# LED Build, 465 Watts (Bridgelux EB Strip LEDs, prev. Vero18) *Updated 2017-01-18*



## Ultimbow

Cant see the picture


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## brooksie321

Epic build!! No kitty!! Bad kittyyyyyy (cartman voice)


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## skanderson

wow will that thing be amazingly bright. using just 5 of the 30 watt bxras, which are the precursors to the verso my 300 run at around 100 par 36 inches below the leds. looking forward to seeing how good those really high cri lights look with and without the added colors. going to be debugging my lights now.


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## Solcielo lawrencia

Can't wait to see this thing grow algae in action!


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## Fissure

Solcielo lawrencia said:


> Can't wait to see this thing grow algae in action!


Me too ! xD


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## PhysicsDude55

Holy crap that's a lot of LEDs. Those Vero LEDs are no joke! I almost used something similar, but was concerned about the heat from them, and went another route for various reasons.

Looks very clean and professional so far, can't wait to see how rediculous those are once they're in action. :drool:


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## saiko

wow!
Cant wait to see them up and running. Nice post!


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## limz_777

526 Watts of LED light :icon_eek: lol what you trying to grow ?

btw you got par reading on how deep veros led goes ?


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## JeffE

Subbed for sure!!


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## Xiaozhuang

For science! please run this on full power for sometime. Everything that is worth doing is worth over-doing-moderation is for the weak !


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## Fissure

limz_777 said:


> 526 Watts of LED light :icon_eek: lol what you trying to grow ?
> 
> btw you got par reading on how deep veros led goes ?


No I do not, really wish I had a par meter available to test it when finished.
Got a LUX meter at work but that won't help much for reading PAR.



Xiaozhuang said:


> For science! please run this on full power for sometime. Everything that is worth doing is worth over-doing-moderation is for the weak !


I would love that but not sure the fish would take it.


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## jeffkrol

Fissure said:


> No I do not, really wish I had a par meter available to test it when finished.
> Got a LUX meter at work but that won't help much for reading PAR.


You can "guesstimate"..
http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/conversion-ppf-to-lux/


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## Fissure

jeffkrol said:


> You can "guesstimate"..
> http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/conversion-ppf-to-lux/



Thanks for the link, will check that out!


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## jedimasterben




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## limz_777

when the drivers are coming in ? cant wait to see this bad boy fire up


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## O2surplus

limz_777 said:


> when the drivers are coming in ? cant wait to see this bad boy fire up


They're in the mail. I shipped them out over the weekend.:thumbsup:


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## robsworld78

Looking good, I like the idea of a computer case for everything. Where did you get the multi-conductor wire? That's a nice piece of cable.

One thing you forgot to mention, how much?


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## Fissure

robsworld78 said:


> Looking good, I like the idea of a computer case for everything. Where did you get the multi-conductor wire? That's a nice piece of cable.
> 
> One thing you forgot to mention, how much?


Got it from Elfa, called a control-cable translated directly. Unsure if you have the same name for it in the US. Digikey has them under Multiple Conductor Cables for example though it looks like they are in short supply for some reason.
I am going to post a shopping list when it is finished, will have to decide what day I want a sleepless night then.


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## robsworld78

I was looking for something like that but could only find 8 or 10 conductor. The price will be high but you'll have a very high quality light which can't be touched by the anything on the market, that should help you sleep.


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## Fissure

The cable I use are from an Italian manufacturer called Cabloswiss if that helps anything.


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## Gamezawy

Wow this is going to be a nice build, sorry for myself i bought a 30x Cree XTE ( 20x CW 6500 and 10x WW 300 ) to my 120p tank it is under construction now 

is adding all this colors necessary for healthy plant growth ?

and from where you got your Bridgelux Vero 18


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## Fissure

Updated the first post as of 2014-10-04 with some smaller progress.

Gamezawy: Would not say it is necessary but it will widen the spectrum of the light, also gives the possibility to tweak the color to your liking in the tank. Got any build thread on your light?

Have not happened very much unfortunately, no idea where my heatsink is, was hoping to give you an update after LEDs were mounted. 
Anyways received the smaller conductor wire and desoldered the old one and finished up the new one.









Also got a box where the male conductor will sit on the heatsink. Will mount the box upside down underneath the heatsink where all the smaller cables to the leds will go out from to keep it neat and tidy.









Not many pics today so will fill out with a pic of the tank as well  Not much of carpet plants since they mostly have died of. Also cut out the Shinnersia rivularis 'Weiss-Grün' (mid-right part), to skinny for my taste, will probably try to propagate the Alternanthera reineckii 'Rosanervig' in that part instead.


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## Fissure

Hello boys and girls, Time for a little bigger update today!
Have been home with a cold and a fever so have been able to dedicate some more time into the build the last 2 days.

I received the Drivers from O2Surplus and the heatsink on the same day. Hooked them up pretty much instantly to try them out, but had some issues getting the PWM signal to the drivers. Turns out it was the atmega chip on the board that was messing with me. After A LOT of messages back and forth with O2Surplus he suspected the above and we reprogramed the the atmega chip on each driver board. Turned out a success and the drivers and some of the leds were working. Big thanks yet again to O2Surplus, a really nice and helpful man!
Picked up the build after there and here comes all the pics !


Changed the cable inside the chassis to the smaller one i bought for the connector. Mostly because I had piece over.










Boards mounted on some bolts to get them up a bit so the fan in the bottom can reach the heatsinks underneath the driver boards.










Time for some serious wiring to the driver boards










Yay \o/










Checking so there has been no mistakes (there were actually one pair i had switched) 










Heatsink lying on the floor. Now this piece deserves a few extra rows.
The finish is pretty good on the top side and one front side. Otherwise there was some manufacturing defects and dings. Not enough for me to complain about though. It is... kinda massive and really heavy, in my imagination I fantasized about some light weight aluminum but I was really wrong. I would guesstimate it ways around 40kg at least. To be honest i am kinda worried for the tank and if we will be coming home to a disaster one day. Luckily the tank has thick plastic frames all around and two supports attached to this in the middle so it distributes the load somewhat atleast and it is not in direct contact with the glass. But still feels uneasy really :/
Anyway it is pretty kewl!


















Hooking up some veros to check the Controller functions and going through all the Vero leds.










Chassis for the electronics officially finished. Looking pretty tidy. Lot of gaps in the bottom though but will have to be that way, not visible anyways when it is standing.










Arranging the leds on the heatsink to achieve best coverage for my tank.










Started attaching the leds on the heatsink. Going with thermal paste and instant glue. Was planning to drill and use screws to attach. But to much of a hassle tbh. Using really small dabs of superglue on two sides. Should be able to pry them if anything brakes.










Soldering time!










Taking much more time then expected. So many wires and connections to be soldered. Going crazy.










The box that houses the D-SUB male for all the LED connections. Will push in all wiring there later to tidy it up.










All the Vero LEDs soldered and the red LEDs as well. The rest of the colors will have to wait until tomorrow. Getting ready for a test run here.










Kinda nervous tbh, checking the wiring over and over again.










Eventually i maned up and plugged it in. Dimmed to 1% here









25% here, the pictures do not make it justice though. These leds are insanely bright at 100% running only @ 300mA. Think I will try running them all at 700mA when finished. Might be to bright but will try until I get overrun with algae 










That's it for this time, will be updating soon with the finished build !
Thanks for reading!


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## O2surplus

Freakin' Epic build. Nice job :thumbsup:


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## gus6464

Xiaozhuang said:


> For science! please run this on full power for sometime. Everything that is worth doing is worth over-doing-moderation is for the weak !


Vero 18's can be run at 3000ma with enough cooling so he is nowhere near to the max power those puppies can put out.

On my Vero 18 build I had reflectors on mine which do not create a laser beam like optics do and I could push 400PAR at 3ft high from the substrate @ 1600ma.

Bump: This build is massive man! The attention to detail and craftsmanship of your driver/power case is outstanding.


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## Fissure

Hi everyone!
Judgement day has come. The project is close to finished except for some small details that needs tweaking.

In the last update I had finished soldering the Veros and the Red leds, I will continue the walkthrough with pictures, it's more fun than reading a wall of text.

So here we go !


So here I continue soldering the rest of the colored LEDs, a real pain. Awkward working position and painfully many wires to strip and solder, add to that 2 cats walking on your back and head and it gets kinda frustrating.










Starting to see the light in the end of the tunnel.










Closeup on one of the clusters, forgot to split the stars in the top left but hey [censored][censored][censored][censored] happends!










The feeling when everything is cleaned up and you realize that the majority of the finicky soldering are over is amazing. Feeling kinda proud 










First full test run, pushing in the plug in the wall socket was done with some hesitation...










Closeup on a lit up cluster, working really well. 










All the cables pushed into the box, was a tight fit but worked out as planned, should have put on one of those braided sleeves for a neater look but forgot. :angryfire










Finished product shot.










Cables clumped together with just a dab of glue to keep them from shadowing or blocking the smaller LEDs.










One more










And a tidied up star










Then my girlfriend came home and helped me lift up the heatsink since it is impossible to do safely alone, which is a drawback when it comes to tank maintenance and if you for some reason become single.










From the front, going really great with the tank design and does not stick out which was one of my goals for the project. Actually makes it look a bit more hightech and keeewwwl.










Had some issues with O2Surplus driver boards, they were making some serious noise when applying PWM dimming. Nothing he himself had issues with but this is a different setup and they behaved a bit differently here in Sweden . After some discussions with him we tried out a couple of different solutions, ended up with me swapping out the 15 output capacitors from ceramic ones to eloctrolytic ones and the problem was solved, no more noise from the boards when dimming! :biggrin:
The caps that were changed are the standing ones.










So that was pretty much it, gonna post some shots of the tank here.
This is with all the colors at 100% which actually gives a really nice color temp.










From above, not sure why...










The reds compared to the tubes I had been using are really amazing. They really stand out with this light. Can be tweaked even more to make them pop. 
Actually tried with only the reds and blues at max and the reds on the fish looked totally crazy glowing red. Not on this pic though.










He looked kinda dull before, not anymore ! 










Colorsssssss, no -post-editing done in photoshop, totally amazing me thinks.










So not much to do now really. 
Getting the controller to work as I want it, just have to learn how it behaves and it's functions. Got it simulating the weather from Manaus right next to the Amazonas. Pretty nice with the simulation of clouds etc.
Right now the drivers are running at the minimum current, around 300-400 mA wich gives much more light than my 4 x T5HO 54 watt tubes did and the coverage is now much better with very few dead spots. And the shadows the LEDs cast really makes a world of difference, and then we have the shimmering. All in all it really lifts the atmosphere in the tank.
One problem that I have to fix is the fans in the power supplies, the fans are redonkulous loud when they start and they do every 3-4 minutes when the light is at 100% and they go for 1-2 minutes. 
I have already cut the fan cable connected to one of the power supplies board and fitted a fan shoe for 3-4 pin fan connectors. Tried out a 120mm noctua fan and it worked as intended, no sound and the fan was just active for 20 seconds. So will get them installed tomorrow properly. 

All in all I am really happy with the result, it has been time consuming and kinda pricey but worth it now in the end.

BIG BIG thanks to O2Surplus for all the help he has given me under the project!:angel:

Got any questions? Feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading !


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## Onyx165

sweet baby jesus this is glorious

Can you show us some tank shots of certain color combos? For example, just reds/3000k, lime/5600k, violets/white, your favorite combos, etc (or just all possible combos :icon_mrgr) 

What was your reasoning behind putting the 3000k in the back? Some sort of horizon sunset effect I'm assuming?


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## Fissure

Sure thing, will take some photos of that tomorrow. The 3000k leds in the back was kind of a chance I took to be honest. In hindsight I probably should have either skipped the 3000K ones all together and had ten 5600k ones instead or i should have switched the two 3000k in the middle of the row with the two 5600k in the further most front of the fixture.
It looks kinda yellowish against the back wall now and it does not mix as I had hoped.
Nothing that can't be fixed in the future though. Never though about the sunset effect, but that would be friggin awesome if they were on a separate channel and would activate during sunset and the 5600k ones would dim down, unfortunately I "only" have six channels to use with the controller i chose so this Is how it will have to be for now. Though the system is prepared to accept 3 more channels, who knows?


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## Fissure

Switched all the leds to run 700mA and boy this thing is bright, probably pushing it now. Will have to slide it back when the algae comes 
Modded both powersupplies now and replaced the stock fans with 120 mm Noctua fans. Thing is dead silent when the fans activate, really nice. Had some noise coming from an inductor belonging to the driver running the violet LEDs that had a cracked casing/shield, resulted in some vibrating noise when dimming. Dripped som thicker type supeglue on it and the sound went away as the glue got hard.
Going up too 700mA on the leds sure resulted in some additional heat making me wonder if a heatsink this size is pretty much necessary for this much light, at least if you are gonna run it passive. At 300mA the heatsink felt cold to the touch but now it is slightly warm to the touch on the fins. Somewhere around 40 degrees C (104 degrees F). 


Going through my first day cycle now, starting with a morning period that is slightly dim and has a slight green/yellow tint with a touch of red. Pearling from the plants during this period were moderate. 
Now it is in the late stage of the midday cycle and man the pearling is crazy. Coming from everywhere and FINALLY my Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo' is pearling (and the pearling is goooood). Also the first time I see my Alternanthera Reinecii variants pearling. Turning of the pump for 5 minutes and just watching all the bubbles raise up in a straight line is so friggin calming.
Feels good getting some sort of confirmation on the build resulted in something better for the tank.

Currently the controller is fetching the weather from Manaus in Brazil. A City right next to the Amazon River which is kinda cool. It is partially cloudy today, kinda nice with the cloud effect in the tank.

Only negative I have right now is the 3000K leds in the back. It is a tad to yellow back there. Will probably replace those 4 leds later with something a bit cooler.
Also now during the midday cycle I noticed the Angelfish and tetras being a bit lower in the tank, still not hiding but not acting like they used to. Might be to bright in the tank or they just have to acclimatize to the new light. Kinda hard to now where to draw the line where it gets to bright for the fish. Rest of the tank inhabitants do not seem to care, minding their daily business.


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## Fissure

Uploaded a video from today to youtube showing a partial cloudy midday. Moving on to show individual color and colortemp adjustment and then a thunderstorm in the end.

The video is much darker compared to real life. Especially when showing the individual colors. The Nikon D7000 is not very good at capturing film it seems :/

Don't forget to switch to 1080p in the clip. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiWQROvXSY4&feature=youtu.be


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## brooksie321

Sweet build! Looks really nice on that tank, apistos popping too how that aggie and cac getting along?


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## Fissure

They are getting along fine, the aggie has the left side of the tank and the cac has the right side and the macmasteri holds the center back. There is some occasional fighting between the macmasteri and the aggie, especially the females, just enough to make it interesting


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## Gamezawy

Amazing man, amazing


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## vvDO

Your fish are going to need SPF 3000... Nice build. Colors are amazing.


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## O2surplus

Beautiful tank! The colors are gorgeous!


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## jeffkrol

O2surplus said:


> Beautiful tank! The colors are gorgeous!


so are you finally convinced that "just" ww and cw is not quite enough??? 

and to Fissure for setting the "bar" soo high..:tongue:

Anyways.. BRAVO.. beautiful build... 

I'm still sticking w/ cyan vs lime though..


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## mistergreen

Very nice. I'm playing with overcast clouds too for my LEDs. I'm using an Arduino 12-bit pwm to control an LDD-H. The overcasts are on regular intervals for convenience but I'd make it random sometime.


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## O2surplus

jeffkrol said:


> so are you finally convinced that "just" ww and cw is not quite enough???
> 
> and to Fissure for setting the "bar" soo high..:tongue:
> 
> Anyways.. BRAVO.. beautiful build...
> 
> I'm still sticking w/ cyan vs lime though..


LOL- NOPE & He had some help with that bar.:icon_wink


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## gus6464

Fissure said:


> Switched all the leds to run 700mA and boy this thing is bright, probably pushing it now. Will have to slide it back when the algae comes
> Modded both powersupplies now and replaced the stock fans with 120 mm Noctua fans. Thing is dead silent when the fans activate, really nice. Had some noise coming from an inductor belonging to the driver running the violet LEDs that had a cracked casing/shield, resulted in some vibrating noise when dimming. Dripped som thicker type supeglue on it and the sound went away as the glue got hard.
> Going up too 700mA on the leds sure resulted in some additional heat making me wonder if a heatsink this size is pretty much necessary for this much light, at least if you are gonna run it passive. At 300mA the heatsink felt cold to the touch but now it is slightly warm to the touch on the fins. Somewhere around 40 degrees C (104 degrees F).
> 
> 
> Going through my first day cycle now, starting with a morning period that is slightly dim and has a slight green/yellow tint with a touch of red. Pearling from the plants during this period were moderate.
> Now it is in the late stage of the midday cycle and man the pearling is crazy. Coming from everywhere and FINALLY my Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo' is pearling (and the pearling is goooood). Also the first time I see my Alternanthera Reinecii variants pearling. Turning of the pump for 5 minutes and just watching all the bubbles raise up in a straight line is so friggin calming.
> Feels good getting some sort of confirmation on the build resulted in something better for the tank.
> 
> Currently the controller is fetching the weather from Manaus in Brazil. A City right next to the Amazon River which is kinda cool. It is partially cloudy today, kinda nice with the cloud effect in the tank.
> 
> Only negative I have right now is the 3000K leds in the back. It is a tad to yellow back there. Will probably replace those 4 leds later with something a bit cooler.
> Also now during the midday cycle I noticed the Angelfish and tetras being a bit lower in the tank, still not hiding but not acting like they used to. Might be to bright in the tank or they just have to acclimatize to the new light. Kinda hard to now where to draw the line where it gets to bright for the fish. Rest of the tank inhabitants do not seem to care, minding their daily business.


Move the warm whites closer to the cluster. That will fix the spotlighting.

Bump:


jeffkrol said:


> so are you finally convinced that "just" ww and cw is not quite enough???
> 
> and to Fissure for setting the "bar" soo high..:tongue:
> 
> Anyways.. BRAVO.. beautiful build...
> 
> I'm still sticking w/ cyan vs lime though..


Lime was never meant to replace cyan. They make the tank look brighter without affecting color temp.


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## jeffkrol

gus6464 said:


> Move the warm whites closer to the cluster. That will fix the spotlighting.
> 
> Bump:
> 
> Lime was never meant to replace cyan. They make the tank look brighter without affecting color temp.


Right the limes were meant to replace green.. cyan's.. in this case are arguably better. Since it will fill the gap and be just as "bright" as a lime.. though of course a toned color..
http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/...e-green-leds-encourage-color-tunable-lighting



> However, in the absence of highly efficient green LEDs, Philips Lighting has taken a different approach with its Hue color-tunable bulb. Instead of a conventional green device, Philips Lighting has based the green element of Hue’s RGB light engine on a lime-green LED from Philips Lumileds’ Rebel ES family (Figure 2).
> 
> The lime-green device is not a pure-color LED, rather a combination of blue emitter and proprietary lime phosphor that overcome the efficiency problems of green devices. According to the Philips Lumileds’ datasheet, this blue LED/green phosphor combination is capable of an efficacy of up to 190 lm/W (2.75 V, 350 mA).


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## Fissure

Well it has been almost two weeks now with the light running over the tank. Had some smaller issues with the bluefish controller but it turned out I had set it up in a way that the software did not like and it bugged out. Got that sorted out quickly though with some help from the creator of the controller.
Other than that the unit has been working flawless.
The growth of the plants is crazy and I am not having any major algae issues yet. Some small amount of BBA on the driftwood close to the surface on some spots. Will treat that with hydrogen peroxide next WC.


The tank as of today. Image is a bit dark since it is sunrise time in the tank.










Had issues with the growth of the Pogostemon erectus with my old light. Growing really fast now.










Mix of Rotala sp. ‘Green’ and Rotala rotundifolia, the rotundfolia is finally getting the red-brown color I wanted.










Mix of Limnophila aromatica and Limnophila hippuridoides. The reds in hippuridoides is really nice. The picture does it no justice. The green in the aromatica is really intense and a nice contrast to the reds/purple in the hippuridoides. Trimming down the aromatic when it starts going red/brownish.










Rotala 'Bonsai', also had issues with it being stagnant and lower part of the plant melting. It is starting to recover. Soon time for some serious cutting and replanting.










Tried running the unit at max power at 1000mA on all the leds (except the ones that only can be run at 700mA) without clouds and a fast sunrise. Checked the heatsink temps after 9 hours and it was actually pretty hot. Measured around 50-60 degrees celcius. Makes me think a really big heatsink actually is required to be able to run this passively.

Promised to write up the costs for this project and will start doing so now will update the first post when I am done.

Thanks for reading !


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## brooksie321

Holy cow batman!! That's pretty amazing.


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## jedimasterben




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## gus6464

Damn man that is some insane growth in 2 weeks. You have basically built the ultimate planted LED.

What are your color settings?


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## Fissure

Yeah made some serious cuttings yesterday and moved some groups around. Had to rethink some plant choices now just to make the growth maintainable 
During the midday cycle all the colors are on 100% all the colored leds and the veros run at around 580-650 mA. During the sunrise and sunset the Veros are at max 50%, Reds @ 100% lime and green around 60% blue and violet at 30%.
Planted a new HC carpet yesterday as well hopefully it will survive this time.
Had to do some serious treatment with hydrogen peroxide as well. The plants were covering some real hotspots with BBA. Got some on the edges of old Anubias leaves but no traces on the rest of the plants. The backdrop and some of the driftwood (especially closer to the surface) was something else though really thick on some places. It is pink today though so it looks like its dying off. Scrubbed some of the driftwood manually and got rid of it that way as well.

Might add as well that the weather most of the time around the amazon river seems to be cloudy so the light has not really been on full blast a single day, probably a good thing though 

*Edit :* Added a new post with some pics from after the bigger maintenance yesterday. There is also a newer pic of the growth just before i trimmed it down. Link is in my signature below!


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## Fissure

So the unit has now been running for a couple of months and the growth has really been amazing. There has however been some issues that I did not think of when building the unit.
One of the goals was to keep it running without any fans and so I did. Thermal wise there is no issues. The heatsink is massive and doing its job really well. But since I am running a closed top with flaps there has been some issues with humidity. With the fluorescent tubes this was never an issue more than it leaving some mineral deposits on the tubes. But a couple of days ago i noticed one lime led was flickering and one of the UV leds were not emitting light anymore.

A couple of days ago me and my girlfriend removed the heatsink/fixture (yes you need to be two people doing this  ) and i looked over it all. 
The leds have been getting really wet it seems which of course should have been expected. And some of them have shorted and been damaged. 
2 Cyan leds are still emitting light but not as much as the others. 1 lime led is dead and all of the UV leds are severely damaged, black blobs inside the plastic case over the electronics on the led. My guess is that the UV leds are lower quality than the steveled ones im using since all of the UV leds are fudged. 
Also the EZ-connector to one of the vero leds had burned up and it was dead as well. Re-soldered this one using the solder-pads instead and it is now working again.

I will be ordering some replacement leds but the reason leading to this had to be fixed or it will just continue to be an issue.
I want to keep the lids since the light reflection from the water surface light up the whole living room to much. So I just used one of them circular saw thingies you put on a drill and sawed/drilled a 140mm hole and installed a silent 140mm computer fan.

Connected it to one of the driver boards from O2Surplus. Attached female and male connectors to the heat-sink so the fan can easily be disconnected when removing the front flap when maintaining the tank.
I'm gonna connect a fan controller to it at the power box so I can fine tune the airflow. Now I am using a resistance wire that came with my Noctua cooler for the computer. The fan is spinning really slow and cant be heard but is still moving to much air. I am using an auto-feeder for the flakes that sits on a hole made for it. But when it feeds the air-pressure blows away the flakes and it gets everywhere except in the tank.

Have been testing it out now and earlier when the lights has been off the flaps have been dripping wet when lifting it, getting a bit drier when the fixture has been on (still wet though). But now I checked yesterday before lights on and the flaps/leds and underside of the heatsink was dry as a bone. So mission success I guess, to bad I did not think of this before I destroyed fifteen leds.
Only downside is that the water temp has dropped with 4 degrees C so I had to install my heater again 


Will try to find a black fan cover to tidy up the look a bit.










Connection for easy disconnecting.


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## jedimasterben

Sad face for dead LEDs, happy face for figuring out the problem and fixing it!


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## Fissure

Been a while since I updated this thread, have not really done anything with the fixture since the last update. It is still going strong. Though I will do some modifications in the near future.

1.Will change the small taps that hold the lids from plastic to metal pins.
2.Ordered a new front flap, will drill out the fan hole properly this time, kinda halfassed it when i panicked over the broken leds.
3.Gonna change the 3000K Vero 18 leds in the back (4 pcs.) to 5600K ones. Like the colder light from the 5600K ones better, the 3000K is just to warm.
4. Changing out all the smaller star leds (all 60 of em) to the 3-way stars from stevesleds.com.
This will result in a total of 72 small leds on 24 stars instead of 60.

*Old led mix (each on a separate star):*
12 - True Cool Blue
12 - UV (2 different wavelengths)
12 - Cyan
12 - Deep Red
12 - Lime

*New setup 
6 stars with:*
UV "3.0" from stevesleds
True Cool Blue
Cyan
*6 stars with:*
Red
Royal Blue
Lime
*12 stars with:*
Deep Red
True Cool Blue
Cyan

*Will result in the following mix:*
10 x Vero 18 5600K, 90CRI
6 x UV
6 x Royal Blue
18 x True Cool Blue
18 x Cyan
6 x Lime
6 x Red
12 x Deep Red

*I am changing because*
15+ leds destroyed or damaged to different degrees. Did not take the humidity under the lid into consideration when I built it. LEDs to not like water as much as T5s 

*Reason for changing the led mix*
I felt the UV light was way to much. Ran at 40%, any higher started to bring out a whitish hue from the water looked pretty crappy esp. closer to the surface.
And the lime I did not use at all since it made the color temp to warm for my taste and the everything became to yellowish. I am sticking with 6 of em since I am changing the warmer Vero 18s to colder ones as well.
Adding the royal blue and regular reds just to mix it up and i want to try em out 

Will keep you updated when the stuff arrives !

Cheers // John


----------



## Gamezawy

please update us asap because i am following this thread from a long time and it is the inspiration for making my lights for my tank but i used the following led mix

vero 13 no reds no lime used only 4x leds from each royal blue, cool blue, cyan,UV 430 the only downside in my lights that it is showing the green color of my plants a bit pale tending to yellow and i have been advised to raise the cyan leds from only 4 leds to more

and you can see my thread about my problem here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=860162&highlight= 

and i am ready to change or add any other leds all i need is a good looking tank with white light like metal halides not yellow and a good plant color


----------



## jedimasterben

Gamezawy said:


> please update us asap because i am following this thread from a long time and it is the inspiration for making my lights for my tank but i used the following led mix
> 
> vero 13 no reds no lime used only 4x leds from each royal blue, cool blue, cyan,UV 430 the only downside in my lights that it is showing the green color of my plants a bit pale tending to yellow and i have been advised to raise the cyan leds from only 4 leds to more
> 
> and you can see my thread about my problem here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=860162&highlight=
> 
> and i am ready to change or add any other leds all i need is a good looking tank with white light like metal halides not yellow and a good plant color


http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7683369#post7683369

Don't know how more cyan will make a difference, really.


----------



## Fissure

I would probably add a few lime leds and also some deep red leds if I were you, not to many though if you cannot dim them. The Royal blue, Cool Blue, UV and cyan leds will make the tank look colder. You really have nothing to peak the green part of the spectrum more than the Veros.

EDIT: Will have to agree with jedimasterben as well, don't think more Cyan LEDs will help you.


----------



## jedimasterben

Fissure said:


> I would probably add a few lime leds and also some deep red leds if I were you


I wouldn't add any dedicated red. If your Vero chips are not high-CRI versions, then I would swap them out instead.


----------



## Fissure

jedimasterben said:


> I wouldn't add any dedicated red. If your Vero chips are not high-CRI versions, then I would swap them out instead.


Any special reason for this? I have the high CRI veros and I feel the red plants feel dull in my tank if I turn off the red leds in the tank. Will have to try this again, before I order the replacement leds


----------



## jedimasterben

Fissure said:


> Any special reason for this? I have the high CRI veros and I feel the red plants feel dull in my tank if I turn off the red leds in the tank. Will have to try this again, before I order the replacement leds


Really? Interesting. I don't have but one red stem plant myself, but it's as red as can be  What currents do you end up running all of your LEDs at?


----------



## Fissure

If I remember correctly i think they all run at around 700-800mA, the Veros included.
They are dimmed like this during peak hours.
White - 70%
Red - 50%
Lime - 20%
Cyan - 60%
Cool Blue - 100%
UV/Violet - 50%

Would like to run the reds higher but dont have enough blue leds to keep the light as cold as I would wish to then. Though I would like to say that it is a complete pain in the arse to find the right led mix :/
Now I got unsure about the tristar led setup I planned a few posts above :'(


----------



## jedimasterben

Fissure said:


> If I remember correctly i think they all run at around 700-800mA, the Veros included.
> They are dimmed like this during peak hours.
> White - 70%
> Red - 50%
> Lime - 20%
> Cyan - 60%
> Cool Blue - 100%
> UV/Violet - 50%
> 
> Would like to run the reds higher but dont have enough blue leds to keep the light as cold as I would wish to then. Though I would like to say that it is a complete pain in the arse to find the right led mix :/
> Now I got unsure about the tristar led setup I planned a few posts above :'(


AMEN TO THAT! Just be glad you aren't trying to dial in color on a reef tank. Dealing with so many different fluorescent and non-fluorescent pigments that absorb very different wavelengths, too much blue drowns out non-fluorescent, too much 'white' drowns out fluorescent, lol.

I can't speak to any other mix, but the one that I made for my tank is fantastic. Pure white color with everything at the same current (except lime, those are at 25% intensity compared to the others), so it made it super easy to dial in. Royal blue, blue, and cyan are on a 3up star and are run in series. Getting rid of the 3000K Decor is going to reduce the red in your array significantly - so you should plan on adding a lot of it back.


----------



## Fissure

jedimasterben said:


> AMEN TO THAT! Just be glad you aren't trying to dial in color on a reef tank. Dealing with so many different fluorescent and non-fluorescent pigments that absorb very different wavelengths, too much blue drowns out non-fluorescent, too much 'white' drowns out fluorescent, lol.
> 
> I can't speak to any other mix, but the one that I made for my tank is fantastic. Pure white color with everything at the same current (except lime, those are at 25% intensity compared to the others), so it made it super easy to dial in. Royal blue, blue, and cyan are on a 3up star and are run in series. Getting rid of the 3000K Decor is going to reduce the red in your array significantly - so you should plan on adding a lot of it back.


Ok, if you are having success with that then my setup above might be pretty good anyway. Kinda the same setup you are running just no 3000k veros and a bunch of deep red/red LEDs to counter that. Will place the order and hope for the best i guess  thanks for the input !


----------



## Fissure

So today I changed the 4 Vero 18 3000K ones to 5600K, went smoothly apart from me almost setting fire to my iPad case. Had the iPad to close to the Vero LED, at 100% the heat emission from the leds are pretty insane apparently. Noticed the smoke before it got out of hand though 

Really happy with the overall colortemp now. They yellowish tint in the back part of the tank is gone and I think that it looks a bit more "crisp" overall.

Kinda hard to tell with a picture but here is one I just took anyway.
Kinda weak on the plant side though since I moved some stuff around and rescaped some parts a couple of days ago and replanted most plants and ripped foreground plants out. Gonna be trying out some new stuff in the near future.

Now I just have to wait for the new tri-star leds and then I will update again on how it turns out.


----------



## O2surplus

Looks nice! I'm still running a 50/50 mix of the 2700K & 5600K Vero 18's on my tank, but I'm considering swapping out some of the 2700K for the 5600K versions.

Let me know if you ever need any replacement driver boards. I've got some spares stashed that I can send, if you ever need any.


----------



## Fissure

O2surplus said:


> Looks nice! I'm still running a 50/50 mix of the 2700K & 5600K Vero 18's on my tank, but I'm considering swapping out some of the 2700K for the 5600K versions.
> 
> Let me know if you ever need any replacement driver boards. I've got some spares stashed that I can send, if you ever need any.


Thanks! And once again thanks for the driver boards, must say I am still amazed how good they have been working! 
If you are changing to the 5600K ones be prepared for some major change in the color temp though. Was kinda surprised at the amount of yellow they added to the light now after i changed to all 5600K ones.
I am running the lime leds on 100% now though or the light was to cold imo.
Must say it is a lot easier to balance the color temp now when the veros are all the same color temp.

I have a tank standing empty, planning on setting it up in the near future and build something similar to this light system I have. Though with a lower profile heatsink. Granted this one gets hot when you run all at 100% but I cant do that anyway without getting an algae farm so I see no reason for such a massive heatsink again 
Will probably need some more boards then but will have to wait until I have decided exactly what to do!


----------



## Gamezawy

So How you ended up with your led mix, and the current running at for every color ? 

And any suggestions if any one will make a build like yours


----------



## Fissure

Hi and sorry I missed your post. The final mix ended up good though I feel that the colored leds do not add much in term of light power down in the tank. I mainly use them for fine-tuning the color temp of the light. If I would give any suggestions to anyone building something like this is try only using the vero leds at first. If you are not happy with the color temp add the colored leds you feel like you need. Also the veros are more powerful than you would think. I cannot run them at 100% with pres. CO2 and EI it just ends up with a lot of Algae. Also take a lot of time planning the placement of the leds on the fixture. Rescaping can be an issue since you might end up covering a lot of light with a piece of driftwood etc.


----------



## Fissure

Hello everyone, time for an update again. Said earlier that I was in the works of planning a smaller rebuild of the LED fixture. That went on ice when me and the girlfriend became horse owners 

But now its time to further refine my LED fixture.
Has been planning the new led setup today using the spectra website-tool that someone linked to in another thread. Really nifty when it comes to getting a nice spectrum (i think).

Anyways my "research" netted me the following conclusion that I think I will try out this time. Unless someone here has any ideas and or comments that changes my mind yet again.

Like before I will run 10 clusters evenly spread out on the heatsink over the tank, the heatsink itself constrains the cluster placing to the mid of the tank (depth wise).

Each cluster will consist of 
1 x Vero 18 5600K, 90 CRI LED
1 x Tristar with separate wiring (stevesleds) with the following
-Violet 3.0 (415-425nm)
-Deep Red (660-670nm)
-Royal Blue (445nm)
1x Tristar with separate wiring with the following
-Violet 3.0 (415-425nm)
-Deep Red (660-670nm)
-True Cool Blue (470-480nm)

I decided to entirely skip the lime and cyan leds. Looking at the spectrum I got they really don't do anything for the plants and I personally do not enjoy the warmth they give. The Vero 18 5600K has in my opinion an already perfect coverage there as is.
The true cool blue leds are used instead to bump up the spectrum between the light blue and start of the green.
More has been invested in the violet and dark blue areas and the deep end of the red spectrum to cover the chlorophyll A & B light as best as possible, question is if the deep reds will execisvly promote algae growth (read that somewhere not sure if that is true or not though).

Will link the pics from spectra below that shows the spectrum. The pictures are calculated for one cluster.

So what do you think and I wonder if it will be visually pleasing for our eyes to view or it will just turn out to be a red/blue mess?


----------



## jeffkrol

CRI chart and K temp will give you a visual look idea..Not seeing a problem though..

Just an FYI, since I had done it as well, in setup shift to freshwater.. You are set to saltwater.. thus the fluorescent proteins reference..
w/ multiple channels one can always dial in a "look"...


----------



## jedimasterben

Uh, neither cyan nor lime give off 'warm' light. :confused1:


----------



## pdeuchler

Will be following this rebuild with interest as I'll be building a similar rig soon-ish (although with probably half of the clusters since I have a 55g). Does the Violet/Deep Red make up for the lack of red spectrum with dropping the 2700k Vero? I'd love to be able to get my full spectrum with just one Vero and a couple tri-stars, but from what I've read the 2700k provides a lot of natural sunlight spectrum, especially for the simulation of times other than mid-day. 

That said, I'm not sure dropping the greens is the best idea. I don't have any experience with LED's in the aquarium, and most of my custom LED experience was on the software side, but from what I've done/seen before spectrums with only blue/red create a pretty severe white light that won't bring out the subtle colors on fish like your current setup shows (btw, those fish look amazing under that spectrum). I will probably be adding a tristar anti-disco with the lime/cyan/cool blue leds to each of my clusters for vanity adjustments but I'd be very interested to see if you're able to pull off a decent looking spectrum without them so I can save the ~$60


----------



## Fissure

jeffkrol said:


> CRI chart and K temp will give you a visual look idea..Not seeing a problem though..
> 
> Just an FYI, since I had done it as well, in setup shift to freshwater.. You are set to saltwater.. thus the fluorescent proteins reference..
> w/ multiple channels one can always dial in a "look"...


Oh totally missed that, thought such nice websites only were for saltys 



jedimasterben said:


> Uh, neither cyan nor lime give off 'warm' light. :confused1:


You are correct about the cyan not giving any noticeable warmth but I do disagree with the lime one. I currently have several in my setup and dialing them up really makes a visible impact on the greens/yellows.




pdeuchler said:


> Will be following this rebuild with interest as I'll be building a similar rig soon-ish (although with probably half of the clusters since I have a 55g). Does the Violet/Deep Red make up for the lack of red spectrum with dropping the 2700k Vero? I'd love to be able to get my full spectrum with just one Vero and a couple tri-stars, but from what I've read the 2700k provides a lot of natural sunlight spectrum, especially for the simulation of times other than mid-day.
> 
> That said, I'm not sure dropping the greens is the best idea. I don't have any experience with LED's in the aquarium, and most of my custom LED experience was on the software side, but from what I've done/seen before spectrums with only blue/red create a pretty severe white light that won't bring out the subtle colors on fish like your current setup shows (btw, those fish look amazing under that spectrum). I will probably be adding a tristar anti-disco with the lime/cyan/cool blue leds to each of my clusters for vanity adjustments but I'd be very interested to see if you're able to pull off a decent looking spectrum without them so I can save the ~$60


Not sure i quite understood what you meant there in the beginning? Will you be using a 2700K or are you wondering if am now compensating for not having one in my setup?
I used to have 4 x 4000K ones but I personally thought it was way to yellow. The dip in the yellow & red spectrum is not anything I am noticing with the 5600K Veros. Not sure what the plants say but then I do use some deep red leds and they do make a slight visual impact. How they actually affect PAR is really hard to say since I do not have a PAR meter. I think I am gonna buy an USB one now, tired of not actually knowing the strength of the light.

There is probably a risk of my tank with the new led setup will look very cold. I am kinda taking a leap of faith on this one and it is always fun to experiment, kinda expensive though since I have to order all the LEDs from the US and the shipping is a real kick in the face.
BUT don't forget that when using these 3W leds (in low amounts) the Veros will be doing the main work they are really insanely powerful at full blast or well to be honest I do not know how powerful they are at full blast since they can take 2,1 ampere and my drivers can "only" give them 1 ampere. But looking at the charts at bridgelux they pretty much scale 100% and that would be to much... like way to much.

Currently mine are dimmed at 50% @ 1A during midday and it is on the bright side.


----------



## fietsenrex

What was the total cost of the build project incl shipping?


----------



## Fissure

fietsenrex said:


> What was the total cost of the build project incl shipping?


I actually started calculating the final cost but stopped around 1200$ >
so it was over the top expensive.

But if one can get the leds locally and get a hold of a less oversized heatsink etc I think you could cut my costs by 50%


----------



## Fissure

Saw today that the spectra site could give you a spectrum estimate in one of the graphs, overlooked it last time. 17000K with the setup I listed up above. That will end up terrible I am guessing so back to the drawing board. The above setup might be good for a reef tank?

Been reading about photosynthesis and spectrums for 2 days now and starting to get lost in all the information.
I know I am overthinking this way to much right now. 

There is no exact match for the vero 18 5600Ks color spectrum at the spectra site so it makes it a little inaccurate when adding more leds on top of those you can choose from on the site. There is at least some of the cooler crees that have a spectrum that looks like a pretty good match comparing the spectrum-charts against the Veros.

Most likely the 5600K veros will do just fine by themselves or just adding a bit of red since the 5600K ones have a dip there. On the 5000K veros and below I think blue would "have" to be added to compensate the rather low peak in blues on all of them.
But the color spectrum does not grow any plants. 
I wonder what is the best route to take.
I am thinking if one should start building the more important peaks for chlorophyll A & B first. Putting in a good amount of violet, deep blue and cyan (maybe around 470-480nm). Doing this with the veros as a base. Then lastly adding in greens/yellow until you get a kelvin that is pleasing to the eyes? 

If I understood it correctly the biggest uptake of 
chlorophyll A is in the range of 400nm to 470nm and 660nm to 670nm
chlorophyll B is in the range of 420nm to 470nm and 640nm to 660nm
carotene 400nm to 530nm (guessing this is extra important for red plants?)

Some parts of these ranges are really poorly covered by white leds generally I would think, especially the UV/Violet ones, the deep blues and the deep reds bordering on infrared. Question is how much they are needed and if they could give an extra boost.

As a side-note I am not interested in more power but have an optimal (if there is such a thing) coverage of the spectrum with peaks (in some form or shape) at the places important for the plants.

This might also be a lesser problem for people with lower tanks, but for us with 24" and higher tanks penetration at the bottom becomes an issue as well I think?
Damn I really need to get my hands on a PAR meter.


----------



## jeffkrol

I was wondering how you were estimating the Veros..
anyways:









weak spots are >660nm and <430 really...w a dip in the 460-490nm range..


----------



## fietsenrex

Fissure said:


> I actually started calculating the final cost but stopped around 1200$ >
> so it was over the top expensive.
> 
> But if one can get the leds locally and get a hold of a less oversized heatsink etc I think you could cut my costs by 50%


haha no way my wife is going to approve that amount of money xD
problem is that here in Europe the LEDs are insanely expensive in the hardware shops or to ship them over here..
as for penetration dept, after about 50cm (19") you will need lenses to concentrate the lights.
I've got the same issue with my LEDs, there is just not enough light at the substrate of my tank (24" tall/vision450).


----------



## jeffkrol

> Been reading about photosynthesis and spectrums for 2 days now and starting to get lost in all the information.
> I know I am overthinking this way to much right now.


Plants can and will adapt to any "quality" of light...Just a matter of where in the chain you hit.


















http://plantphys.info/plant_physiology/light.shtml


----------



## pdeuchler

Fissure said:


> Will you be using a 2700K or are you wondering if am now compensating for not having one in my setup?


Haha sorry, was poorly worded. Both, but you answered my question. Luckily my light project is a month or two away, as I have to finish my sensor/pump automation first and my current lighting is more than adequate, so I'll be using you as a guinea pig. > You can spend hours designing a spectrum in theory but you never really know how it's going to look until you do it so I applaud your experimental attitude. 

As a side note I think the warmth you describe from the lime LED comes from it's yellow side of the spectrum taking the edge off of the royal blue LEDs, but I could be wrong.


----------



## kilauea91

Fissure said:


> Saw today that the spectra site could give you a spectrum estimate in one of the graphs, overlooked it last time. 17000K with the setup I listed up above. That will end up terrible I am guessing so back to the drawing board. The above setup might be good for a reef tank?
> 
> 
> If I understood it correctly the biggest uptake of
> chlorophyll A is in the range of 400nm to 470nm and 660nm to 670nm
> chlorophyll B is in the range of 420nm to 470nm and 640nm to 660nm
> carotene 400nm to 530nm (guessing this is extra important for red plants?)
> 
> Some parts of these ranges are really poorly covered by white leds generally I would think, especially the UV/Violet ones, the deep blues and the deep reds bordering on infrared. Question is how much they are needed and if they could give an extra boost.


I wouldn't worry too much about color temp or CRI given by Spectra. Those are the results of pushing all LED's at full blast, which is not likely you would do over your tank, unless your goal is to grow algae. 
As long as you are able to adjust individual color's intensity, you will find the best combination pleasing to your eyes. And honestly, it may very well depends on your mood for your "pleasing" color.
I find myself tweaking the colors all the time on my XR15FW and every time the result came out to be different.

I also came to find the violet/indigo/near UV(400-420nm) LEDs help pushing up the PAR while not affecting visually as much as ours eyes are less sensitive to that spectrum range. 
My plants seemed to respond well to those range also. If I were to add more LED to your selection, I would probably add a couple more in red/orange (620-670nm) to boost the Vero 5600K and make sure they are dimmable.

My understanding of red/purple pigment in plants is mainly from anthocyanins, and high PAR(or shall I say PUR) will encourage its production regardless of the red or blue spectrum. 
carotene is responsible for yellow and orange color in plants(think carrot).


----------



## Fissure

jeffkrol said:


> I was wondering how you were estimating the Veros..
> anyways:
> 
> 
> weak spots are >660nm and <430 really...w a dip in the 460-490nm range..


Yeah have been looking at that one too, when I said weakspots I was only thinking about that the intensity in those parts I mentioned is pretty low for the Veros. There is some coverage there and it might be well enough I am just not sure about it. Especially when it comes to the reds and their relatively poor penetration of water. So my thought was that in the more "important" areas of the spectrum for photosynthesis it might be a good idea to hit those with leds for the correct wavelength? To build some kind of peak there, it probably wont have to be large but just so you get some kind of penetration in those specific areas? I am not in any way saying I am right about this, just things I think about during the days 




fietsenrex said:


> haha no way my wife is going to approve that amount of money xD
> problem is that here in Europe the LEDs are insanely expensive in the hardware shops or to ship them over here..
> as for penetration dept, after about 50cm (19") you will need lenses to concentrate the lights.
> I've got the same issue with my LEDs, there is just not enough light at the substrate of my tank (24" tall/vision450).


I would think most commercially available fixtures will have issues penetrating 24" atleast if you are aiming for high light. But the Vero18s I do think have good enough penetration by them selves.
You can do a much easier build, I ordered the veros from digikey they cost around 13 euro a piece and I would recommend 10 of those on your tank. Then you really can skip the rest, the veros by themselves grows plants really well. Think there is a bunch of vero only builds here on the forum. Get some meanwell ldd 1A drivers and some form of pwm dimming and power supply. The biggest cost and problem will be the heatsink.




jeffkrol said:


> Plants can and will adapt to any "quality" of light...Just a matter of where in the chain you hit.
> 
> 
> Light


I see, the end product that the plants use for photosynthesis is that always chlorophyll A? All the other variants are converted to chlorophyll A by the plant?
I read that chlorophyll B is mainly produced when the plant has sub-par light and not so much under ideal light conditions. I guess hitting it the most where chlorophyll A is created would be most ideal? 




pdeuchler said:


> Haha sorry, was poorly worded. Both, but you answered my question. Luckily my light project is a month or two away, as I have to finish my sensor/pump automation first and my current lighting is more than adequate, so I'll be using you as a guinea pig. > You can spend hours designing a spectrum in theory but you never really know how it's going to look until you do it so I applaud your experimental attitude.
> 
> As a side note I think the warmth you describe from the lime LED comes from it's yellow side of the spectrum taking the edge off of the royal blue LEDs, but I could be wrong.


I will happily act the guinea pig 
Yeah the lime leds definitely adds yellow ! More or less depending on the wavelength of the LEDs being used.

Edit:Thanks for the link, good read!



kilauea91 said:


> I wouldn't worry too much about color temp or CRI given by Spectra. Those are the results of pushing all LED's at full blast, which is not likely you would do over your tank, unless your goal is to grow algae.
> As long as you are able to adjust individual color's intensity, you will find the best combination pleasing to your eyes. And honestly, it may very well depends on your mood for your "pleasing" color.
> I find myself tweaking the colors all the time on my XR15FW and every time the result came out to be different.
> 
> I also came to find the violet/indigo/near UV(400-420nm) LEDs help pushing up the PAR while not affecting visually as much as ours eyes are less sensitive to that spectrum range.
> My plants seemed to respond well to those range also. If I were to add more LED to your selection, I would probably add a couple more in red/orange (620-670nm) to boost the Vero 5600K and make sure they are dimmable.
> 
> My understanding of red/purple pigment in plants is mainly from anthocyanins, and high PAR(or shall I say PUR) will encourage its production regardless of the red or blue spectrum.
> carotene is responsible for yellow and orange color in plants(think carrot).


Yeah I am not taking the spectra stuff as fact, but hopefully it is somewhere in the ballpark at least. Sure makes it easier to fiddle around with different type of wavelengths.
I understand what you mean with dimming the channels and I do that as of now to achieve the color-temp that I personally feel pleasing to the eye.
But the whole reason why I am deep diving (or whatever the hell I am doing) into this is that I have this idea that I want to use the color leds for something more than just tuning the color temp.
As of now they are all set to dimmed values that just look pleasing to the eye but I do not really know how the final spectrum looks.
My thought is that maybe (probably not) you could calculate a really good spectrum with peaks where they are "supposed" to be according to the literature and then compensate with yellow green until you are in the color temp you wish to have. Then just maybe do some minor fine tuning with dimming when the light is over the tank. It is kinda hard to explain how I think not sure it is understandable, english isn't my native tongue. 

I do agree that the UV lights do make a noticeable impact. Mine are all broken now since my ramp did not have enough splash protection (will be fixed next time around) and I noticed a big dip in pearling after they went out and had to compensate this with raising the other leds to various degrees. And like you say the visual impact is really small for what they give and if I understand it right the UV/violets have the biggest penetration and photon energy in the spectrum and that sounds like it could really help deeper tanks like mine. The only negative about the UVs would be that if you have cloudiness in the tank they tend magnify this.
With the UVs I had a really nice pearling on my foreground plants, HC some grass types etc. Now they just lie dormant and don't pearl or grow to any larger extent! Not sure if it is all related to the UV/violets but it sure looks like it!

Yeah I read that about carotene as well. I guess carrots need a lot of it then 
On a side-note
Also read that the reason we perceive most plants as green is because that's the part of the spectrum the plant uses the least and thus reflects that part of the spectrum. Really simple but never thought of that before. Gets me to wonder if red plants do not use the red spectrum as much then?

//Thanks for all the replies !


----------



## kilauea91

Fissure said:


> But the whole reason why I am deep diving (or whatever the hell I am doing) into this is that I have this idea that I want to use the color leds for something more than just tuning the color temp.
> As of now they are all set to dimmed values that just look pleasing to the eye but I do not really know how the final spectrum looks.
> My thought is that maybe (probably not) you could calculate a really good spectrum with peaks where they are "supposed" to be according to the literature and then compensate with yellow green until you are in the color temp you wish to have. Then just maybe do some minor fine tuning with dimming when the light is over the tank.


So instead of a PAR meter, maybe you should up the ante to get this. It should give you the answers to your questions about your light and its real time settings.

Lighting Passport

https://youtu.be/YrLnWB_hJNc?list=PLcCw5iAlkAo4mTOM9TvdmaTXUDN4q_zKS

It seems like there are more and more handheld devices like this being released to the market, hopefully price will drop to become more affordable to regular hobbyist like me in the near future. :grin2:


----------



## Fissure

kilauea91 said:


> So instead of a PAR meter, maybe you should up the ante to get this. It should give you the answers to your questions about your light and its real time settings.
> 
> Lighting Passport
> 
> https://youtu.be/YrLnWB_hJNc?list=PLcCw5iAlkAo4mTOM9TvdmaTXUDN4q_zKS
> 
> It seems like there are more and more handheld devices like this being released to the market, hopefully price will drop to become more affordable to regular hobbyist like me in the near future. :grin2:


 Aw man if that thing just were able to measure PAR as well that thing would be friggin epic! Not as expensive as I thought though 79 euro is really affordable for a spectrometer. Question is how precise it is  
And it isnt submersible that will be an issue. Would like to get the spectrum after the light hits the surface of the water !


----------



## kilauea91

*LED Build, 526 Watts (Vero LEDs and Colored LEDs) *Updated 2015-05-25**



Fissure said:


> Aw man if that thing just were able to measure PAR as well that thing would be friggin epic! Not as expensive as I thought though 79 euro is really affordable for a spectrometer. Question is how precise it is
> 
> And it isnt submersible that will be an issue. Would like to get the spectrum after the light hits the surface of the water !




It does measure PAR(PPFD), but I believe it's sold as a separate app for extra $$. I would have jumped on it if it's cost only 79euro. Last time I checked, the basic model is ~$1000 USD. Yeah you are right it's not waterproof, but to a capable DIY'er like you, how hard can it be to make a waterproof case like those for camera to take underwater photos?


----------



## Fissure

Aaaah it can that is cool, but yeah 1000 euro is like waaaay to much !
The waterproofing is just like you say something that most likely can be fixed 

Just found in the following article
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/2/equipment
a comment in the bottom from a developer or something from the makers of the passport saying "very interesting, we are looking for someone to co develop a new APP for this market for our new Smartphone spectrometer call the Lighting Passport".
Hopefully to a more reasonable price, 2500 euro is a ridiculous jump from 79 euro...
Shame that comment was made 2 years ago, slow progress


----------



## jeffkrol

Fissure said:


> Aaaah it can that is cool, but yeah 1000 euro is like waaaay to much !
> The waterproofing is just like you say something that most likely can be fixed
> 
> Just found in the following article
> Aquarium Equipment: PAR Meters and LEDs - How Accurate are the Measurements? A Comparison of Three Meters and Lux to PAR Conversion Factors for LEDs ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
> a comment in the bottom from a developer or something from the makers of the passport saying "very interesting, we are looking for someone to co develop a new APP for this market for our new Smartphone spectrometer call the Lighting Passport".
> Hopefully to a more reasonable price, 2500 euro is a ridiculous jump from 79 euro...
> Shame that comment was made 2 years ago, slow progress


Just get a Seneye.. or the USB "apogee" clone..(well a real Apogee )
Seneye Reef Monitor - Bulk Reef Supply


> LUX
> Monitors ambient LUX and can be used to take direct LUX readings, understand how your light degrade over time.
> Kelvin
> Understand where on the kelvin range your lights are and how light can change over time.
> PAR
> Monitor the Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR), understand if you have the correct quanity and quality of light for your corals or plants.












http://premiumaquatics.com/products/biotek-marine-btm3000-par-sensor-15-usb-cable.html


----------



## Mighty_Pike

Fissure said:


> Saw today that the spectra site could give you a spectrum .


Where can I find that spectra site? 

Edit; impressive build btw

Skickat från min HTC One_M8 via Tapatalk


----------



## fietsenrex

Fissure said:


> I would think most commercially available fixtures will have issues penetrating 24" atleast if you are aiming for high light. But the Vero18s I do think have good enough penetration by them selves.
> You can do a much easier build, I ordered the veros from digikey they cost around 13 euro a piece and I would recommend 10 of those on your tank. Then you really can skip the rest, the veros by themselves grows plants really well. Think there is a bunch of vero only builds here on the forum. Get some meanwell ldd 1A drivers and some form of pwm dimming and power supply. The biggest cost and problem will be the heatsink.


thanks for the info, the tank which it might be build for is 27" tall  the tank will be 200x70x70cm 
so maybe use some lenses to get it from 120 to 90 degrees. and use 12 vero LEDs on 2 75cm heatsinks
but you used UV and deep red, those are not required?


----------



## jeffkrol

SPECTRA


----------



## Fissure

fietsenrex said:


> thanks for the info, the tank which it might be build for is 27" tall  the tank will be 200x70x70cm
> so maybe use some lenses to get it from 120 to 90 degrees. and use 12 vero LEDs on 2 75cm heatsinks
> but you used UV and deep red, those are not required?


I am convinced they help, but I do not think it is necessary if you are on a tighter budget than me.
Like I said earlier there is several here on the forum that has built Vero only light with great success and growing plants for them does not seem to be a problem


----------



## fietsenrex

Fissure said:


> *Old led mix (each on a separate star):*
> 12 - True Cool Blue
> 12 - UV (2 different wavelengths)
> 12 - Cyan
> 12 - Deep Red
> 12 - Lime
> 
> *New setup
> 6 stars with:*
> UV "3.0" from stevesleds
> True Cool Blue
> Cyan
> *6 stars with:*
> Red
> Royal Blue
> Lime
> *12 stars with:*
> Deep Red
> True Cool Blue
> Cyan


did you already order this set-up?
I'm planning on doing that exact set-up or maybe your old set-up without the warm white VERO's
btw what was the digikey partnumber of the VERO's? I could only find the decor 18 with 90CRI..

and à question for O2 can I PM you about the costs and capabilities of your drivers?


----------



## Mighty_Pike

jeffkrol said:


> SPECTRA


Thank you [emoji4] 

Skickat från min HTC One_M8 via Tapatalk


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## Fissure

So has gotten some PMs lately asking how the tank looks now and how the light is working and if it still IS working. 
Yes it is working really well, though there still are some broken leds from my failure to take into consideration the water condensation in the closed lid setup. The problem is solved like earlier mentioned but has not came around to ordering any new leds yet. Still struggling with the color setup.
Anyway still has some amazing growth !
Took some pictures today and here is one overview of the tank. It is a bit overgrown and in need of some trimming though I kinda like the wild look and letting the plants live their own lives 











And on a totally side related note I also have had my 30G setup now. Unfortunately the new surface skimmer took more space then I expected so my tech corner had to be removed so the left side looks like [censored][censored][censored][censored].


----------



## fietsenrex

it still is a great build, liking the colors and brightness very much


----------



## Arun.

*5600k ?*

There are no 5600 k led in vero series . How did you get them ? I can find 5600 k only in decor series


----------



## Fissure

That is correct, they have changed the naming scheme since a while back. It's the same LED in the decor series just a bit more updated. If I remember it correctly the 5600K one is now named "speciality". It looks like they are near to release Vero generation 7 and there is stated up to 6400K LEDs. If you are in the plan of buying maybe wait for that and see how they come out?


----------



## fietsenrex

As you can see the decor have plenty of light, and the 5600k is pretty cold light, I wouldn't go any higher with the K value


----------



## SpaceLord

You work in I.T.? 

I have seen devices like this before in my IT department when they use to make custom servers.


----------



## fietsenrex

who do you mean?


----------



## Fissure

I personally would not call the 5600K cold light tbh. But I guess it is a personal preference and matter of taste. I think the 5600K veros come really close to midday sun warmth. If I were to do a full rebuild I am not sure I would add any 3watt leds at all. The spectrum of the new 5600K speciality veros look really nice and doubt "peaking" the reds and blue really do that much of a difference. Especially with the low amounts of 3 watt leds I have installed and the fact they are run without lenses in my pretty deep tank.
The second time around I would probably build a less "advanced" light. Sure the color channels are fun to play with for a bit, but serve really no purpose in the long run. Sunrise and sunset I find usefull features. Tweaking the color intensity could just as well be done choosing the right led setup from the start (easier said than done though). Unless you really want different color temps during sunset and sunrise. Then the channels for the color leds is a must.


----------



## Arun.

Fissure said:


> I personally would not call the 5600K cold light tbh. But I guess it is a personal preference and matter of taste. I think the 5600K veros come really close to midday sun warmth. If I were to do a full rebuild I am not sure I would add any 3watt leds at all. The spectrum of the new 5600K speciality veros look really nice and doubt "peaking" the reds and blue really do that much of a difference. Especially with the low amounts of 3 watt leds I have installed and the fact they are run without lenses in my pretty deep tank.
> The second time around I would probably build a less "advanced" light. Sure the color channels are fun to play with for a bit, but serve really no purpose in the long run. Sunrise and sunset I find usefull features. Tweaking the color intensity could just as well be done choosing the right led setup from the start (easier said than done though). Unless you really want different color temps during sunset and sunrise. Then the channels for the color leds is a must.


So, which color temperature do you recommend? 6500k and 3000k veros?


----------



## easternlethal

*LED Build, 526 Watts (Vero LEDs and Colored LEDs) *Updated 2015-05-25**

so you'd only use the vero now? no UV?


----------



## fietsenrex

like fissure said, the colored are nice to have for setting different kinds of colors.

I've build my fixture to the most recent plan of fissure and to be honest, the vero's make quite a nice color, the colored ones are now just for the lighting modes at the beginning and end of the day.


----------



## easternlethal

Okay. I just thought he also said UVs do make a difference and the vero doesn't cover the entire spectrum.

I have a 5600k yuji on the way and some hcs I've never been able to make pearl so was just wondering if I'd have to supplement. 

I don't care about sunrise and sunsets because my tank room already has that.


----------



## jeffkrol

Fissure said:


> I personally would not call the 5600K cold light tbh. But I guess it is a personal preference and matter of taste. I think the 5600K veros come really close to midday sun warmth. If I were to do a full rebuild I am not sure I would add any 3watt leds at all.


Yeaa but then you miss stuff like this. Not that everyone cares but I find it nice to see in the morning and evening..
Need deep reds and low K whites though.. 








:


----------



## Fissure

Arun. said:


> So, which color temperature do you recommend? 6500k and 3000k veros?


I would recomend only 5600K veros, which is what you probably would end up with the mix you mention anyways. The Veros are so strong so when mixing different color temps you might actually see the difference in the tank depending on how you place the LEDs.



easternlethal said:


> so you'd only use the vero now? no UV?


Currently I am using the 5600K veros and reds and blues for peaks. 
All my UV leds have broken due to water damage 
But I have not noticed any changes in growth since they went out. 
Problem with UVs if you ask me is that they further enhance any small water clouding etc if you have any. If I would recomend any leds to go with the veros it would be some sort of good quialty deep blue and deep red to enhance/peak that part of the spectrum.



easternlethal said:


> Okay. I just thought he also said UVs do make a difference and the vero doesn't cover the entire spectrum.
> 
> I have a 5600k yuji on the way and some hcs I've never been able to make pearl so was just wondering if I'd have to supplement.
> 
> I don't care about sunrise and sunsets because my tank room already has that.


They should make a difference but how much is hard to say, like I said above I have not noticed any change without them.



jeffkrol said:


> Yeaa but then you miss stuff like this. Not that everyone cares but I find it nice to see in the morning and evening..
> Need deep reds and low K whites though..
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> :


 Matter of personal taste but I do agree having some really warm/redish light in the morning is pretty sexy


----------



## easternlethal

Thanks for that! Can you let us have your thoughts on how / whether from a purely aesthetic point of view, the vero compares with, (i) a cluster of cree xpls and (ii) a Kessil... Appreciate your experience


----------



## Fissure

easternlethal said:


> Thanks for that! Can you let us have your thoughts on how / whether from a purely aesthetic point of view, the vero compares with, (i) a cluster of cree xpls and (ii) a Kessil... Appreciate your experience


No sorry I cannot since I have not tried cree leds or kessils unfortunately :/
However cree leds at the same temperature should look exactly the same, it will just differ when it comes to colored leds ofc.


----------



## easternlethal

hmmm.... the reason i say this is because I have compared kessils against cree xpls and the diifference is like night and day, because of the much wider cri from kessils. and i was led to believe that since cobs have a wider cri now, they should be closer to if not better than kessils, which is why i am experimenting with the yuji.


----------



## Fissure

Just went through the new Gen7 Vero18 and compared them to the Vero 18 Decor series.

Like I said earlier I personally prefer to avoid the lower color temp LEDs, I find the green/yellow washes out colors to much below 5000K.
Since there are some questions here about which ones to chose and I receive quite a bit of PMs regarding this I will try to explain my take on things below.

Lets start with the older 5600K one , I am pretty sure they have renamed the old 5600K one and moved it into their Decor lineup instead. Specs look the same.










This one has a nice color temp according to me (can actually be even colder without it feeling to cold as well). 
Color temp of 5600K
CRI 90 (Should give a correct reproduction of colors)
Driven at 1050ma it will produce a typical flux of 3400 lumen. 
Driven at 30Watts it will net 113 lumen / watt, not exceptional but above metal halides as far as I can see where most produce around 70-100 lm/W.

*The newcomers one should consider are the following *



























Here we can see the new numbers for their current gen leds. There is new color temps available, 5700K and 6500K, downside is that they now have a lower CRI index at "only" 80. Still should be high enough to not pose any issues with color rendition. The flux and lm/w has been increased by a substantial bit, they pack some serious punch now! I think 150lm/W is pretty amazing at least...
Now lets take a look at the spectrums.

*Spectrum for the Vero 18 Decor 5600K 90CRI (amongst others)*









*Spectrum for the Vero 18 Gen7s*









First of all for those of you maybe reading this and do not have any knowledge about wavelenghts I will make a supersimplified explanation here (anyone with more knowledge are free to fill in).
For growing plants we primarily want Violet, Blue and Red wavelengths. Yellow and greens are mostly reflected from the plants, this is why they are green to our eyes, the obvious exception being red plants OFC, but I suspect they are more dependent on the blue spectrum instead.
BUT using only Violet,Blue and Red would make the entire tank look Darkblue/Violet and not very nice to look at. So for this reason we add greens and yellows until we find it pleasing to our eyes.
Short and simple huh? 

So what can we make of this? 
Lets start by looking at the Vero 18 Decor 5600K (the line with the highest peak at the 450nm range).
The spectrum looks pretty typical for a neutral white light, it has a nice peak in the blues and lower amounts of green and yellow light.
What is clearly lacking is in the red spectrum, especially in wavelenghts over 600nm. Still this light CAN and WILL grow plants without any issues by itself.

Now lets move on to the Vero 18 Gen7s.
Here we have both the 5000K and the 6500K with high peaks in the blues and just as the 5600K they lack in the far reds. Here the 6500K stands out to me with the least
"unwanted light" but still maintaining a neutral light. The spectrums are for the 70CRI ones so for the 80 CRI ones the spectrum will most likely be a bit higher in the green and yellows.
This might be clear for most here but I will point it out anyways.

So if I would rebuild or recomend anyone I would chose either the 5600K or 6500K ones. The 6500K ones should pack some serious punch per wattage. This should be taken into
consideration if building for deeper tanks. I would also build out the red and blue spectrum further. 2-4 good 3W deep red leds around each Vero peaking at 650nm and evening out towards 600nm and 700nm.
I would also add some royal blues 1-2 good 3W leds around each Vero. Just to cower the small gap towards the violets/indigo. The reds and blues will also make some fish coloration pop more.
I would not add any more colors myself. But adding 1-2 lime leds would give one a much bigger scope to adjust the color temp.


*To avoid confusion*
I know lumens is not the best way to measure plant lights, PAR and esp. PUR is the correct way. But the makers of most leds do not give us this information and only going on this would make it impossible to buy leds/lights without buying a meter and every single fixture/cob/led/whatever and test them. I would love to do it but I do not feel like spending several hundreds of dollars for metering equipment I would one use a few times.
BUT looking at the lumen output and the spectrums and taking into consideration the wavelenghts our plants like we can get some kind of feeling for how the light should perform and pick together a LED setup that are filling our plants need for lights.
And this is in no way scientifically proven by any means, this is just the feeling I have gotten from trying several different Veros now and what matches my personal taste for color temp. With this being said I am of course still interested in finding the most effective spectrum while still keeping a pleasant look to the human eye.

Sorry for a long post and if I have been unclear please feel free to ask!

Bump:


easternlethal said:


> hmmm.... the reason i say this is because I have compared kessils against cree xpls and the diifference is like night and day, because of the much wider cri from kessils. and i was led to believe that since cobs have a wider cri now, they should be closer to if not better than kessils, which is why i am experimenting with the yuji.


When you say CRI are you talking about the Color rendering index?
I can't find any CRI figures for the kessils or the cree leds.
Personally I do not care that much about the CRI as long as it is above 80. Tried 70,80 and 90 CRI Vero 18s now and to be honest I cannot say I see much of a difference. And when adding in colored leds in the mix the CRI will be messed up anyways. But I see no reason to take a lower CRI led over a higher one of course. I take the highest CRI led available as long as it fills my other criteria.


----------



## fietsenrex

when I ordered my 5600K vero's they were already "decor" series 
but as you said they do quite a nice job on lighting the tank, I've got them running on 1A drivers and they are dimmed to aprox. 20-30% on the full daylight mode on my controller..
if I run them at 100% you can preform brain surgery next to the fish tank xD got 12 of them to get a better coverage of the substrate, my tank is 200x70x70 (cm).

colored leds are fun to play with, got per vero:
-2x deep-red
-1 cool blue
-1 royal blue
-2 violet 
all driven by LDD-700, 2 strings in parallel so each string gets 350mA, none run at 100%..


----------



## easternlethal

*LED Build, 526 Watts (Vero LEDs and Colored LEDs) *Updated 2015-05-25**



Fissure said:


> Tried 70,80 and 90 CRI Vero 18s now and to be honest I cannot say I see much of a difference.


I think you're right. I just got the yuji cobs which are supposed to be 95 CRI but I can't tell them apart from my cree xpls. 

But my plants seem to love it. I am getting x5 more pearling. 

I just realised that 5600k is a bit warm for my eyes so I might and some blues and reds like you suggest..


----------



## Onyx165

Looks like the Vero decor line is getting the upgrade to gen7 as well. 

http://www.bridgelux.com/sites/defa...or Series Gen 7 Data Sheet Rev A 20160729.pdf

+15-25% efficiency compared to the previous gen6 [emoji41]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## jeffkrol

easternlethal said:


> I think you're right. I just got the yuji cobs which are supposed to be 95 CRI but I can't tell them apart from my cree xpls.
> 
> But my plants seem to love it. I am getting x5 more pearling.


95 plus emitters have more red and more balanced blue green.
violet based but see 5600k chart pg8 vs VERO above.. night and day.. 

http://www.yujiintl.com/files/high-cri-led-datasheets/VTC5730-YUJI.pdf

blue based not as much pg8 :
http://www.yujiintl.com/files/high-cri-led-datasheets/BC5730L-YUJI.pdf


----------



## easternlethal

if I am reading it right yuji has more lumens no? 

been running them for several weeks now and am starting to like them more and more. Can't see how I missed it but there's actually more sparkle and less 'glare' / tiring effect on the eyes compared to the crees. maybe because it has more red. I am running two at 75% and thinking of maybe adding a third vero


----------



## jeffkrol

Lumens are light in the visible spectrum that teh human eye is more attuned to.








http://www.nightsea.com/articles/lumens-fluorescence-1/


----------



## easternlethal

Sorry I meant PAR. I was looking for that measurement in the spec sheets but couldn't find it. 

So are you saying veros have higher lumens compared to the BC?


----------



## jeffkrol

easternlethal said:


> Sorry I meant PAR. I was looking for that measurement in the spec sheets but couldn't find it.
> 
> So are you saying veros have higher lumens compared to the BC?


Hard to say, depends on which Vero and which bin ect..
yujis are basically 100Lumens/watt 
Vero's are at least that ...some. 
85-147L/W


----------



## Fissure

Hello everyone!
So a little update. Finally my curiosity got the best of me and I ordered a Seneye Reef. Even though it might not be as a precise PAR meter as the Apogee par meter even with -+10% error marginal it would not matter really and from what I have read the Apogee might not be totally accurate either. And the Seneye was quite a bit cheaper as well 











Homemade wand










Will only use it for PAR measurements, the ph, temp and ammonia measuring I see no need for quite frankly. Also one less cord and gadget in the tank.
Things we can measure lightwise on the Seneye are PAR, Lux and Color Temp. There is also a graph in the program that plots the current color spectrum, kinda cool really !

So on the the measurements. As you now if you read this thread I have 10 x Vero 18s and 20 x 3 watt leds of mixed colors (Blue,Cyan,Lime,Red,UV).
I placed the seneye at the very bottom of the tank (there is currently no substrate in the tank) and in the middle depth and length wise.
Dialed back the Veros to 10% and turned of all the colored leds and started to take notes.

First thing I noticed was that the color temp was spot on said 5000K and that is what the Veros are supposed to deliver. The spectrum diagram looked to be a bit off though compared to the spec sheets from Bridgelux. Though I do not expect this to handle any form of real spectrum measuring.
The meter was under aprox 23 inches of water. The leds to surface distance is around 4 inches

*Power - PAR / Lumen (rounded this of to the nearest 100)*
10% - 28 / 1000
20% - 57 / 2000
30% - 85 / 3100
40% - 109 / 4000
50% - 136 / 5000
60% - 164 / 6000
70% - 194 / 7100
80% - 218 / 8000
90% - 245 / 9000
100% - 278 / 10000

So there we have it. That is some serious growing power there (can't belive I ran it for 100% the first couple of months). 
Also took some measurements on the colored leds by themselves and here are those results. 

*@100%*
*Color - PAR*
Red - 11
Lime - 34
Cyan - 11
Blue - 11
UV - 0-1

Note that the UVs are somewhat broken from water damage.

Also did some measuring around various spots in the tank with the leds dialed in at 
*Veros - 50%, Red - 90%, Blue 50%, other colors disabled* (this is what I use now for my midday).
Measurements taken at the glass bottom

*Location / Par*
Middle - 150
Middle front bow - 130
Front left & right - 160
Middle left & right 130
Against the side walls left and right - 90-100
Middle back - 160
Back left and right - 100-110

And finally with everything at 100% the PAR is 340.


Note sure what is considered low,med and high light when it comes to PAR.
Googled around a bit and some say high light is 50PAR and some say 150. So I went with 150.
Did some measurements on my 110L tank with 2 x 24 W T5HO tubes and got around 80-90 in the center of the tank though quickly sinking when moving to the back, front and sides of the tank. Nature of reflectors I guess?

Thanks for reading and if you are wondering something feel free to ask !


----------



## jeffkrol

There is some spectrum attenuation.. Reds drop a bit and relatively fast. UV/purple too.
Meter is probably not accurate in the deep red range or the blueviolet/UV range..
apogee isn't..the old style.
Seneye is probably not much different. (as shown)


----------



## Fissure

Yeah I have seen the discussion about that as well so I was expecting this. But I thought the results it would give would be precise enough for tuning in the light levels 
Though I have to say I am kinda impressed with the programs spectrum plotter. When using only the colored reds it was pretty spot on with peaks at the correct wavelenghts (correct enough atleast)


----------



## fietsenrex

nice measurements 

at how much mA do you run your vero's currently?


----------



## Fissure

They are running at 900-1000mA


----------



## jeffkrol

As a curiosity point: Ever do a kiil-a-watt measurement to see what its actually pulling from the wall?

BTW: Seneye is always in the back of my mind.. The sq-500 keeps muddying the waters..
No spectrum function and costly .Sensor only $300 

Your measurements are making it tougher.. Certainly acurate enough for "daily use"..


----------



## fietsenrex

Fissure said:


> They are running at 900-1000mA


That is great, got mine running at the same mA and % 
PAR meters are above budget for me since it would be a one time use..
But its good to know that my PAR is more or less the same when it comes to the Vero's 

Thank you very much for sharing the info


----------



## Fissure

jeffkrol said:


> As a curiosity point: Ever do a kiil-a-watt measurement to see what its actually pulling from the wall?
> 
> BTW: Seneye is always in the back of my mind.. The sq-500 keeps muddying the waters..
> No spectrum function and costly .Sensor only $300
> 
> Your measurements are making it tougher.. Certainly acurate enough for "daily use"..


Damn Jeff I missed your post sorry about that.
I actually have a Watt meter plugged into my main outlet where everything to the tank is connected. Will turn everything off and max the lights for you tomorrow to check that out


----------



## Maryland Guppy

jeffkrol said:


> BTW: Seneye is always in the back of my mind..


 @jeffkrol I thought you already had one of these Seneye devices?


----------



## jeffkrol

Maryland Guppy said:


> @*jeffkrol* I thought you already had one of these Seneye devices?


no have a box of photodiodes and filters. Was intending on a DIY to my specs.. 
now looking at getting the new apogee senosor. Obtained an amplifier board so it will work w/ any VOM.. Just haven't the "fun money" for it yet.. and my own project lurking in the wings..

Seneye is also there...but at about 3rd choice. Some reefers are building DIY spectrophotometers.. also monitoring..


----------



## Fissure

So finally time for an update. Has been planing to change some LEDs for a long time now but have been short on time. Got some time off work now and finally could do some changes.
I was originally planning to switch the Vero 18s for Vero 13s. Removing all colored leds and replacing the blue and red ones with new LEDs since some of them was damaged from high moisture levels pretty early on and some went after that due to carelessness with filter outblows etc.
Those issues have now been fixed so hopefully they will stay alive a little bit longer this time.

I decided to order a new heatsink from the UK, this time smaller profile since the large one was really oversized and weighed around 35KG. Making it impossible to remove by myself increasing maintenance difficulty. Got the new black heatsink a few weeks back, looks really nice and "only" weighing 14Kgs. Finally I can get it down by myself.

Also tried to get a hold of the new generation of Vero 13 6500K LEDs but have been waiting forever and they still are only available in quantities of 100+. And since I only planned to use 26 of them that would be a big waste of money, gave up but then read a thread on another LED build here on the forum and it got me going again. Stumbled across a new Bridgelux product, their EB series and it got really interesting.
Now moving on from COBs to LED strips instead. 
Bridgelux EB Series
They are available in three different lenghts, 280mm, 560mm and 1120mm and in five different color temperatures, 3000K,3500K,4000K, 5000K and 5700K and they all have a CRI of 80.
They are also rather efficient at 159Lumen/Watt. 
Most amazing (to me) are that they do not need to be heatsinked! Game changer if you ask me especially if you look at the price, one of the 280mm strips costing around the same price as a single high quality 3W cree led but outputting 16W instead at 700mA_*, *_some nice bang for your buck there.
So I ordered home 18 x 5700K, 8 x 5000K and 6 x 4000K.
My initial plan was to use 26 strips on 4 channels and leaving two channels one for red and blue 3W leds. But I scrapped that when building since I did not really use the colored LEDs anyway. So ended up with 30 strips instead all running at 700mA ending up at 500W total (totally necessary) 
Decided to mount 16 x 5700K, 8 x 5000K and 6 x 4000K on the heatsink. Spreading out the different color temperatures mirrored on both sides. Kept the old connection box and wires though I had to extend and shorten some of the wires for the new layout.
Having 6 channels on the controller and being limited somewhat by the fact that one of the driver boards being powered by a separate PSU I decided on only using 5 channels.
Two channels for the 5700K strips, two for the 5000K strips and one for the 4000K strips.
5700K = Channel 1 - Two rows covering the entire length of the fixture, Channel 2 - 4 strips in the center of the fixture.
5000K = Channel 3 - Group to the left, Channel 4 - Group to the right
4000K = Channel 5 - Entire lenght of the fixture.

This way after the midday cycle it will dim down all channels to 0% with exceptionfor the center channel which it dims down to 20% then during 30minutes it fades that channel down to 0% for the night. Giving a really atmospheric middle light glowing down like a spot.

Well enough of that, picture time !


When I realized I had forgotten about the camera I had already came quite some way, had to spread out the startup over a few days but finished most of it during the last evening/night. Since there was no requirement for a heatsink I decided to skip the thermal paste and just spot glue them into place with superglue. Used some spacers to keep it symmetrical and nice looking. Another nice thing is the four push in connectors on the strips, keeps the soldering to a minimum but there is also two soldering points on each strip.










Tooks quite some time to plan the layout of the strips and how to do the wiring to keep it as tidy as possible hate it when it looks messy and unorganized (OCD perhaps). Plugged in some of the strips pretty early on to test the color temperatures, made it easier to decide the placement of the strips.
Had three main areas to work with, center, left and right. My tank has two braces so it is a waste of light placing a strip above those, plus I do not want them to get to hot from the led being to close.










Old boards from O2Surplus, still going strong though I did notice a burnt out capacitor, you can see the burnt/exploded area on the top board just right of the black square box on the board itself. The channel still works strangely enough though. Did not had to make any bigger changes in the power box. Just switched the supply on two of the boards, since they are being fed from two power supplies the ground on the controller flips out of you try bridging channels to two boards being driven by different power supplies. Easy fix though.










Close up on the strips. Had to mark them to not mix them up, there was no way to make out what strip was what color temperature or type. Must be some mistake from bridgeluxes side. There is some serial number printed on the strips but it is the same on all of them...
You can also see the 4 push in connectors and the little tap you push to remove the cable if you need to. Another nice thing is that if a led burns out it should not kill the entire strip (atleast that's what it looks like to me from inspecting the channels on the PCB).









Put the camera away for a while so I could get to sleep faster. Here it is all hooked up and tested all at once for the first time. Worked out really nice.










Another board closeup, here you also can see the different color temps of the strips more clearly. The 4000K one being really warm, pushes out some decent amount in the red spectrum and also a bit in the cyan area (Jeffkrol  ).
Think the wiring came out pretty nice as well, turned out to be a good idea to use some of the wire as spacers when I glues the board into place. The wires were spot glued as well. Sitting really firm and strong but still being able to remove them without any damage to the wire or components (had to try a couple of times) 










Side view of the beauty, still had to rearrange the wires in the wire lane (not sure what you call them in English) and set the cable box into place. I was going to drill the cable box and then thread it but I could not find my 3,2mm drill head so I used a 3mm one instead, ended up breaking my thread thingy
and it got stuck in the hole. So I glued it into place for now until I get a new m4 threader again (not sure what the correct names are for threading and it's tools either)










Tadaa!










Top down. 










If that isn't sexy I do not know what is. It looks pretty impressive IRL. And when this thing is at 100%, [censored][censored][censored][censored][censored][censored][censored] it is bright. Starts hurting pretty bad in the eyes and that's great !










Sorry for the [censored][censored][censored][censored]ty tank pic, will have to take a better one. Has been battling some cyano for a while now and the tank has been dark for a pretty long time. Cyano is finally gone but now the plants need some love and care.









Turned out really well and even though only 6 x 4000K strips were used it makes a big impact on the warmth of the light. And the light coverage is MUUUUCH better now, only downside so far is that there is considerably less of a rippling effect now.
Only been running it for some hours now so a better evaluation will have to be done at a later date.

Will also take some PAR readings as soon as I have some time over, might be interesting to compare it to the Vero 18 setup.

Will keep it updated as best I can and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Thanks for reading !


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## jeffkrol

A little warmth goes a long way............
Glad to see you got the weight down..


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## flyfshrmn98

Looks good. I thought about trying those lights also. Curious to see the numbers vs your veros. Got a link to that heatsink?


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## Fissure

So whipped out the seneye today and did some readings. The tank is somewhat overgrown so hard to get a good reading at the bottom of the tank. But did move around the entire tank and with the strips at 100% I got the following results.
Front Left - 278 Par
Front Center - 280 Par
Front Right - 260 Par
Mid Left - 301 Par
Mid Center (somewhat shaded from driftwood) - 300 Par
Mid Right (raised 3 inches) - 370 Par


So with the old setup driven at max (all leds) I got around 350 Par in the mid center and much less in the sides and back and with the 10 x Veros 18 I got 278 Par in Mid Center. So this packs more punch than the 10 older veros but that is to be expected since the total wattage is higher.
But the light is much more uniform now, there is no real blind spots anymore and the top of the moss wall in the back is much more lit up now, was pretty much all dark before. So I would say they sure pack some punch and have the power to push down into deeper tanks very nicely.
I have targeted around 150 par during midday as uniformly I could through the tank and ended up with them all dimmed to 53% to achieve that. Will try do take some more precise measurements when I have tidied up the tank some more.








flyfshrmn98 said:


> Looks good. I thought about trying those lights also. Curious to see the numbers vs your veros. Got a link to that heatsink?


Yup here you go Heatsinks: 1000 Series - 1240HS | BAL Group Ltd


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## flyfshrmn98

Fissure said:


> So whipped out the seneye today and did some readings. The tank is somewhat overgrown so hard to get a good reading at the bottom of the tank. But did move around the entire tank and with the strips at 100% I got the following results.
> Front Left - 278 Par
> Front Center - 280 Par
> Front Right - 260 Par
> Mid Left - 301 Par
> Mid Center (somewhat shaded from driftwood) - 300 Par
> Mid Right (raised 3 inches) - 370 Par
> 
> 
> So with the old setup driven at max (all leds) I got around 350 Par in the mid center and much less in the sides and back and with the 10 x Veros 18 I got 278 Par in Mid Center. So this packs more punch than the 10 older veros but that is to be expected since the total wattage is higher.
> But the light is much more uniform now, there is no real blind spots anymore and the top of the moss wall in the back is much more lit up now, was pretty much all dark before. So I would say they sure pack some punch and have the power to push down into deeper tanks very nicely.
> I have targeted around 150 par during midday as uniformly I could through the tank and ended up with them all dimmed to 53% to achieve that. Will try do take some more precise measurements when I have tidied up the tank some more.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yup here you go Heatsinks: 1000 Series - 1240HS | BAL Group Ltd


Those are great numbers. Even though they don't have great CRI, might have to try them on my paludarium and get rid of my old bxra LEDs. How hot do they or the heatsink get when you have them at their highest?


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## Fissure

At 100% the heatsink was hot but no problem to hold your hand on it and keep it there. I would guess around 40 degrees perhaps. Not sure how hot the leds get but I am gonna follow the warnings from bridgelux and not try it out


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## Kampo

wow this looks awesome. how would you compare the color rendering of this setup compared to your veros?


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## Fissure

If compared only to the veros I would say I can see no difference one way or another. When taking in colored leds into the mix I do prefer this over the old setup. I see no further use for colored LEDs personally. If one wan't to try "maxing" the spectrum for plants then you would need to add in colored leds as well. 

Have been hawking the tank today and at 50% strenght the pearling is crazy so I am convinced these are good leds. Ofc got crazy pearling with the veros as well but had to drive them a bit harder.
Think I will have to dial back the leds further since it is actually quite distracting and seems to make life hard for all the shrimp.

As a side note with these lights I now have a better light on the moss wall and noticed that the 10 green jade shrimp I threw in for "fun" have multiplied and seeing mini shrimp everywhere. The larger ones also has turned to a really cool dark green. Thought they were all dead


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## flyfshrmn98

I'm excited to play with these. I've got the 5700 and 3000k coming to use with my paludarium with bluefish controller


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## Kampo

how did you wire up each channel driver wise? did you put them in series/parallel i'm assuming if I remember right the short ones were 22V and 300ma rated?

i'm tempted to try a lower light version of this over my 75 gallon. only need about 100 watts. i'm tempted to just do 2 44in bars one 56k one 4k which should get me close, then add in 4 rows of RGB strip lighting for color correction/effects at sunrise/sunset.


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## jeffkrol

44" bars are 31W each @700mA..,, 4500 lumens though.


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## fietsenrex

Nice change 
Really packs a punch those EB strips...

But the more even spread of light is pretty zelf explaining since almost the full 25cm of heatsink is dressed with leds instead of some 2cm pucks scattered over the heatsink.

I have the same in my big tank..
At half the height of the tank the light has filled the footprint of the tank, above it is almost nothing light wise


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## Kampo

jeffkrol said:


> 44" bars are 31W each @700mA..,, 4500 lumens though.


your right I was calculating in my 3 bars + RGB but wrote 2


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## Fissure

Kampo said:


> how did you wire up each channel driver wise? did you put them in series/parallel i'm assuming if I remember right the short ones were 22V and 300ma rated?
> 
> i'm tempted to try a lower light version of this over my 75 gallon. only need about 100 watts. i'm tempted to just do 2 44in bars one 56k one 4k which should get me close, then add in 4 rows of RGB strip lighting for color correction/effects at sunrise/sunset.



I have them connected Parallel, two units on each output from the driver boards. Tried series as well but only got aprox. half strength from them then. Not sure why, the power draw rose to 46V and the PSU are rated at 48... In my mind they should work better on my PSU (1.0A output) in series then in parallel, might have something to do with how the leds are connected internally on each PCB. Someone else here might have a better understanding of why then me. 

The PCB are also pretty good at transfering heat as far as I can tell and without heatsinking they get really hot so I would also say that mounting them on something heat sensitive should be avoided.


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## jeffkrol

46V is all you will get out of an LDD and other drivers.. Call it 2-3V overhead..

One driver per board is the most recommended configuration..though a 2 parallel board w/ say an ldd1000 (500mA per board) is fairly safe.
If one of the boards goes out the other can take the full 1000mA.


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## Fissure

jeffkrol said:


> 46V is all you will get out of an LDD and other drivers.. Call it 2-3V overhead..
> 
> One driver per board is the most recommended configuration..though a 2 parallel board w/ say an ldd1000 (500mA per board) is fairly safe.
> If one of the boards goes out the other can take the full 1000mA.


Can you overload a driver by connecting an oversized LED? Dont they just stop when they reached their max rated current? I am using O2 surplus boards and I think they have a max output of 1.4A but the driver can deliver 3A so I do not think I have to worry about that?

The interesting thing was that when I hooked up the boards in series and took voltage measurements I got 46V on the channel and when in parallel I got around 23V on the channel but the boards in series emitted much less light then the ones in series.


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## jeffkrol

Volts add in series. Amps add in parallel..


> series and took voltage measurements I got 46V on the channel and when in parallel I got around 23V


Perfecty normal.. 
In series the amps deaw will be what the driver is set for. In parallel it is A/2(number of parallel rows).
No LEd's are pretty passive...it won't "pull" current and overload a driver..
That said you can "overamp" an LED w/ a costant current driver..
It will ramp up voltage to meet the amp set point.. At some point the LED will likely go into thermal runaway and burn out..

Constant current drivers work by increasing the voltage to the diode until the setpoint is matched..up until power supply max-2 to 3V.
If there is not enough it will just stop short of current output..Too short and the diodes won't light (V(f)(start) not met)


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## flyfshrmn98

What are your thoughts now that you have had these running a good week


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## Fissure

They are working perfectly so far. Pearling is crazy at 50%, color rendition is good to my eye.


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## Kampo

so you mentioned these lights didn't require heatskinking in the specs. would you advise running them that way?

say mounted to just a sheet of reinforced sheet metal mounted in a wooden box (open on top and bottom) to make it look decent. even if I had to run some fans in the box to keep things somewhat under control


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## sir.tie

Where did you buy LEDs, what's your source?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## gus6464

sir.tie said:


> Where did you buy LEDs, what's your source?
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


I just ordered a couple strips from digikey. Got the 22" strips in 5700K and 4000K. Very cheap.


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## Rinklr

Hi, I've been watching this thread for a while now. How are you guys liking the EB's? I'm planning on building my girlfriend a nice setup up for her tank and I'm looking at using these.


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## Fissure

I am very happy with them so far I must say, they are still going strong and there are no individual leds not working etc. Heat output does not seem to be much of an issue with these leds and they do pack quite some punch considering this. I also order from digikey, fast delivery to Sweden and they are quite nicely priced. Have you had any chance to play with them yet gus6464?


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## sir.tie

Do you use any optics on them?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## Fissure

Nope no optics used, tried optics a little with the first build but did not like it at all.


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## Kampo

so if you didn't have a big heatsink and started from scratch. would you just mount the whole mess to a metal plate? or do you think the heatsink is needed?


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## Fissure

Yeah I would try it just out of curiosity 
Though keeping them as cool as possible is no bad idea since they will perform better if at a lower temperature. But investing in a serious heatsink for them might be a waste of money since I think the heat transfer from the PCB the leds are mounted on are poor at best, no metal backside.


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## Fissure

So just noticed it has been 6 months since I started using the EB leds and just wanted to update. And the good news there really is nothing to update about. They are all running strong and had no issues with burnouts and heat etc. Held up for some accidental water splashes as well though nothing I would recomend ofc


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## The Dude1

It is a complete travesty that the pictures are no longer up. This is a fantastic thread.


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## Fissure

No idea why the pics are down though :S


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## Wobblebonk

Seems like I can see the pictures if I quote and go to the urls directly, but for some reason they won't link with [ img] seems like they might only let you link now from approved sources or something?


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## jeffkrol

Wobblebonk said:


> they might only let you link now from approved sources or something?



Good possibility. 



Had problems w/ my images posting till I got the free "cert" from my web host.
things seem to be working for me again, though a bit sporadic at times.
Though that could just be a population lag (???)
not sure it's a https thingy or not. Should have read the paper work but believe its some sort of google requirement.


> This server uses a Domain Validated (DV) certificate. No information about the site owner has been validated. Data is protected, but exchanging personal or financial information is not recommended.


No idea..

The MACHINES have taken over, I am but a pawn..

Some outside "borrowed" photos didn't and still don't work..


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## bigcat39

Fissure,
what are the width and length dimensions of your heatsink? I have read your posts and I cannot find that info. Thank you


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## jeffkrol

bigcat39 said:


> Fissure,
> what are the width and length dimensions of your heatsink? I have read your posts and I cannot find that info. Thank you



first post.. 


> Heat sink (Black anodized) from Birmingham Aluminum UK. Measuring 1490x250x80 (mm)


59x10x3 inches roughly..


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## bigcat39

of course! the first post! Thank you jeffkroll. I am making slightly smaller clone of this light using a makers slim heatsink


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## Fissure

Thanks Jeff for answering. Also I have changed the heatsink after the first build and the swap to the bridgelux strips. It is the same dimension except the height is aprox. 20mm instead of 80 mm, cutting down on the weight a lot.


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## bigcat39

Fissure,
I am building a lighting system using yours as a very close guide. I love the look of your tank and am trying to replicate it in a smaller form. The tank is a 72g (272l) bowfront, 48" X 13" to the bow which is 18" (122 X 33 to 46 cm). 21" (640 cm) deep minus the substrate.
I have decided to use a Makerled slim hood kit 122cm long. I have verified via 3d CAD that 2 groups of 6 560mm strips will fit. Without overdriving the strips that will give me a max of 15,500 lumens. With a moderate overdrive, 20,000 lumens.
Using your light as a guide, I am contemplating a total of 6 5700k, 4 5000k and 2 4000k, in two mirrored groups My question is this: at the risk of complicating my driver design, is this a good mix of color temperatures? I have room on the heatsink to substitute 280mm strips for some of the 560mm strips with a moderate change in the drive electronics. Since I am using one buck drive per strip. That microATX case has lots of room and the parts are very cheap. Is it worth it to get a better spectrum of light, and more control over hour to hour intensity.
Thank you.


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## Fissure

bigcat39 said:


> Fissure,
> I am building a lighting system using yours as a very close guide. I love the look of your tank and am trying to replicate it in a smaller form. The tank is a 72g (272l) bowfront, 48" X 13" to the bow which is 18" (122 X 33 to 46 cm). 21" (640 cm) deep minus the substrate.
> I have decided to use a Makerled slim hood kit 122cm long. I have verified via 3d CAD that 2 groups of 6 560mm strips will fit. Without overdriving the strips that will give me a max of 15,500 lumens. With a moderate overdrive, 20,000 lumens.
> Using your light as a guide, I am contemplating a total of 6 5700k, 4 5000k and 2 4000k, in two mirrored groups My question is this: at the risk of complicating my driver design, is this a good mix of color temperatures? I have room on the heatsink to substitute 280mm strips for some of the 560mm strips with a moderate change in the drive electronics. Since I am using one buck drive per strip. That microATX case has lots of room and the parts are very cheap. Is it worth it to get a better spectrum of light, and more control over hour to hour intensity.
> Thank you.


Sounds like good mix of color temps there. Dimming is surely desirable with these LEDs as they output some serious light. The case I built is still going strong and working nice, though it was some work to put it together and the driver boards are custom made by O2Surplus just so you know. Not sure if that answers your questions?


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## bigcat39

Yes you answered my questions! I would love to use the O2 surplus boards.. Did you know Aaron passed away? So I am planning on using Coralux boards.
A lot of light indeed. At 180% thats 22,000 lumens.....


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## jeffkrol

bigcat39 said:


> Yes you answered my questions! I would love to use the O2 surplus boards.. Did you know Aaron passed away? So I am planning on using Coralux boards.
> A lot of light indeed. At 180% thats 22,000 lumens.....



Check out bluacro current adj dimmable boards..
https://blueacro.com/acroiq/


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## bigcat39

Those boards look very good. I wish the website had more detailed specs. However they are cost prohibative. That would be $240 vs. $82 for 12 mean well buck boost and 2 6up boards. My wife is understanding, but there are limits...Bridgelux design engineering told me I was more than safe by limiting available current to 1200mA per strip. Of course I won't drive them that hard except on a limited duty cycle.


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## jeffkrol

Boards are dual drivers.... $120 for 12 drivers (2x6)
Key is current adjust-ability..

top current is 1000mA..

JUST an FYI..

Just another FYI if you get boards w/ pull down resistors you need a controller..
3 boards 12 drivers $135.. 
https://www.rapidled.com/ldd-h-4s-driver-board/

Pull downs are jumpered so removable..

note there are "custom" boards coming up..

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...r-diy-ldd-l-driver-based-builds.545966/page-7


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## bigcat39

I'll have to go back to site for Blue device. I must have misread.
Wow I really like the 8up board.So much that I signed up on the site. Seems a like a great DIY community. Oh and another website has the ldd1200 for 5.59 each. And the 6up boards are 14 bucks a pop from the manufacturer. I Chased parts for a long time


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## Lingwendil

LDD-H drivers are only $4.99 at LEDsupply-

https://www.ledsupply.com/led-drivers/mean-well-ldd-h-series-cc-step-down-mode


Those PCBs at R2R are my little pet project, I wanted lots of options and something "different" so started drawing them up. Board cost can be very competitive if you buy 10+ at once from PCB houses directly


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