Verojeremy's DIY LED Thread

verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
I am going to make 2 Led fixtures for my 75 gallon mixed tank. I am going to get my stuff from rapidled. I want to have red, uv, blue, white, and green leds hopefully solderless. I like more of a blueish look but want the colors to pop with the red uv, red, and green led's.
My tank is a standard 75 gallon tank and I am switching from an 8 bulb tek fixture (which i am trying to sell).
I have a canopy and have about 4.75 inches so I am wondering what optics I should use.
Also I don't get the difference between the drivers so can somebody help me out with that I would like dimmable.
Another question is what size heat sinks should i use I have 20 inches of room on both sides of my bracket.
I also don't know what mix I should use of all the colors.
Seth pointed out to me that he thinks 26 3w leds equal a 250w mh so I would like something around there. Not something that is really hard for acclimating corals.
Also should I get any fans it's get pretty hot in my canopy.
I will add pictures when I can actually take them.
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
Item List so far:
---------------------------------------------------------------
DDC-01 PWM Controller
Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable driver (do i need more then 1)
(Per Fixture) 3w cree led's
10 - white
10- blue
2 - red
2 - green
2 - UV
Don't know what lenses yet
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
Now I am looking up stuff on UV lights and am seeing that the Led's that cree offers dont actually deliver what the coral need unlees you buy a lot of them and that good ones cost 50 dollars and up so now I am wondering if I should even get UV lights at all. Plus I want to go solderless and they don't have them solderless.
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
OK now I see cyan. I really do need some sleep and for someone to help me out so if someone can answer all the questions I asked thank you in advanced and GOOD MORNING!!!!!
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
Parts List:
----------------------------------------------------
2- 6"x20" black anodized heatsink
28- Solderless CREE XP-E Blue LED
28- Solderless CREE XP-G Neutral White LED
4- Solderless CREE XP-E Green LED
4- Solderless CREE XP-E Red LED
56- 80 Degree CREE XP-E/XP-G Lens/Optics
Thermal Grease
3- Solderless LED Plug
3- Driver Jumper
2- 3-Prong Power Cord
Anything else I need?
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Screws, wire, multi-meter, splash shields for the leds. I don't think you're going to need optics unless you're mounting the lights higher than 8" above the surface but that's up to you. Couldn't hurt to have them just in case.
How are you planning on wiring these up? How many on each driver and what types of leds on each driver?
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
OK screws, wire, multi-meter, and spalsh shields thank you. I was thinking optics on the whites and blues for the spread but ok.
What do you mean by wiring these up? I am going to do 14 white on 1 driver, 14 blue on 1 driver and the red and green on 1 driver.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
I was just wondering how many you planned to have on each driver. Particularly your 4 red + 4 greens. The forward voltage of those 8 leds is cutting it very close to the minimum requirements of that driver. Actually, they may only light up once you have them turned nearly all the way up. Reason being is that the driver requires at least 24 volts of load be placed on them before it will fire up. And if you calculate the average forward voltage rating of those leds at 50%...then they don't quite make it. Simple solution would be to add like one more of each color to that string. Or throw a few U.V.'s on there like you first had planned to boost that load just a bit.
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
I am going solderless and they don't make UV yet so ok I will do 13, 13, 10. Plus also I think the heatsinks I am getting have 4 rows so how will I place the led's are there like a pattern?
And don't I need 6 drivers? 3 for each fixture.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
No you don't need 6 drivers. Unless you want to build it that way but you'd need different drivers. You're going to have to wire up all of your blue's for both panels on one driver, same with the whites and the green/red series combo. Really, there's a million different ways to do this. These days I typically leave the designing up to the user and I just bounce in from time to time for tech support. You can place them however you feel is best. I'd try to spread them out evenly so that you get an even cast of color and light across the whole tank.
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
id stick to somewhere around 40 imo... give or take... 2quills knows wat hes talking about here!
honestly i dont know or think its good to give ur coral to much or any ultra violent light...
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Sorry, I should have asked. I take it you plan on running these in series? If so then you'll want 2 eln 60-48's for your blues, 2 for your whites and 1 for your red/green combo. So that's 5 drivers.
If you wanted to run your whites and blues in parallel series then 3 drivers would suffice. But you'd be sacrificing 50% of your max output. Lot's of folks build in parallel for efficiency but it does add a slight bit of complexity to the build.
Keep it simple is usually best.
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
How many led's do you think I should run do you think that 32 per fixture is too much? Also yes 5 drivers if that is the easiest ill pay the extra 60 dollars.
 
verojeremy

verojeremy

Member
I dont want my lights for my corals be too much so then I have to acclimate everything really slowly I don't want it to be like a 400 watt mh I want it to be like a 250.
 
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