LED Project

**labnjab** · 02-07-2011, 11:26 AM

With a decent tax return coming we've decided to upgrade the led lighting on our softie tank. We just ordered everything we needed and a friend is building a canopy for us. Led stuff is coming from rapidled.com and the heatsink is from heatsinkusa.com

Heres what we ordered

6 Cool White Cree Q5 XR-E LEDs
6 Royal Blue Cree Q5 XR-E LEDs
12 -80 degree optics
1 Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable driver
5.375x 16 Inch heatsink
a 3 inch mechatronics 120volt fan
thermal paste

Everything should be here by mid week and we will hopefully have the light built by the weekend. It seems fairly simple to set-up with basic soldering skills and is suppose to be similar to a 150 watt metal halide, although I have to see it to believe it. All that you need to do to set them up is drill and tap the heatsink to mount the bulbs, then wire them to the driver. The dimmer will come later. I just ordered the dimmable driver so I could have the option to put them on a dimmer later on down the road.

This is all we have for now and I will post pictures once we get started with the build

**labnjab** · 02-11-2011, 11:14 AM

All the bulbs and ballast came in yesterday afternoon so all thats left is the heatsink, which should be here today. Then I just need to buy some hardware fasten all and a potentiometer from radioshack for the dimming circuit. A good friend is building us a canopy for us for material cost and a few frags for labor, so we should have everything up and running by this weekend. My night will consist of drilling, taping, and soldering ;D

Total cost will be roughly $240 including the canopy

**Cliff** · 02-11-2011, 11:27 AM

This is going to be a pretty good project

I'm going to follow along and see how you put it all togther.

I have been thingking about trying something like this for a while now

**labnjab** · 02-11-2011, 11:30 AM

If it works out like I want it to, I plan on changing over the halide on our frag tank to a 48+ bulb led set-up by summer.

**labnjab** · 02-14-2011, 04:25 AM

I screwed up, lol. I had it all wired up friday night, fired it up, it ran for 10 seconds and turned off. Turns out with the dimmable ballast I had to turn down the output switch inside the ballast. Its set for 1.3 amps and the LEDS are only good until 1 amp, so I fried all 12 leds :'( It doesn't come with directions so I found this information out too late. They were wicked bright for those few seconds, I saw spots for an hour, lol

Since we have $60 invested in the heatsink, I'm not giving up, I just ordered the same kit with a non dimmable ballast so stay tuned next week when I get it finished.

I managed to get all 24 holes drilled and tapped and only broke 1 tap. I used non stick spray for lube since it was all I had around the house, lol, and it worked great, just gotta clean the heatsink down with rubbing alcohol before I use the arctic silver. I'll have a few pictures in the morning.

**hockeyhead019** · 02-15-2011, 01:18 AM

Sorry to hear that man, cooking electronics is always the worst. Definitely get some pics up and glad to hear your gonna stick with it! sounds like a cool project

**labnjab** · 02-23-2011, 04:34 AM

We finally got it working ;D All lights are only running on 1 ballast since I still haven't figured our the dimmable ballast, but at least they are working. They are super bright. The color is somewhere between 14000K and 20000K and its even with no dark spots or mis colored spots and without the use of optics. Even has a shimmer comparable to our metal halides on our 75 gallon. Here are some pictures of it up and running and I'll post some of the build pics later
1st here it is with the old lights

FTS with new lights and canopy (thanks again Jay) and the glass really needs to be cleaned

The lights them self

The old light was using 18 3 watt gu-10 bulbs and new new light uses only 12 3 watt Cree Q5 XR-E bulbs. I'll be throwing a few of our more colorful sps frags from our frag tank in here to see how they do. If they grow well, or at least look good then were going to start saving for a set-up like this for our frag tank.

**Cliff** · 02-23-2011, 11:25 AM

Glad to see it worked out

Now I'm really thinking about do the same thing

**Goes to 11!** · 02-23-2011, 12:30 PM

Cool Thread! LEDs are the future.

**labnjab** · 02-28-2011, 11:11 AM

Thank you everyone. We need to have our canopy rebuilt. The leds are putting out too much heat and melting the glue that holds the canopy together. Luckily, none of the heat is being directed to the tank but I'm regretting not putting a fan in. The top of the heatsink is 140-150 degrees F by the time the lights turn off. The guy who built it is going to take care of it and at the same time will put a few holes in it for a fan or 2.

One of the ballast blew, the dimmable one. Turns out it needs a minimum of 8 leds to run correctly, and I had it on 6. (another thing they don't tell you) Luckily rapid led will warranty it but I ordered 4 more leds to add in, 2 royal blue and 2 cool white. I wouldn't have this problem if I only ran one ballast, but I want to dial the color in since its a little too blue so I need 2 of them.