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any LED Brainiacs here?

J

john90009

NJRC Member
i have learned that there are alot of led geniuses on a led forum somewhere on the internet- apparently the solaris leds are not strong lol- there are a few cree leds that you can over power the crap outta the led but you need to mount them on heatsink metal or else they will get really hot. I think that 1 or 3 watt leds focused over a 90 degree range at one foot should not burn the corals im hoping.
 
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rafal07013

so why not just DIY your own with 5 Philips LED with 80 focus lenses? than you can pick your own LED bulbs and focus lenses and pick what you want. Profilux has LEDS simulating sunrise and sunset and thunderstorms etc - not sure how strong they are but worth taking look at them.

in 2-3 weeks my LEDs are coming - if you want to see them - stop by.
 
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rafal07013

I live in Clifton NJ 07013 - the leds will come around Nov 15th.

After finishing the upgrade I was left with lighting problem for 210g tank. so I wanted something that would not break the bank and work in reality.

I have based my decision about LEDs on following criterias:

a) price - I got 210g tank plus frag tank to light up
b) control - I want to stimulate sunrise/sunset/cloudy days - plus more
c) warranty - PCB board is under warranty for 3 yrs
d) PAR readings
e) quality of the LED bulbs
f) solution to overheating problems
g) focus lenses
h) actual coral growth under the leds - I wanted to see examples of tanks that had these lights and talk to real users.
i) color pop
j) overdriving and power supply

once I did the homework I found what I was looking for.
 
J

john90009

NJRC Member
very nice what leds are in your fixture and how much power are they getting? they running on 350 mA or 1 A? i will definitely take a trip up when they get setup - are you asking your own fixture or did you buy one already if so can you give me the dimensions of the box? and how much did it cost you?
 
R

rafal07013

they are using 1W cree bulbs - but I made request to make some changes - for example I wanted Philips UVA to be added with blue/green - yes, I will lose on PAR but I want the pop of my corals.

Also debating if I should change atinic led bulbs from cree to Epistar since I like the blue color better with them. just personal choice. the change is also inspired by the fact that Epistart was the first one to come out with LED bulbs that change current - see controling options.

They are not overdriven - the power to the unit is only 24V.

it is not custom made - dimmension are about 20x10x3 plus/minus 1/2"

price? to light up my 210g tank 54x36x28 will cost me less than to buy two 36" ATI T5 fixtures from reefgeek. I am going with 2 120W modules that will be more than enough for my tank due to my aquascaping design and tank dimensions.
 
V

vangvace

rafal07013 said:
if you are looking just to supplement - powerbrites the way to go.
Click to expand...

LED rope would be cheaper, but I haven't seen the powerbrights in action yet. I wonder if Allquatics will let me take a look over one of their coral tanks...

john90009 said:
Where is absolutely fish? Also i know if you have a high power led which is 1-5 watts generally then when you power them on they hurt to look straight at them- i can look straight at t-5s all day because the led is made of be strong over am amount of distance it will penetrate stronger im guessing. the depth of my tank is 18 inches- i would need a strong led with alot of leds with an angle of 90 degrees light coming from them(concentrated to be powerful straight down)to penetrate deep in the water- im guessing this is why the halides creat shimmer- they are so strong with a 2 foot by two foot focal point that the shimmer occurs- since t-5s arent as strong and not focused into a once inch holder of the gas like in halides- the t-5 can not penetrate the water liek the halide. the visual effect is just the shimmer in my eyes. In solaris fixtures they use the 1 watt or 3 watt bulb- they have a concentration of 25 leds which make up one square- that puts out the par of a halide- im trying to figure out how much of the leds i wi;l need to achieve just the shimmer- if i had the money id buy a a hundred leds and alot of reds and blue ones to make a fixture to replace the t-5s but i dont have the money for that lol. Do you have a feeling liek i have that with a bunch of strong leds with a concentrated line of light that i can get the shimmer? Just think of getting a 5 inch square of 3 watt leds that are now used to replace metal halide fixtures in work shops and parking lots that i can put that over the tank to replicate a halides shimmer(not really the par values because theres not enough. I know some stuff i might not make sense but im trying to experiment and help anyone else that has the problem of no shimmer with t-5s, i know alot of people would change from halides to t-5s is they could keep the shimmer.
Click to expand...

60 degree optics give you about the equivalent of a 150W MH and 40 degree optics bump that up to a 250W. A couple things to note, a 5mm or 1W LED (not the same thing btw) is going to be the led equivalent of PCs over your tank. Yes it'll work, but not very well or as long as you would like. Now the 3 W LEDs make up for the PAR issue when combined with optics, but that comes at a cost of coverage and blending. That's also why we current;y need so many leds as well. It's not for their combined output, but coverage and blending of the individual light beams. A good example of this would be taking two small flashlights, like mini maglights for example with their tight beam, and shining them into your tank with the lights off. Moving them closer and further apart explains the coverage aspect.




john90009 said:
i have learned that there are alot of led geniuses on a led forum somewhere on the internet- apparently the solaris leds are not strong lol- there are a few cree leds that you can over power the crap outta the led but you need to mount them on heatsink metal or else they will get really hot. I think that 1 or 3 watt leds focused over a 90 degree range at one foot should not burn the corals im hoping.
Click to expand...

If it doesn't have a heatsink it shouldn't be a main source for reef lighting. You just aren't going to have the oomf you need. 1 watt leds should work for what you are planning on, but 3 watts would be better if you were looking for led only lighting.


john90009 said:
i hear you with the coral colors- i love the red and blues and greens to show different coral colors-i found this thread on rc and will be experimenting with leds when they are cheaper and more available around here and not just online led dealers.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1587273
Im definitely still going to come up and see your fixture though lol.
Click to expand...

Note that the par readings on in that first post are without optics. ;D I also recommend reading N-R ultimate LED Guide and here is a list of DIY mods on N-R http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=200335 N-Rs lighting subsection That sight should have a ton more info that RC has for LEDs.
 
J

john90009

NJRC Member
hah thanks i wsh they have just a plain and simple build on there that use a few leds to put over a t-5 tank- i saw some member put a picture of there t-5 tank with 6 leds over it 12 watts totatl idk how he got 12 i couldnt find anyone selling 2 watt leds- he has 3 on each side angles towards the middle of the tanks sand bed and it kind of looked ok but the coverage was not great and not that strong when all lights were up but still clearly shimmer was visible.
 
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rafal07013

vangvace - several assumptions that I would disagree a little bit. the problem is that unless you compare specifics led bulbs - making wild assumption that 1W will not work or "60 degree optics give you about the equivalent of a 150W MH and 40 degree optics bump that up to a 250W" - it is inncorrect. I can show you that 1W high output cree led bulbs on my 120W module will beat your 250 MH hands down even with 120 focus lenses.

thats why LED are such a difficult topic - you can come up with 100s of opinions that will apply to only specific LED bulbs, units, modules etc but you cant group them together and say it will work for all of them.
 
V

vangvace

rafal07013 said:
vangvace - several assumptions that I would disagree a little bit. the problem is that unless you compare specifics led bulbs - making wild assumption that 1W will not work or "60 degree optics give you about the equivalent of a 150W MH and 40 degree optics bump that up to a 250W" - it is inncorrect. I can show you that 1W high output cree led bulbs on my 120W module will beat your 250 MH hands down even with 120 focus lenses.

thats why LED are such a difficult topic - you can come up with 100s of opinions that will apply to only specific LED bulbs, units, modules etc but you cant group them together and say it will work for all of them.
Click to expand...

K, so let me clarify some things...

Using 12 Cree XR-E Cool White ran at 1000mA and 12 Cree Royal Blue LEDs ran at 700mA spaced 2.5" center to center in an 8 x 3 grid you will get the equivalent of a 150W MH with 60 degree optics and the equivalent of a 250 MH with 40 degree optics.

Now let us talk about your module for a second shall we? You fixture appears to use Cree XR bulbs (Almost have to be XR-E Q bins based on their product spec sheet ;)) spaced at most 3/4" apart without taking into account the trim around the bottom of the fixture. Yup something like that should hopefully give off a ton of par below it, though I am but skeptical of their par numbers since the only ones I've seen are from the company itself, but having 119 of the presumably (by me) same LEDs in a tighter package... even at one watt they better put out a ton of PAR. Though, outside of the center of the fixture I wonder how quickly PAR drops off.
I do hope you lights work out great for you and if they are using XR-Es the mod possibilities could be pretty high. You said you were going to take PAR readings yourself iirc?

For the solaris fixtures, which also used 1W LEDs, they also had 40 degree optics to get their numbers up iirc.



John, one of the things to look for is tighter optics. It'll make some difference in the amount of shimmer that you will see through the T5s, but I'm not sure how to quantify it exactly though. I'm heading to allquatics tomorrow and I'm going to see if they'll let me play with their powerbright modules over the TX5 fixtures. I'll let you know if I can see some shimmer or not provided they let me "play". Let me do some looking for some cheap LED rope.
 
R

rafal07013

but PAR can be manipulated by two things:

a) strong focus lenses

and

b) overdriving the PCB board

so if you take 1W and you put lets say 40 degree focus lenses - you will get fabolous PAR reading but you will lose the coverage area. I think both of us will agree on that.

but the module in question is using 120 degree focus lenses to support greater coverage area. there is a talk about the playing with 80 degree focus lenses in the future to eliminate the "PAR" talk at all. yes, with 80 degree you would sacrifice the coverage area.

take look what wingo wrote today at MR and I think his concerns are that not often addressed by producers of any LED fixtures.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/wingo-led/67164-led-bulb-differences.html

to what Wingo wrote I would add 2-3 another items such as overdriving the PCB board, effect of chaning current on LEDs etc, etc that will greatly affect life span of some LED bulbs.

I am all for testing the PAR in 2 weeks and I will come to anyones house with the module to do that. I am as curious myself to see the potential drop off in comparison to MH or T5s.





vangvace said:
rafal07013 said:
vangvace - several assumptions that I would disagree a little bit. the problem is that unless you compare specifics led bulbs - making wild assumption that 1W will not work or "60 degree optics give you about the equivalent of a 150W MH and 40 degree optics bump that up to a 250W" - it is inncorrect. I can show you that 1W high output cree led bulbs on my 120W module will beat your 250 MH hands down even with 120 focus lenses.

thats why LED are such a difficult topic - you can come up with 100s of opinions that will apply to only specific LED bulbs, units, modules etc but you cant group them together and say it will work for all of them.
Click to expand...

K, so let me clarify some things...

Using 12 Cree XR-E Cool White ran at 1000mA and 12 Cree Royal Blue LEDs ran at 700mA spaced 2.5" center to center in an 8 x 3 grid you will get the equivalent of a 150W MH with 60 degree optics and the equivalent of a 250 MH with 40 degree optics.

Now let us talk about your module for a second shall we? You fixture appears to use Cree XR bulbs (Almost have to be XR-E Q bins based on their product spec sheet ;)) spaced at most 3/4" apart without taking into account the trim around the bottom of the fixture. Yup something like that should hopefully give off a ton of par below it, though I am but skeptical of their par numbers since the only ones I've seen are from the company itself, but having 119 of the presumably (by me) same LEDs in a tighter package... even at one watt they better put out a ton of PAR. Though, outside of the center of the fixture I wonder how quickly PAR drops off.
I do hope you lights work out great for you and if they are using XR-Es the mod possibilities could be pretty high. You said you were going to take PAR readings yourself iirc?

For the solaris fixtures, which also used 1W LEDs, they also had 40 degree optics to get their numbers up iirc.



John, one of the things to look for is tighter optics. It'll make some difference in the amount of shimmer that you will see through the T5s, but I'm not sure how to quantify it exactly though. I'm heading to allquatics tomorrow and I'm going to see if they'll let me play with their powerbright modules over the TX5 fixtures. I'll let you know if I can see some shimmer or not provided they let me "play". Let me do some looking for some cheap LED rope.
Click to expand...
 
J

john90009

NJRC Member
oh jeeze i started a fight lol- either of you two know where i can get leds that i can put together that will produce strong shimmer over my 75 while all the t-5s are on? Kinda want a simple build thats going to work like halides so i dont waist my money and time.
 
V

vangvace

john90009 said:
oh jeeze i started a fight lol- either of you two know where i can get leds that i can put together that will produce strong shimmer over my 75 while all the t-5s are on? Kinda want a simple build thats going to work like halides so i dont waist my money and time.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that John. I'll stop since it's going/gone nowhere fast.

I was thinking about your dilemma earlier today and something you could try is going to lowes, sears, best buy, Spenser's gifts or places like that that would sell led light strings so you can give it a try. Plus if it doesn't work out it's easier to return than the ebay or online. :p LED lighting seems popular this year in Xmas lights too.
 
J

john90009

NJRC Member
i have led rope lights green- white and the leds in there are not strong enough or focused enough to provide penetrating through the water while the t-5s are on- i was wondering if any of you knew any places in NJ that sells strong leds seems like most places are just online sites- kind of hard to get hands on help by talking with someone on the phone - id rather have someone show me or face to face tell me what to do.
 
V

vangvace

K, I'll do some googling later and see what I can find for you since I'm on leave later. Where abouts do you live?

Oh and I noticed I have some shimmer on my tank with T5s. I have a lot of surface movement (two Koralia 4s in a 75g) and eggcrate over the tank. It's not MH shimmer, but it's there. lol
 
J

john90009

NJRC Member
i live in brick township 08723- yeah you notice the shimmer more when just your actinic are on in the dark spots of the tank like caves.
 
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