High Tide Aquatics

New DIY lights

rygh

rygh

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I originally had DIY LED lights, but these were mostly Cool White + Royal Blue.
I had a could of reds and things added on, but it was not great.
So I went and spent a lot upgrading to AI-Prime lights.
Unfortunately, the UV LEDs blow out, taking other circuits with them, so now many are dead.
So the plan is to build a new set of DIY lights. Like the old ones, but better.

Key feature: Modern color scheme
Main white will be Neutral white, not Cool white.
Add Violet, Cyan, Lime, Red, Blue, Warm White.

Key feature: Fanless
Fans is a huge failure mode for almost all lights. The fans clog, lights overheat.
Heat is horrible for electronics.

Key feature: No UV
Yes, UV can be a plus for growth and fluorescence (pop)
But it is a bit of a scam.
The lifetime on a lot of these LEDs is absurdly short.
Even the better Semiled on is like 2,500 hours. That is barely over 1 year.
And since you cannot directly see UV, it is hard to tell if it is degraded.
Violet and Royal Blue fluoresce almost as well, they have long life LEDs, and they add to color.

Key feature: No software
Software has bugs. Microcontrollers can fail quickly compared to simple electronics.
So the idea is to dispense with all the fancy stuff.
There will be knobs you manually turn to adjust each channel intensity.
Lights will be simple ON/OFF, based on the relay controlling the main AC power in.
No ramping. Instead, turn a few lights at a time on, to sort-of ramp.
Ok, a tiny bit of software, but it is in the controller (Apex), not in some new microcontroller.

Key feature: Designed for the long term
Electronics will be over-built.
Heat sinks will be over-sized.
LEDs will be run well below max.
Everything will be sealed from dust and moisture.
No moving parts.
Use CCR(constant current regulation) instead of PWM (pulse width modulation) for tweaking light intensity.
Easily configured to a different size tank in the future.


Main Cluster
1 x Cree XP-G2 Neutral White 4000K
2 x Cree XP-E2 Royal Blue
1 x Luxeon C Violet

Color Cluster
1 x Blue
1 x Cyan
1 x Lime
1 x Deep Red
1 x Warm White


Lots more details to follow. This is no short term project.

* I definitely value input on LED color choice.
 
I think with the warm whites you can drop the cyan and lime like the new radions, at least the lime.
 
rygh said:
I originally had DIY LED lights, but these were mostly Cool White + Royal Blue.
I had a could of reds and things added on, but it was not great.
So I went and spent a lot upgrading to AI-Prime lights.
Unfortunately, the UV LEDs blow out, taking other circuits with them, so now many are dead.
Click to expand...

Not to kill a nerd out project in any way, but as a heads up you can ship those to AI and they'll RMA them for you and either fix them or replace them. Depending on what happened, and warranty cost, they'll either do it for free or charge you shipping plus a brand new one for a giant discount.

Or if you don't want to do that I'll take them from you and I'll do it :)
 
richiev said:
Not to kill a nerd out project in any way, but as a heads up you can ship those to AI and they'll RMA them for you and either fix them or replace them. Depending on what happened, and warranty cost, they'll either do it for free or charge you shipping plus a brand new one for a giant discount.

Or if you don't want to do that I'll take them from you and I'll do it :)
Click to expand...
They are way out of warranty.

But the key thing is that I no longer trust them. 3 of 12 are basically dead. Several more have visibly burned lenses.
I could fix them, but in a few years some will likely fail again.
So anything spent is throwing good money after bad.

When I am done with the project, I will give most of them to you though, if you want.
You can fix/whatever.
I will just keep a couple as spares.
 
I'm curious about the setup, how are you going to oversize the heatsink? (make it bigger duh!) and how are you going to have a completely enclosed area? Gaskets/silicone?

I get your desire to go fanless, but fans themselves don't typically clog it's the tiny "dust cover" that they typically put over and the relatively small fins on the heatsink once either of those clog then yeah the fans end up clogging. Curious, have you run numbers on how much aluminum you need to deal with whatever wattage you go with?

As to the AIs... if I were to fix them I'd replace violet/UV emitters with royal blue ones. They won't burn out, are typically rated for much higher current, and lets be honest blue is good :)
 
sfsuphysics said:
I'm curious about the setup, how are you going to oversize the heatsink? (make it bigger duh!)
Click to expand...
There are really 3 part.
Larger in general.
Make sure there is enough thickness in the sold base, to pull heat away to the fins.
Spread out the LEDs a little bit. Not enough to cause disco bands, but enough to avoid points of high heat.

sfsuphysics said:
how are you going to have a completely enclosed area? Gaskets/silicone?
Click to expand...
The power supplies and drivers will be sealed IP67. They simply sell them that way.
For the LEDs, I will use a trick I did before. I made a "lens" out of a short piece of PVC pipe, with a very thin piece of acrylic glued on.
You glue that over the star, and use silicone to seal hole for wires.
Since it is fairly high volume, it does not really get hot in there.


sfsuphysics said:
I get your desire to go fanless, but fans themselves don't typically clog it's the tiny "dust cover" that they typically put over and the relatively small fins on the heatsink once either of those clog then yeah the fans end up clogging.
Click to expand...
The dust covers are not perfect. You end up with fine dust in the bearings, which then gets salt crystals mixed in, and cuts the lifetime way down.


sfsuphysics said:
As to the AIs... if I were to fix them I'd replace violet/UV emitters with royal blue ones. They won't burn out, are typically rated for much higher current, and lets be honest blue is good
Click to expand...
There are UV-C, deep Violet, and there is real Violet. Marketing mess.
The UV-C is the nasty one at around 2,500 hours.

The deep violet is just weird. I see it as a UV-fail.

Luxeon C line has the same technology for RB and normal Violet, so it is quite good.
It is around 35,000 hour lifetime. Not bad compared to usual 50,000 hour.



sfsuphysics said:
Curious, have you run numbers on how much aluminum you need to deal with whatever wattage you go with?
Click to expand...
Not yet. I will likely use the same aluminum as before. Saved it. Maybe with another set.
 
So I just ordered some black box bars and they do customs out of that shop. The guys that make the Quantas. You can pick which LED are in the array and the lenses. Probably chip too but I didn't ask.

They make a simple on/off as well as a dimmable/controllable version. Controller is totally separate (upstream) from the light. No moving parts. IP65. They have a couple different alu housings to choose from.

I ordered a couple on/off ones to test out. Hopefully will get them in 2-3 weeks.

Probably would be a lot easier to mod something like this than start from scratch. Unless starting from scratch is the goal, which is cool too.
 
Last edited:
CaptainB said:
So I just ordered some black box bars and they do customs out of that shop. The guys that make the Quantas. You can pick which LED are in the array and the lenses. Probably chip too but I didn't ask.

They make a simple on/off as well as a dimmable/controllable version. Controller is totally separate (upstream) from the light. No moving parts. IP65. They have a couple different alu housings to choose from.

I ordered a couple on/off ones to test out. Hopefully will get them in 2-3 weeks.

Probably would be a lot easier to mod something like this than start from scratch. Unless starting from scratch is the goal, which is cool too.
Click to expand...
Yes, I looked at those quite a bit.
Not a lot of detail on which LEDs were used, but I never directly asked.
I think at this point though I simply want to build some crazy overkill design.
 
Hi all, I have been diying LEDs for 12-14 yrs now and love the results. I try to get heatsinks that do not need fans. One, because they are noisy and two, they seam to push more dust in than I want. I like the blue fish controller and have been using it for 10yrs+ with no issues. It has a simple app that allows you to set the colors and time.

With my current set up over a 10g aio I used these
https://www.stevesleds.com/3-up-Tristar--Connected-Wiring-Series_p_207.html
Along with a ac to DC power supply and this style of driver
www.stevesleds.com

LDD Driver Array - 3X Drivers-8794102609

www.stevesleds.com
I have 2 set up with royal blue and 2 set up with natural white so 6 of each color. I also have single LEDs of green and red. I like them because they give you more light in a smaller area and that allows you to have a smaller light. Currently it runs at 35% power and is only 86d on the heatsink over the LEDs vs 81d on the supporting arm.
In my first LEDs, the adjustable PWM died from moisture on top of the light, that's why I now have the blue fish.
I purchased my gear from Steve's LEDs and Rapid led depending on what I need.
Let me know if you have questions.

Thanks Aaron
IMG_20220814_162204465.jpg
 
Apayne said:
Hi all, I have been diying LEDs for 12-14 yrs now and love the results. I try to get heatsinks that do not need fans. One, because they are noisy and two, they seam to push more dust in than I want. I like the blue fish controller and have been using it for 10yrs+ with no issues. It has a simple app that allows you to set the colors and time.

With my current set up over a 10g aio I used these
https://www.stevesleds.com/3-up-Tristar--Connected-Wiring-Series_p_207.html
Along with a ac to DC power supply and this style of driver
www.stevesleds.com

LDD Driver Array - 3X Drivers-8794102609

www.stevesleds.com
I have 2 set up with royal blue and 2 set up with natural white so 6 of each color. I also have single LEDs of green and red. I like them because they give you more light in a smaller area and that allows you to have a smaller light. Currently it runs at 35% power and is only 86d on the heatsink over the LEDs vs 81d on the supporting arm.
In my first LEDs, the adjustable PWM died from moisture on top of the light, that's why I now have the blue fish.
I purchased my gear from Steve's LEDs and Rapid led depending on what I need.
Let me know if you have questions.

Thanks Aaron
View attachment 41159
Click to expand...

I have been struggling with controller choice.
I already have an Apex, but it has 0-10V outputs only, no PWM, plus the base unit only has 4 channels.
Any my Apex is in the garage, far away from my display tank.
The Bluefish does look like a very good option. It has everything you need, and is nice and simple.
I was also thinking of no controller at all. Just use the Apex to control main power on and off, with no ramping.
Hmmm....
 
There is something nice about ramping, but I've come to the conclusion that it's simply because you get a few different color schemes, whiteish-blue, blue, and maybe "dark" blue ("violet") but that is something that you could also do with having separate channels to on/off, you simply don't get the smooth transition in that instant you're staring at your tank and it switches. Of course on something like the Apex each controllable socket is expensive.. I"d probably due a "all the time" (white-blue) and "night time" (royal blue/blue).

Looked into the bluefish myself way back when... but $200 is a hard pill to swallow for me just to control lights.
 
sfsuphysics said:
There is something nice about ramping, but I've come to the conclusion that it's simply because you get a few different color schemes, whiteish-blue, blue, and maybe "dark" blue ("violet") but that is something that you could also do with having separate channels to on/off, you simply don't get the smooth transition in that instant you're staring at your tank and it switches. Of course on something like the Apex each controllable socket is expensive.. I"d probably due a "all the time" (white-blue) and "night time" (royal blue/blue).

Looked into the bluefish myself way back when... but $200 is a hard pill to swallow for me just to control lights.
Click to expand...
Bluefish has a $100 version with no display. Considering you would use your phone app anyway, that is fine.

Apex VDM is also $100.

Another problem with the simple on/off is that LED power supplies have a lot of inrush current.
A big system like mine could be rather hard on Apex relays.

Dimming is a tricky issue:
The 0-10V is really for larger lights, that use the HLG series of drivers. A good way to go, except you have to deal with high voltages. Easily > 48V, making them dangerous, but on up to 400V.
The dominant small meanwell LDD-H DC-DC drivers use PWM only.
 
Yeah I know they had the mini version for $100 (plus whatever connectors you need since it's truly bare bones) but the open circuit board design just kind of turned me off as I've seen more than one piece of open air electronics corrode anywhere near my tanks.

Is inrush current really a worry? I didn't realize the DC power supplies really pulled that much.

And yeah I've used the LDDH series in the past, mind you the wired versions as I did mine right around the time all those handy plug in boards were coming out, so mine looks like a plate of angel hair pasta.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yeah I know they had the mini version for $100 (plus whatever connectors you need since it's truly bare bones) but the open circuit board design just kind of turned me off as I've seen more than one piece of open air electronics corrode anywhere near my tanks.

Is inrush current really a worry? I didn't realize the DC power supplies really pulled that much.

And yeah I've used the LDDH series in the past, mind you the wired versions as I did mine right around the time all those handy plug in boards were coming out, so mine looks like a plate of angel hair pasta.
Click to expand...
Inrush is commonly in the 40 Amp range. Put 2-3 power supplies on there, and it really adds up.
Short period, and limited by voltage drop over wiring, but still a lot for a little relay.
Key is that if the relay does not contact properly, perhaps due to a bit of salt corrosion, it is enough to quickly weld the relay points together.

The little bluefish generates almost no heat, so I am pretty sure it can be completely sealed in a small plastic box. Although you need to get to the connector. Hmm.
 
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