we are talking about color spectrum's here. the 420nm is blue and 460nm more violet. 1)Which one makes coral color come out more? 2)Which one is more beneficial? Any tank pics with your actinics and what kind they are would be awesome.

www.nano-reef.com

This would explain the 456 nm blue led innovative marine chose to use. Funny thing is, I can’t find that color led anywhere .
Thanks for all your insight

 

[oreo54]

This would explain the 456 nm blue led innovative marine chose to use. Funny thing is, I can’t find that color led anywhere .
Thanks for all your insight

Can't these either atm

453nm-460nm

Thing is led's have err slop anyways
Getting exactly what you want involves either buying a close " bin" and cherry picking or buy a ton at a premium price and let the manufacturer do it.

As a diy guy the only place I can get almost guaranteed accuracy us Stevesled

Luxeon ES ROYAL BLUE 3 Watt LEDs-8794102476

www.stevesleds.com

Places like Mouser won't t even guarantee bins. You may get consistency but consistent what?
Led manuf produces a variety if diodes with different spectral and electrical characteristics.
Better producers then sort them into groups of like parameters.

"Best" ones are reserved for the big guys.
At least that is my opinion.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Oreo is correct that an 'ideal' is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

I am still using a DIY LED array I created 5 years ago for a nano mixed reef:

https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/370285-nano-sapiens-12g-diy-pwm-led-build/#entry5256957

I've since made a few emitter changes over the years:

CH 1 ('White'): (4) Cree XML-2 'NW', (1) Cree XML-2 'WW'
CH 2 ('Blue'): (4) Cree XT-E 'RB', (2) Cree XML-2 'B', (4) Exotic 'B' (475 nm)
CH 3 ('Violet'): (5) Exotic 'HV' (428nm), (3) Exotic 'V' (403nm)
CH 4 ('Lime'): (4) Exotic 'Cyan' (495 nm)
CH 5 ('Red'): (2) OCW 'Red' (660 nm)

Current spectrum looks something like this:

Main thing is that the spectrum hits the chlorophyll peaks that zooxanthellate organisms need for photosynthesis and that the overall look is pleasing to your eye:

 

[baseballfanatic2]

Oreo is correct that an 'ideal' is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

I am still using a DIY LED array I created 5 years ago for a nano mixed reef:

https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/370285-nano-sapiens-12g-diy-pwm-led-build/#entry5256957

I've since made a few emitter changes over the years:

CH 1 ('White'): (4) Cree XML-2 'NW', (1) Cree XML-2 'WW'
CH 2 ('Blue'): (4) Cree XT-E 'RB', (2) Cree XML-2 'B', (4) Exotic 'B' (475 nm)
CH 3 ('Violet'): (5) Exotic 'HV' (428nm), (3) Exotic 'V' (403nm)
CH 4 ('Lime'): (4) Exotic 'Cyan' (495 nm)
CH 5 ('Red'): (2) OCW 'Red' (660 nm)

Current spectrum looks something like this:

Main thing is that the spectrum hits the chlorophyll peaks that zooxanthellate organisms need for photosynthesis and that the overall look is pleasing to your eye:

Can't these either atm


Thing is led's have err slop anyways
Getting exactly what you want involves either buying a close " bin" and cherry picking or buy a ton at a premium price and let the manufacturer do it.

As a diy guy the only place I can get almost guaranteed accuracy us Stevesled

https://www.stevesleds.com/Luxeon-ES-ROYAL-BLUE-3-Watt-LEDs_p_234.

http://

FIRST. I don't do reefs.. FW design is more my thing and a Loooong story as to why I even post here but over the years things get fairly obvious from both the science and common usage..
Wide blue band
Low red (under 20% ) of total par
UV is "arguable" but as to leds problem is cost and longetivity.
IR is the new kid (740-ish)

Looks matter to some
# of photons /unit area is important.

Soo that said my "theoretical" design covering above criteria and not minimizing # of color choices.

And some qualifiers:
Choose 400 and 410 to sort of average a 405nm LED so technically I'd have picked that.
I don't use green. Inefficient diodes and frankly seems sort of iffy when one can substituent cyan for similar use.
Also lot of green in any white led.
Cyan appears to be somewhat more "active" and cyan is one of the more dominant colors at depth in seawater.
Cyan/amber/whites are more for "viewers color" though (RGB=W)
Chart is normalized to 3W diodes thus you will see large numbers (orig listing is 1W)
different brands of diodes have different outputs so gets err messy in estimates.

No consideration of personal tastes AND again theoretical based on best guess.

So one way I'd build it IF I wanted to.


Has less RB than most would consider but some in the whites to compensate.
Can't really adj. to "daylight" and CRi is horrible
A "20000K class" look.
For comparison (sorry "old" classification":

you prefer a more natural 14000-10000k looks things change.


fun tool:

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

where can your get cyan and amber led?

 

[Nano sapiens]

http://

where can your get cyan and amber led?

You can get both from www.stevesleds.com.

 

[baseballfanatic2]

FIRST. I don't do reefs.. FW design is more my thing and a Loooong story as to why I even post here but over the years things get fairly obvious from both the science and common usage..
Wide blue band
Low red (under 20% ) of total par
UV is "arguable" but as to leds problem is cost and longetivity.
IR is the new kid (740-ish)

Looks matter to some
# of photons /unit area is important.

Soo that said my "theoretical" design covering above criteria and not minimizing # of color choices.

And some qualifiers:
Choose 400 and 410 to sort of average a 405nm LED so technically I'd have picked that.
I don't use green. Inefficient diodes and frankly seems sort of iffy when one can substituent cyan for similar use.
Also lot of green in any white led.
Cyan appears to be somewhat more "active" and cyan is one of the more dominant colors at depth in seawater.
Cyan/amber/whites are more for "viewers color" though (RGB=W)
Chart is normalized to 3W diodes thus you will see large numbers (orig listing is 1W)
different brands of diodes have different outputs so gets err messy in estimates.

No consideration of personal tastes AND again theoretical based on best guess.

So one way I'd build it IF I wanted to.


Has less RB than most would consider but some in the whites to compensate.
Can't really adj. to "daylight" and CRi is horrible
A "20000K class" look.
For comparison (sorry "old" classification":

you prefer a more natural 14000-10000k looks things change.


fun tool:

SPECTRA

SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。

spectra.1023world.net

So I used this and the tool and I didn’t see an item for limes. What do you think of this layout per foot... (should I get greens or nah?)


4 - CREE XP-G3 Royal royal blue
4 - CREE XP-E2 Blue LED
4 - CREE XP-G3 cool white
2- Luxeon cyan
1- luxeon amber
1 - Luxeon Rebel ES Lime LED
1- CREE XP-E Far Red
1- uv 400-410nm
1- uv 410-420nm

 

[oreo54]

http://

where can your get cyan and amber led?

For cheap ones..

10PCS 3W White Royal Blue Orange UV Violet RGB High Power LED Chip COB Lamp PCB | eBay

Lumious Flux (lm). Ultraviolet(UV). Royal Blue. Cold White. Super Cool White. Cool White. Natural White. Warm White.

www.ebay.com

and yes Steves has them too.
When I started building my fw lights the cyans from Steves were the only ones I'd use.
At one point China packaged blue plus green combo chips as "cyan" soo didn't want to take the chance not having a spectrophotometer to verify. also 660nm red. Didn't want to tak chances on that.
Cheap whites failed quite regularily but at 10/$1 and sweat equity no big deal.. at the time.

I've moved on from them though..
At one point took 3 cheap chips = 1 expensive chip.
Cheap chips still held a price advantage but then there was real estate to consider.

Luxeon sell amber and PC amber. PC amber is "phosphor corrected" using an efficient blue pump and amber phosphors.
Broader spread and more efficient than plain amber LED's.

 

[oreo54]

So I used this and the tool and I didn’t see an item for limes. What do you think of this layout per foot... (should I get greens or nah?)


4 - CREE XP-G3 Royal royal blue
4 - CREE XP-E2 Blue LED
4 - CREE XP-G3 cool white
2- Luxeon cyan
1- luxeon amber
1 - Luxeon Rebel ES Lime LED
1- CREE XP-E Far Red
1- uv 400-410nm
1- uv 410-420nm

Lime file.. Import it into Spectra
"clear" graph.. got to data:file: find file then check beam, CHANGE beam to 120 and lumens are there (set to 250 which is about 2W size).. :save
LIMEData

Lime can be as high as 185"lumens"/watt.. so pick one..

my lumen data is about best guess at what I want to run them at.
If off compensate w/ adding chips or fractions.

As you can see limes are crazy visually bright..

lime is a green substute. Have a bunch of reg green in cool white.

 

[oreo54]

You didn't mention tank dimensions..or preferred height off the water line you want the lights to go.
Using bare emitters (no secondary lenses) usually means low mounting height esp. for deeper tanks.

Hopefully other diy-ers will comment on your planned density..but tank stats need to be known.

 

[oreo54]

Starting point, increase RB by 2 for symmetry.
No guarantees on PAR atm..

 

[blasterman]

The only colors you need are Royal Blue, Cool White and Warm White.

Each on their own channel.

Mint, teal, fuchsia, amber, UV,cyan and Britney Spears Blue have no function.

Royal Blue should be at least 2/3 of total balance and warm white half of cool white. You will be able to dial in any balance you want with these three channels.

Cool white, royal and warm white can also be had in the same LED family. Makes for easy driving.

Chinese LEDs from eBay are trash. Get XPG3s from rapid led, etc.

Any graph you guys post will show a dominance in blue between 430 and 460nm which is the most important range. Everything else is fluff.

The fewer the channels the better. Royal, cool white and warm white gives you max flexibility in terms of color with the least amount of channels to dim.

 

[Galvano]

Chinese LEDs from eBay are trash. Get XPG3s from rapid led, etc.

For my new 30gal Cube I recently bought a bunch of Cree XM-L3 CoolWhite, XP-G3 RoyalBlue and XP-E2 Blue/Green/Red/PhotoRed from the HotRed Store and a few SemiLEDs Purple/UV LEDs from the OTdiode Store, both @ AliExpress, which once again worked out really well.

 

[oreo54]

Sooo for "fun" did a bunch of quick channel combos.
Interesting find was by running red, amber, cyan. and violets on one channel the "estimate" came to a:

* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
myData pcamber.csv.txt x1
myData limelumencorrect.txt x1
LED UV (410nm) x3
LED Violet (420nm) x3
PhilipsLumileds Luxeon-Rebel Cyan (490-510nm) x2
PhilipsLumileds Luxeon-Rebel DeepRed (650-670nm) x1
----------------------------------------

* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------
Luminous flux : 789 lm
Radiant flux : 4,899 mW
PPF : 20.2 umol/s
TCP : 16390 K
CRI : 62
λp : 659 nm
Color : #C59DFF

Different families of diodes differ of course..
ONE big catch.. this all depends on the REAL strength of the violets.
Can go anywhere from yellow to 16000K + depending on that.
I have no guarantee on it.
Substituting 2 blues will more than likely work the same

* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
myData pcamber.csv.txt x1
myData lime.txt x1
PhilipsLumileds Luxeon-Rebel Blue (460-480nm) x2
PhilipsLumileds Luxeon-Rebel Cyan (490-510nm) x2
PhilipsLumileds Luxeon-Rebel DeepRed (650-670nm) x1
----------------------------------------

* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------
Luminous flux : 898 lm
Radiant flux : 3,868 mW
PPF : 17.4 umol/s
TCP : 16950 K
CRI : 59
λp : 659 nm
Color : #88AAFF

Of course you lose the violet only channel w/ the first.
But you get 4 channels max.
RB
B
Above
White



Consider using Luxeon whites instead of the CREES.

Luxeon ES 6,500K COOL WHITE 3 Watt LEDs-8794102425

www.stevesleds.com

5 channels is fairly "standard based on RGBWWCW idea.. so
RB
B
V
W
cy,amb,deep red, lime

 

[baseballfanatic2]

Sooo for "fun" did a bunch of quick channel combos.
Interesting find was by running red, amber, cyan. and violets on one channel the "estimate" came to a:

Different families of diodes differ of course..
ONE big catch.. this all depends on the REAL strength of the violets.
Can go anywhere from yellow to 16000K + depending on that.
I have no guarantee on it.
Substituting 2 blues will more than likely work the same



Of course you lose the violet only channel w/ the first.
But you get 4 channels max.
RB
B
Above
White



Consider using Luxeon whites instead of the CREES.

Luxeon ES 6,500K COOL WHITE 3 Watt LEDs-8794102425

www.stevesleds.com

5 channels is fairly "standard based on RGBWWCW idea.. so
RB
B
V
W
cy,amb,deep red, lime

Again, thanks for all your help and support here. Why do you consider luxeon over Cree? Isn’t Cree the A+ leds?