Cali Kid Corals

DIY LED lighting for an AIO tank

Gomer

Gomer

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So that we don't polute Lyn's thread anymore, we (norm and I..and others who want to join) can start laying out a potential DIY complete LED light fixture

random thoughts begin!

I'm thinking of a triple LED set unit

6x 700mA Q5s on one string
3x 700mA Royal Blue + 3x 700mA Blue on another string (to allow for independent control)

or 2x 50/50 for an intensity control (50%, 100%, 50% light cycle)

The third light will be the night light. A single royal blue over the tank. Then on the same driver, do a top lit MCE (4x Q5 die) with a 30deg optic over the middle chamber for a fudge light. Run these on a 350mA driver

Debating on an aio driver like the xitanium (or maybe even a meanwell, but I haven't checked into them much), or DC power to a luxdrive puck with dimmer control who knows :p)
 
Tony, this sounds like a very interesting DIY. But please forgive my ignorance, could you explain a little about your technical jargen? I am particularly interested in a fuge light since it does not have to be very bright, and it is on for a long time. I guess the only requirement is that it need to be able to grow cheato. Thanks.
 
Sid: Dynagoe wanted me to help design him something, but in the end, it would have been out of the budget without severe compromises.


Tonggao: A chaeto light is easy. I can get into it later as with the technical jargon :)
 
Got thinking a bit more on this and efficiency is the name of the game.

One idea was to run a total of 12 cree LEDs. 6xQ5s (www.cree.com for those wondering) and 3 royals and 3 blues. All run at 700mA with a buck puck (Vin>Vout) like the luxdrive buckpuck (www.luxdrive.com)

So now for the REAL efficiency game (and for simplicity sake, lets pretend all LEDs are q5 whites)

700mA Q5 Vf = 3.4V
A string of 6 requires a Vin of 3.4x6+2= 22V
This puts you at the standard 24V regulated DC power supply which are about 95% efficient.
The boostpuck at this voltage is about 87% efficient.
The power supplied to the 2 strings of6 LEDs is 2*6*3.4*0.7 = 28.6watts
The power drawn from the wall is 28.6/(.87*.95)=34.6watts
a Q5 puts out 186 lumens at 700mA for a total of 2232 lumens for 12 LEDs
..or 2232/34.6 = 64.5 lumens/watt (wall power)


Another option which I am brewing over is to use a boostpuck (Vin < Vout). The luxdrive only has a 350mA version but that is fine. This shifts to the other efficiency end. The LED will be mroe efficient at lower power and the boost puck is more efficient. instead of 2x6 LEDs @ 700ma, lets consider 2x8LED at700mA (

350mA Q5 Vf = 3.2V
A string of 8 requires a Vin of < 3.2x8 -3 < 25.6
Lucky for me, I have a regulated 20V DC computer powersupply at about 95% efficient. (vin = vout -3)
The boostpuck at this voltage is about 97% efficient.
The power supplied to the 12 strings of LEDs is 2*8*3.2*0.35 = 17.9watts
The power drawn from the wall is 17.9/(.97*.95)=19.4watts
a Q5 puts out 107lumens at 350mA for a total of 1712 lumens for 16 LEDs
..or 1712/19.4= 88.24 lumens/watt (wall power)


4 more LEDs isn't much more money (about $24 more) and you gain a lot of efficiency. ..but still not the same output.

How about bumping this to 2x12@350mA? In this case, we are looking at about $72 more. THe nice thing is, we are still under the boostpuck limit (Vout max = 48V)!


350mA Q5 Vf = 3.2V
A string of 12 requires a Vout of < 3.2x8 -3 = 38.4
Lucky for me, I have a regulated 20V DC computer powersupply at about 95% efficient.
The boostpuck at this voltage is about 97% efficient.
The power supplied to the 12 strings of LEDs is 2*12*3.2*0.35 = 26.9watts
The power drawn from the wall is 17.9/(.97*.95)=29.2watts
a Q5 puts out 107lumens at 350mA for a total of 2496 lumens for 24 LEDs
..or 2496/29.2 =85.5 lumens/watt (wall power)


that 24 LED setup is looking tempting! It also lets me blend in a single red and single green LED without sticking out for a better CRI
 
I get leery whenever I see "1 watt LEDs" If they are 1wat capped LEDs then they are the old ones around the Luxeon I gen if not LuxI. their efficiency is way worse than current LEDs. A Luxeon I Is about 45 lumens/watt at 350mA. A top end Cree R2 is around 115 Lumens/watt at 350mA
 
So cree just made it's second big announcement. Yes, the new super efficient LEDs are exciting (
http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1241094842732
The cool white XLamp XP-G provides 139 lumens and 132 lumens per Watt at 350 mA. Driven at 1 A, the XP-G produces 345 lumens, which is 37 percent brighter and 53 percent more efficient than the brightest XR-E LED.
Click to expand...


but this...this is really awesomesauce
http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1241009226028
The XLamp MC-E color is a unique package design, combining white, red, green and blue LED chips in a single component.
Click to expand...

Get 3-8 multi chips
4 dimmable 750 mA drivers
Luxdrive buckpuck
string colors in series. BAM. high intensity, high shimmer, high color mixing tunable color setup.
 
Just waiting for them to be released :-D

As for price...guestimation:

4 drivers = $15-20 each
LEDs = $20-25 each
heatsink =
 
I'm planning one myself too, but I might wait for another year to see if LED technology improves more. I'm planning on putting in around 480 Cree XRE and 4 DC8 neptune power modules for my tank, but might try around 60 just to try on one side first replacing one 400w MH. It will be controlled by APEX neptune -- waiting for it to become available and matured.
 
I constantly look at CPU heatsinks for passive cooling...looks like it is now implimented!

http://www.frostytech.com/permalink.cfm?NewsID=76818
 
Oh good lord! I would say when your LED is pushing 30-50 watts screw the passive cool, go active! I mean seriously a computer fan is what? Around a watt or so?
 
The advantage of passive is that without a fancy controller (like the current detection on the apex) or a little trickery with some circuitry, if the fan dies, so does your light...irreversibly. There are multi fan options, but then the "if the PSU dies" arguement...

Actually, I'm looking at maybe a little thermalcouple that feeds back int the 5V dimming control on many of the "cool" LED drivers.
 
I'm new around here and just posted my introduction.
I'm gonna also be putting a LED project together with a controller to get dawn and dusk, temperature control, fan speed control and PH, water temperature monitoring and the works. stay tuned :)
 
Sounds interesting :) Not sure if it is in the plans, but if you are driving the dawn/dusk with a 5V ramp, then you may want to incorporate a thermalcouple feedback to kick in if the heatsink exceeds a certain temp (ie, a fan dies etc)
 
I'm prolly gonna use a pwm controlled dimming on a meanwell driver, since it's easy to get pwm out of a microcontroller. I ordered the microcontroller last week.... Should be here tomorrow and then I can start playing with it.
 
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