bimmerzs Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Here my current LED setup I'm working on to replace my ~1300 watts of lighting I had over the old 130G(long story). The heatsink is 30"L x 10"W and I had it anodized. It will have ~90 led's total when finished and I am using the Berquist Thermal Pad's instead of the time consuming 2 part thermal epoxy and tap/drill method. I have 70 RoyalBlue,10Blue,20CoolWhite,10NeutralWhite, 4Red and 4Green led's to work with. I will use a 3:1 ratio of RB to blue/white and have 7 dimmable meanwell's to work with and 80* optic's if I need them. I purchased the Luxeon rebel ES Royal Blues and Cool Whites from StevesLed's and the rest are Cree's from RapidLed. I am still thinking of the mounting stand to build for this so it will fit over the temp 90G that will be in the hopefully temp apartment in Hutto(Gotta sell the house in Dallas) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted January 4, 2012 Author Share Posted January 4, 2012 The extra's gear etc are being used on the led setup for the prop/frag tank I have going in the Austin apartment. Getting all the small kinks worked out with this one before playing with big guy. Gonna have 3 T5's in the middle of the heatsink's. This is facing down in a darkened room at 70% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonJones Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Nice looking setup, I really liked the annodized look. I think the color mix you have should look great. I just built an led for my wifes nano with very similar LED combos and it came out looking nice. The addition of the red and green diminish the washed out blue look of most LEDs. 90 LEDs is going to be pretty powerful. I normally hear 36 as being equavilent to a 250w halide, although that is with an all CREE set-up. Not sure of the lumen difference with the Rebels. Looking forward to seeing it progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Cool...thanks. Without starting a great debate....the Luxeon Rebel's are binned out and actually spec out better than the Cree's as far as output, and do so with less fwd voltage required. Lots of light but this will give me greater control (tunability) and I will hit more of the spectrum's. Keep in mind that I ran (2) 400W MH and 6 T5's over my 130G and the ~1300W definately made a difference. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonJones Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Interesting. I have never looked into the Luxeons, may need to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted January 22, 2012 Author Share Posted January 22, 2012 Finished the smaller fixture after adding a couple of T5's to it. I still need to get some pic's and get time to work on the big guy, it's been hectic with the holiday's and workload. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Hows it coming? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe.kool Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Nice setup can't wait to see it over water.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted April 30, 2012 Author Share Posted April 30, 2012 I really need to update this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted June 27, 2012 Author Share Posted June 27, 2012 Led's all wired up except for more green's, turned 6 of those into a pricely flash bulb while testing...whoops. The black wiring doesn't stand out as much against the black anodized heatsink, still looking for my last driver, can't find it anywhere but doing 8 different light zones takes a lot of patience, which I don't have a lot of hence the sporadic period's I can work on this. Pretty crazy how some of the led placements worked out for good coverage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 1, 2012 Author Share Posted July 1, 2012 Violet's being tested. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 Here's the deep red and turquoise together, you only need a little of either of these so I put them together on the same driver. I may have to add 2 more of the turquoise or two more red led's but even if so I can still run 17 led's off of one driver. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 Here's a couple of the royal blue groups. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bayou Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 You IT guys get all the cool toys! Nice work and clean! --- I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?0htnsk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 2, 2012 Author Share Posted July 2, 2012 You IT guys get all the cool toys! Nice work and clean! --- I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?0htnsk Thank's, Gotta finish up the distribution panel and the cables from there to the light's then it's rainbow time.Still figuring out the best mounting option. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 How are you controlling these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 3, 2012 Author Share Posted July 3, 2012 How are you controlling these? Apex and a VDM module. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 3, 2012 Author Share Posted July 3, 2012 More work on the distribution panel at least. The VDM will be mounted on here as well with 4 CAT5 cables running to the driver's . I now have more color spectrum's added and I'm well over 100 led's. I have cool white, neutral white, blue, royal blue, violet, turquoise, deep red and green. As mentioned above, running the deep red and turquoise together saves on adding an additional driver. Still have room for more spectrum's when available. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshel1217 Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 With that many lighting zones you are going to be playing with the colors all the time. I know I would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 4, 2012 Author Share Posted July 4, 2012 Only gonna have 2 seperate "program's" besides a weather(storm) program. First program's priority is providing as much of the 400-700nm wavelegth as possible to the coral's, the second would be the last few hours of what looks good to me. Hopefully I have everything laid out well enough that what I like and the coral's like are one in the same. A lot of folk's run into issues with led's due to one of three common user error's. They either blast their tank with way too much light right off the bat, they purchased led's that lack enough of the correct spectrum's for what they are keeping, or even if they purchase a unit with adequate spectrum's, they tweek the color to what looks good to them, which in reality reduces the necessary spectrum 's that some of the coral' may need. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dshel1217 Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 Only gonna have 2 seperate "program's" besides a weather(storm) program. First program's priority is providing as much of the 400-700nm wavelegth as possible to the coral's, the second would be the last few hours of what looks good to me. Hopefully I have everything laid out well enough that what I like and the coral's like are one in the same. A lot of folk's run into issues with led's due to one of three common user error's. They either blast their tank with way too much light right off the bat, they purchased led's that lack enough of the correct spectrum's for what they are keeping, or even if they purchase a unit with adequate spectrum's, they tweek the color to what looks good to them, which in reality reduces the necessary spectrum 's that some of the coral' may need. Cheers, I like your light priorities. Im going to have to remember that one when I finish mine. Good luck your setup is looking pretty bad *** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 4, 2012 Author Share Posted July 4, 2012 Only gonna have 2 seperate "program's" besides a weather(storm) program. First program's priority is providing as much of the 400-700nm wavelegth as possible to the coral's, the second would be the last few hours of what looks good to me. Hopefully I have everything laid out well enough that what I like and the coral's like are one in the same. A lot of folk's run into issues with led's due to one of three common user error's. They either blast their tank with way too much light right off the bat, they purchased led's that lack enough of the correct spectrum's for what they are keeping, or even if they purchase a unit with adequate spectrum's, they tweek the color to what looks good to them, which in reality reduces the necessary spectrum 's that some of the coral' may need. Cheers, I like your light priorities. Im going to have to remember that one when I finish mine. Good luck your setup is looking pretty bad *** Thanks.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerrickH Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 From what Ive read, the response time on the drivers prevent the lightning feature in the apex from working. Cloud cover can be simulated (I got this to work...) but thats it. I just use 4 different ramp modes. Ramp up blue, ramp down blue, and ramp up/down white. I dont have as many colors though lol. Your right about the users just blasting the tanks with lights. I did the same thing when I got mine. Now I run my blues up to around 75% and whites never exceed 40%. Corals are much happier and sps is growing well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bimmerzs Posted July 5, 2012 Author Share Posted July 5, 2012 From what Ive read, the response time on the drivers prevent the lightning feature in the apex from working. Cloud cover can be simulated (I got this to work...) but thats it. I just use 4 different ramp modes. Ramp up blue, ramp down blue, and ramp up/down white. I dont have as many colors though lol. Your right about the users just blasting the tanks with lights. I did the same thing when I got mine. Now I run my blues up to around 75% and whites never exceed 40%. Corals are much happier and sps is growing well. Pretty sure you can do lightning with an APEX. May need to upgrade the VDM firmware or figure at worst I can figure out and build a lil' op amp circuit if need be. This is what the profile looks like to create the below "storm" Type: weather Minimum Intensity: 10 Maximum Intensity: 90 Cloud Duration: 2 Cloudy Percentage: 75 Lightning Amount: 100 Lightning Interval: 90 Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadodge Posted July 6, 2012 Share Posted July 6, 2012 cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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