jaggedfire Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I am planning on and designing an LED pendant for one of my tanks. As most know even DIY can get pricy. For a bit for less than the cost of materials there are decently spec'ed fully built pendants on eBay from Hong Kong. Anyone have any experience with these? Actual output and coloration? Modifications are not out of the question either. Thanks for any and all input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 The big differerentiator seems to be the type of LED used. School of thought states that while Cree are more expensive, they are more efficient and you can get a little more light with less heat. I'd check out some of the screw in bulbs if you're looking to do a pedant. Pretty hard to beat the ease of install into a standard light socket. My LEDs are on order right now for my biocube 29, so I can let you know what my experience is. --- I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=30.205091,-97.835974 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I've been considering the same thing for my Solana. I'm thinking that the ecoxotic or similar is the way to go, I'm just concerned about it being enough light for the 34 gallon. http://www.ecoxotic.com/aquarium-led-lights/led-par-lights/ecoxotic-par38-aquarium-led-lights.html http://www.ecoxotic.com/aquarium-led-lights/led-par-lights/par38-tri-color.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bannerfish Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 id use the crees from rapidled, or the ones from steves leds, not the 1w bulbs. out of those two mentioned, i like the overall color of the luxeons from steves leds. the husband says the luxeons are more efficient than the crees. both of those grow my corals no prob, although i only run them at around 50% now. when i first got mine, i ran them at 100% and bleached some of my sps frags. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooks Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Mike, I don't believe, unless you went with a 3-4+ of those Panorama Pro that you would have enough light for that Solana. Since it is a rather deep tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggedfire Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 My build is focused around 3W Crees xp-g's and xpe for blues. The eBay fixture seems to use 3w leds with lower current for 2w each. They aren't name brand units but at $160 and 120w output, it might be worn a shot. Concerned though about the bin of the actual light though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I guess you could sit down and make up a lumens/watt/cost chart. I messed around with Ecoxotics PAR 38 bulbs and Ecoxotics and Current USA LED strips and have been happy with all of them. I'm also using Orphek's PR156 and am happy with it. By adding up lumens I can get roughly the same amount of light on the surface but there is a big difference in penetration and distribution of the light field depending on the LED wattage. I got curious about buiilding a DIY LED cannon with LEDs from LEDsupply and am happy with it as well. It's using 4 Indus star 3 LED MCPCB stars with 16 degree optics and I'm getting about 550 PAR/30,000 lux @ 2' (air, and readings were taken after about 100 hrs of usage). Total cost for parts is about $100, it's about 40 watts. Comparing it to 250W MH HQI in a Lumenmax Elite reflector I need 4 (or about 160W) to get the similar coverage on the bottom of a 3' tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AquaJohn Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 After doing 2 DIY led fixtures If I had it to do over again I would pony up the extra cost and get a brand name fixture. Its not that its hard or even that time consuming. I consider myself a decent DIY guy but not strong in electric stuff and to me the cost differance compared to a manufacturers warentee I know what one I would pick after looking at what it took to get done. And I did not even have very much in the way of problems. Other than a few solders looking good but finding out they were not making a connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Check out evolutionled.com Thats where I got my setup and I'm about to pick up one of their 14k spotlight bulbs for my frag tank this week. Can't beat the $60 price tag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Check out evolutionled.com Thats where I got my setup and I'm about to pick up one of their 14k spotlight bulbs for my frag tank this week. Can't beat the $60 price tag That doesn't look like a store website to me, it says"The domain evolutionled.com may be for sale by its owner!" Can you verify the URL? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brooks Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 I believe the evolutions are sold by ReefKoi on R2R. Look for his handle on there and there is a link to his site on his signature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+brian.srock Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 www.evolutionledlight.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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