My 72 LED Bridgelux Build

[mcghee33]

I just purchased my 72 LED's for my DIY build. I know there are many build threads out there but there are not that many where people have used Birdgelux LED's and I know I have talked to quite a few people here in St. Louis that want to follow along. Since they too are interested in doing an LED build.

First off, the reason I went with Bridgelux LED's.
Now I know there will be a few people that will say that I should have bought Cree's. Here is why I did not buy Cree's. As a background I have a 75 gallon tank that is mostly LPS with the desire to do SPS in the future. If I were to get Cree's I would need at least 48 Crees and they would cost me 365 dollars. But I was able to buy 72 bridgelux LED's for HALF that price. Now yes I understand it is possible to drive the Crees up to 1500 mA but no one runs them anywhere near that and the bridglux will top out at 700 mA. But with 72 on a 75 gallon tank that is nearly 3 watts/gallon of LED power, which is crazy!
Second, ordering through aquastyle I was able to get a free hanging kit and mix and match my LED's for NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE! So bang for the buck there is no way I could justify spending more than double the cost to get less LED's and less free stuff.

As for my order I went with:
42 Royal Blue
24 10k white
6 Ultra Violet's

I ordered the LED's on Sunday night and they shipped Monday morning so I will track how long it takes for them to make the trek to the US from China.
This week I will begin building the fixture itself where I will be using 4 48in long U Channel pieces. As I get to building that later this week I will begin to post pictures.

 

[revsgirl]

:clap2: Alright! Can't wait!!

 

[mcghee33]

So I was not expecting this, like I mentioned above I ordered these Sunday night around midnight Central Time and I just received a text from my roommate and the LED's have already arrived at my house! Now that is what I call service! ?They tell you to expect 6-14 days for delivery so I was expecting closer to 14 since they supposedly come from China, which is why the shipping was 35 dollars but obviously they have a distributions system set up here in the States because they were able to process and ship my order to myself in St. Louis in 36 hours. Color me impressed! :bigsmile: 5 Gold Stars to Auquastyle.com for impeccable service so far! More updates tonight with pictures....

 

[mcghee33]

here is a pic of the LEDs. I got them all tested and they are all working.

 

[mcghee33]

And let the building begin

 

[mcghee33]

The pictures you see above are 4 48 in long, 1.5 in wide and 1/8 inch thick aluminum U- channel. I had to go to a metal factory to get this aluminum since I wanted something wider than 3/4 in. I am hoping that the additional width and mass will assist with the heat dissipation. Those 4 pieces will be held together by 2 12 in long L channel. I hope to have this all put together by the end of the night. More pics to come! :smile:

 

[Steelerfan747]

Very nice. Interested in seeing the progress and outcome

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mason Dixon]

I'm in, what drivers/optics did you go with?

I ordered a 120 kit last week, Ray is awesome to deal with.

 

[fyrfytr]

Closly following this. Was told of bridgelux through a Dayton Ohio area club (saltgeeks.com) and the the builds that they have pictures of look great and the cost was good too. These have possibly changed my mind about a fish only tank

 

[mcghee33]

I'm in, what drivers/optics did you go with?

I ordered a 120 kit last week, Ray is awesome to deal with.

I went with 60 degree optics and I went with the Meanwell 90 48D
This allows me to add a Apex Controller later when I get the means to make that investment. Traveling to China in a month so money is a little tighter than usual.

 

[mcghee33]

Closly following this. Was told of bridgelux through a Dayton Ohio area club (saltgeeks.com) and the the builds that they have pictures of look great and the cost was good too. These have possibly changed my mind about a fish only tank

The Bridgelux LED's completely changed my outlook on LED as a whole. While the Crees are great in all and are a little more efficient they have less going for them than many of the fan boys will tell you. I say this because people are buying the bridgelix because you can get a ton of LED's for little cost and that cost is more than 50% cheaper than the Cree's. So this not only gives you plenty of PAR and PUR you have MUCH BETTER COVERAGE. And that is the thing that I believe is overlooked. I am going to have absolutely no problem having great covereage with 72 LEDs over my 75 gallon tank. So for someone new like yourself this a GREAT place to start for lights! It will be far cheaper than it EVER was to get a light to grow corals but you will not only be able to grow starter corals but once you get invested you will no problems growing SPS and LPS. So do your research, as lots of questions and over time you will see that building is much easier than it looks at first.

 

[fyrfytr]

Thats is why I am here...asking questions (you will see all of my posts are asking, not a bit helping answer anything) since I dont have a tank yet and am not going to get one till I have all the answers for the boss (the wife) and the chief financial officer (the wife).

We have had freshwater fish for years, the 10 gal that the cichlids are in now has been operating non stop since 2006. My 3 year old is fish crazy, he is the happiest kid in the world and think that is is a super treat to go look at the fish when we get dog food from PetSmart, or if I take him to Jacks Aquarium and Pets just to look at their fish or get another for our tank. Finally I told my wife that I wanted to make a salt tank for him, what 3 yr old fish crazy kid would not love to have his own nemo. As I have learned on here and other forums...this "build" has grown expodentially. The inital plan was to just convert the fresh water 10 gal to a fish only salt tank...now I am thinking 55+gal with LED to grow coral. I havent spent a dime and this is already expensive, lol

 

[mcghee33]

Thats is why I am here...asking questions (you will see all of my posts are asking, not a bit helping answer anything) since I dont have a tank yet and am not going to get one till I have all the answers for the boss (the wife) and the chief financial officer (the wife).

We have had freshwater fish for years, the 10 gal that the cichlids are in now has been operating non stop since 2006. My 3 year old is fish crazy, he is the happiest kid in the world and think that is is a super treat to go look at the fish when we get dog food from PetSmart, or if I take him to Jacks Aquarium and Pets just to look at their fish or get another for our tank. Finally I told my wife that I wanted to make a salt tank for him, what 3 yr old fish crazy kid would not love to have his own nemo. As I have learned on here and other forums...this "build" has grown expodentially. The inital plan was to just convert the fresh water 10 gal to a fish only salt tank...now I am thinking 55+gal with LED to grow coral. I havent spent a dime and this is already expensive, lol

Well thanks for tagging along and you are doing the right thing in not buying anything until you are committed and know exactly what your NEED. Just to add my quick 2 cents, I started with a nano and then moved to a 55 gallon and I kind of regretted it. This is why I now have a 75 gallon. The added width of the tank is monumental when it comes down to room in your tank for rock and coral and then space for your fish to swim in. And you will be buying the same components to run a 75 as you would a 55.

 

[mcghee33]

Just as a quick update I know I have been dragging my feet a little bit with the build so I am sorry if you are bored already but the build begins tonight!:clap2:
I hope to have all the LED's tinned and mounted tonight, I have a friend coming up to St. Louis to help me get some of the soldering done as well as the wiring.
I hope to have some pics posted tonight and through the weekend. I hope to have this mounted be the end of the weekend.

 

[mcghee33]

The epoxy has started
All LEDs are tinned and getting glued. Hope to have this wired by the end of the night

 

[mcghee33]

I Finnally got them working and hung!
It was a long 2 days working on this and at this point it certainly doesn't look pretty.....yet....but I ordered a custom build acrylic canopy that will fit over the top as well as an acrylic splash guard for the bottom of the LEDs that will hide all the mess. It may be a week or two before the custom acrylic is done but that's ok as it will be worth the wait

 

[slugwall]

Nice! Tagging along for the ride

 

[mcghee33]

I must say I understand now what people are talking about when they say it's hard to get the pictures to not turn out blue!
But I have these turned down to about 10 percent brightness as these LEDs are so much brighter than my t5s. Not to mention that my 4 t5 bulbs were at the end of their life. But this thing is crazy bright and the color combo is wonderful as I can dial in a really nice 20k look which is what I was looking for.

For anyone out their that is holding out because they think it's too difficult or complicated (much as I was for about the last 8 months) it is much less complicated than it looks. I had not touched a soldering iron before in my life until this project and had very little difficulty figuring this out by watching YouTube videos (ricketts reef on YouTube was very helpful). Once I had thenleds laid out the way I wanted them and got the strings of 12 wired it was not that hard to hook up the drivers, fuses and resistors. I found out that the hardest thing was obtaining the fuse holders and the resistors. Rat shacks in st. Louis suck to say the least, at least they did this weekend as they all seems to be nearly sold out of fuse holders ( had to go to 3 of them and then a hardware store to get 6 of them) and one of them carry 1ohm 5 watt resistors! This blew my mind as I was sure that many people here on the threads had bought them there but the ones in stl looked at me like was speaking Chinese and said they never carried that resistor. Luckily I was able to find them at an electronic supply store for next to nothing and was glad I was forced to find that store. If you are in st Louis doing a build PM me andi will get you their information as you will need it to wire in parallels. So in the end don't underestimate the time, as I did, it takes to locate all of your supplies and always buy extra to save trips out. That was my biggest mistake, but it was all worth it in the end.

Let me know what you think, ask any questions and I will try and get more photos up as I get this thing organized and the canopy built!

 

[slugwall]

That's amazing! Can you show the design from when you placed the LEDs drilled the holes wired them up?
Are you using a controller/ how many power cords/ stuff like that?
I think it would shed some light for me as this will be my next step too.

Thank you

 

[fyrfytr]

That's amazing! Can you show the design from when you placed the LEDs drilled the holes wired them up?
Are you using a controller/ how many power cords/ stuff like that?
I think it would shed some light for me as this will be my next step too.

Thank you

Agreed. I am pretty much conviced on this for my build and like everything I am doing before this tank comes about I wanna know what i need and what i am getting myself into