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New LED project

sfsuphysics

Supporting Member
If you don't know my posting style, I start with a rather wordy intro/description of what I'm going to do, complete with side stories, and all the pretty pictures are at the end. So scroll through as you see fit :)

Decided to throw around a few LED ideas I had rolling around in my mind. Next tank I want LEDs on, I might still have halides... might not, but either way my (soon to be) anemone tank will be my test bed for my ideas with my "next tank"

So bottom line is most of the builds out there I've seen involved either a huge hunk o' metal with leds evenly spaced, or some bar with LEDs evenly space, planar & linear, of which I don't particularly care for. I mean after all, do I really need all that light over the bottom of the tank if there's no corals there? Sure maybe some light, but not a huge amount of it. Basically the "next tank" is a pretty damn large foot print, and I'll be damned if I want to uniformly light the whole thing on my meager teachers salary :)

The idea really came about a long time ago, before LEDs really were on the radar, with some Japanese reefs that didn't incorporate a few big halides but rather multiple spot lights, with different color combos to make an artsy fartsy design. Now sure those tanks probably use a ton more electricity but this is different. So the idea of the spot light came about. Seeing the Kessil fixture really made me want to go in that direction, but being as Kessil's are a bit hard to come by.. and my inherent tinkering ability, I wanted to go my own direction, plus I really light the idea/looks of blue only "actinic" for certain times of the day, which is something none of the existing "spot lights" on the market do.

So how to go about it? Well one idea that was passed to me was to use buck pucks simply one per spot light, which seemed like a good idea, however never having used them, and from what I'm gather they need a DC input, seemed like making that idea work would be a little to problematic. Meanwell (or other AC input) drivers it is! But that'd be a waste to connect one driver that can drive 14 or so LEDs to one tiny spot light, so why not connect them? But remember I want some flexibility in my lights, perhaps move things around... so I thought MODULAR!

Now my ideas were endless, I can mix and match color schemes on any one "spot light" no need to worry about how any one thing is wired (beyond the LEDs in that particular area), I can simply add LEDs as I see fit (up to the driver limit of course).

So for my anemone tank which has a rather small foot print, 32" x 24" I decided with 5 "spot lights", the first one, which is more of a "main light" is simply a 6" x 6" heat sink with 9 LEDs on it, 5 royal blues and 4 cool whites. The other 4 I opted more towards the bluer end of the spectrum, and are roughly 4" x 4" with 5 LEDs each, 4 RB + 1 CW. The whites are going to be driven at 1050mA compared to the blues 700mA, so it won't be overly blue, just leaning heavily in that direction, plus I experimented over the temp tank, with 10 blues to 3 whites and while the blues are more spread out the overlap areas have a decent color.

Now this is the key component to my modular system, a polarized ballast disconnect, basically it has unique male/female ends, and the polarized part simply means there's only one way to plug them together. They ordinarily handle 18 gauge wire which is more than sufficient for wiring, which I get from "thermostat wire" (simply pull the wires out of their outer envelope), so all is well. Had to be a bit careful in the way I connect wires to the disconnects, however I figured out a way that is "stupid proof" meaning that if wire anything up wrong it still will work. Note: it is pretty stupid to unplug/plug in while power to your driver is on (I know from experience)
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So here's 5 blues and 4 whites all wired up, each color of course has a separate in/out. I wrote that on the heat sink simply so I remembered how to wire each disconnect as that is a critical part of this whole design, power must flow in the right direction! Optics are 40°, as I've found anything larger than that really spreads out way too much for my liking. There will be an acrylic shield over the whole thing too just to prevent any potential splashing on the stars. Colored the royal blue ones with a marker just for remembering which plugs go to which colors.
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The back side of the heat sink which is the ugly side with all the wires coming through, I did this mostly to avoid a sea of snakes on the front side, but also to help limit any potential movement of wires. I also got the heatsink rather than try and make my own from C-channel at home depot (which does work, but for $10 I didn't feel like putting the effort in). RapidLED does have great prices, with really fast delivery times (they're over in Oakland!).
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This right here is the terminator for any string. Basically the driver has the output positive, which goes to the positive of the first LED, then out the negative, to the positive of the next LED, etc.. + - + - + - well that last LED needs to come back to the negative lead of the driver, and that's what this does, allows the circuit to complete. BTW, the black stuff? Liquid electrical tape! Coolest thing EVAR!!!!!
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So just to test it, I hooked the out of the blues to the in of the whites, terminate at the white out and fired that sucker up! Voila instant light!
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Here's a fish eye view if they happen to look straight up!
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Gotta build the smaller ones, and need to figure out how I'm going to mount these now!
 
Looking pretty slick!

Here is a connector I used on some old LED projects:
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/CON-320/2-CONDUCTOR-WATERPROOF-CONNECTORS-18-AWG/1.html

Modular idea is nice.
If you are going for a "spot" like effect, and have tight angle optics, you might get some color banding, so be careful with that.
I worry your LEDs are spread out a bit far apart.

The DC input drivers are not too bad. That is what I used for my big system.
If you have plans for a big system, you might reconsider.
The nice thing is, you have a big single 24V supply, and you simply wire as many modules as needed in parallel to that.
But the modules would have to be bigger, so it may not make sense in your case.
 
Mike in moving my light around to another room this month, having a disconnect would have been very helpful. I have the third strand on my large metal heat sink unplugged. It is usless intergated like this, and would have been good for a separate system if I had built three smaller units, one for each driver. Glad you are learning from collective experience.

The third was a mostly blue strand and I miss it in the mix for color, but it was too much. Do you know of any way to cover a couple LED stars to prevent them from lighting the tank, without damaging the group of stars in any way? Will heat still disipate with it covered?
 
The LED lens does heat up too, although most is absorbed by the heatsink.
But I once had my lenses touching a plastic shield and it was hot enough to start to melt and got deformed.
When I say lenses, it is the original clear semi globe and not the optics.
My 2 cents
 
Mark: That connector is basically what I build, although mine is solid wire so won't be as flexible. Maybe I'll use those for the next one though, 12" is a bit of a restriction, but the flexibility would be nice.

I think color banding might be an issue, I held it over the tank briefly, and the issue mostly comes from the rock wall along the back simply because there are different parts that stick out, so naturally the cones of light will hit at different intervals, but the color on the bottom was perfectly blended.

What do you use for a DC power supply? Off the shelf parts? Old computer power supply? I'll need to re-evaluate that as with a big system I'll need more of a "control panel" setup I think, not to mention I might integrate dimming.

Richard: Depends how the LEDS are situated. Ideally I'd say dim those that you don't want to light the tank. But if that's an issue, I would find a way to electrically disconnect them from the circuit all together. If that's not possible/feasible, you might want to simply make a black acrylic cover and put that over them, although that'd be a big waste of power :D

Roberto: Yeah they do get warm, and I can actually feel the heat over the LEDs... might have to reevaluate if they're thermally connected to the heat sink enough. After leaving them on a few hours the heatsink was warm to the touch, and I would rather passively cool them, but might need to throw a fan on there, and simply put it on a timer to cool it down once an hour or something.
 
I used a MeanWell SDR-480-24 for my main DC supply.
Not that cheap, but high quality, 94% efficient, with PFC.
An old computer supply would not really work. Wrong voltages.
For low cost, I imaging ebay has a lot of old single output DC supplies.

Note that I used Recom RCD-24 current drivers off of the DC supply.
Again, not that cheap, but very good specs.
Plus, they have both PWM and analog dimming.

Note that 24V is not mandatory, and will depend on drivers and module plans.

Those connectors are 12", but you need to cut the wire in half to use both ends, so effectively 6" each.
Of course, easy enough to add more wire.

Side note: 18 gauge wire is a bit overkill for the connections between LEDs.
I would suggest 22. Easier, and less stress on the MPCB pads.

For "disconnecting" a LED: Just short a wire across it, between + and -.
That will bypass the current, and essentially turn it off.
To remove, simply cut/desolder the wire.
As long as there is no minimum voltage on the current driver, it will not be a problem.
 
ah ok, see I wasn't even thinking in that realm as far as ac-dc conversion. 24V not mandatory but I'm guessing it allows more LEDs in series before you parallel off that.

I know 18 gauge is over kill, but it's what I had handy, and the fact its solid means when I bend it to the shape I want it stays in that shape, so hopefully less stress. This is all a smaller test bed, so if something goes wrong here, I want to see it before I build a ton of these guys and let them go :D

School starts up again next week, and once again my summer break went way too quickly, so might not move very fast at all, or I could be a homework free teacher, grade on 3 tests, and then less work for me!
 
The main supply voltage has a lot of tradeoffs.
Yes, you want the max number of LEDs in series, which is really based on two things:
1) The max input voltage the driver can handle. Usually 32V or 36V.
2) The max LEDs you clump together on a module. Often limited by topography.

But also, there is a practical side that a 36V supply is more expensive and less common than a 24V supply,
so you may be limited by features/price.

---

All that said, if time is the key constraint, you might be better off with the more commonly used AC powered drivers.
Like the Meanwell LPC-35 and LPC-60. Super easy to use those.
Just be careful of inrush current. Inrush on a Meanwell LPC-xx is 30A.
Put 5-10 of them on the same supply, and don't be surprised if breakers pop or timer relays fry.
 
Time isn't a constraint, its just that there will be little of it. The time frame of getting everything done is irrelevant, granted it'd be nicer to get it done sooner rather than later, but I still gotta get Day1 stuff made up by this Friday :D
 
Ok, figured out a mounting scheme. Was going to use my old light rack I had over the tank, however because this is more of an "in-wall" setup I had to cut a few inches from each side to make it fit... well I started doing that, and reassembling, and it started to become a royal pain in the keister ... then inspiration hit me again!

I had this old piece of C-channel with brackets on it that I think I used to hold a couple of T5 bulbs ... well I saw the brackets, moved them... and instantly thought hinge! Attach one end to the wall, the other end with some twine/cable through an eye-hook, and if I need to get into the tank I can pull up and down. Currently its high enough that I don't need to do that unless I'm working with two arms deep in it.

The I have to see how it works picture :D (so please ignore the ugly wiring, etc :D) This one is the main central light, so I only have a tilt on one axis, still need to figure out how to tilt on two axis... well I did figure out, just need to see how feasible that'll be .
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Looks like it's just floating there!
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Pretty much gives me the coverage I want. I have both colors tied into the same ballast here, ideally they'll be controlled separately. One thing I notice is those shimmer lines are annoying as all hell with 9 point sources.. I'm cringing when there'll be 29 point sources.
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You will save glass cleaning time with this light pattern. Very nice. The shimmer is wild, but my eye has gotten used to it.

The fan Mark suggested and I am using is ultra quiet and keeps the heat sink cool. I had not planned to use it, but it is very little power and I can be out, say to work, and the house heat up, as in the fog lift before early afternoon, and the lights be no worry.
 
My suggestion to the heat dissipation is PWM fan :)
It's awesome.
Mine stay off or running very silent when it's a nice day, but those summer days, it picks up and run harder to keep up with the heat.
Usually 20% or less on a normal day and up to 70% on really hot days.
I use it for colling tank water and not my heatsink, but it's the same idea.
 
summer days what's that?? :D

I'm going to run the LED all day today just to get a real feel for how hot it gets and if it needs cooling, but I got a few computer fans lying around that I could rig up some cooling scheme. My biggest issue with fans is that it brings the moist air right over the LEDs/heatsink.
 
I like the project Mike.

This is a much cleaner DIY project you've done :bigsmile:

I look forward to seeing how all of this comes together
 
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