# Anyone using the 5050 smd LED strips?



## Baadboy11 (Oct 28, 2009)

If you are using them I would love to see some pictures and get your opinion on using them on a small tank. I'm thinking of trying them on a 5 gallon.

Thanks


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Not yet, but I bought a 16ft roll and will do some testing.

Besides the (low) intensity, the specific LED spectrum is questionable. Remains to be seen if plants can adapt or if other colors need to be mixed in.


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## Baadboy11 (Oct 28, 2009)

Wasserpest said:


> Not yet, but I bought a 16ft roll and will do some testing.
> 
> Besides the (low) intensity, the specific LED spectrum is questionable. Remains to be seen if plants can adapt or if other colors need to be mixed in.


Where did you get them from?


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

From the 'bay. Search for "smd 5050 waterproof flexible" and you should get a good selection of those reels. Haven't received mine yet so I can't say much about them. I am using 5050's in my car though and they light things up nicely.

Mainly I bought them for under-cabinet lighting...


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## majstor76 (Jun 11, 2010)

I have also ordered some short strip of blue 5050 for moonlight.

For anyone interested, here are differences between SMD 5050 and SMD 3528

http://ad.novibo.com/articles/Articles_08SEP2010.pdf


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## Baadboy11 (Oct 28, 2009)

majstor76 said:


> I have also ordered some short strip of blue 5050 for moonlight.
> 
> For anyone interested, here are differences between SMD 5050 and SMD 3528
> 
> http://ad.novibo.com/articles/Articles_08SEP2010.pdf



Any pics?


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## majstor76 (Jun 11, 2010)

Baadboy11 said:


> Any pics?


Didnt arrived it yet, just ordered it. Ill post pictures when i get it, but i dont think that 1 ft of stripe will light up 110g. 
Maybe it will be enough, since its just for moonlight.
I like feature of stripes which can be daisy chained via some 4 pin connector so if you want more light just buy more stripes and connect them.


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## Mxx (Dec 29, 2010)

Baadboy11 said:


> If you are using them I would love to see some pictures and get your opinion on using them on a small tank. I'm thinking of trying them on a 5 gallon.
> 
> Thanks


I'm using a 120 cm strip of warm white LED's that I bought off Ebay on my 5 gallon Fluval Edge and it's doing a great job actually. I don't think they're even 5050's. They're just the ones that are sold as 120 white LED waterproof strip, which you can search by on Ebay. No idea what the PAR or Lumens are, but it appears bright enough. 

I bought cool white as well but wasn't happy with the colour at all. Please refer to my comments on the Freshwater LED fixtures thread where I comment on them in greater detail. 

I'm about to switch to a combination of warm white 5050's and cool white 3528 as I want them to fit flush against a flat piece of acrylic that I'm having lasercut for the top, so that I don't see the lights and which they can fit flush against the underside of. I'll just wrap the current strip around the Edge's stock fixture but don't think I'll be turning it on as I don't need that much light.


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## Baadboy11 (Oct 28, 2009)

^love to see pics if ya got any... and how much did they run ya if you don't mind me asking?


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## redfishsc (Aug 29, 2010)

The ones I saw were 6200K, which in the LED world will probably be less red output than most things fluorescent in the same color temp range. 

But I still think the overall spectrum will be just fine for growing plants, I've grown them under every cheapo T12 bulb from Lowes you can imagine-- warm white, cool white, "plant and aquarium", daylight.


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## Mxx (Dec 29, 2010)

The different strips were $7, $12, and $16, with the cheaper one requiring me to order a $3 transformer as well. I'll take some pictures when I finish putting in the new ones but that will be a little while still before I have a bit of time to do that.


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## Mxx (Dec 29, 2010)

Here are a few photos I'd uploaded in response. Cameras of course tend to polarize the image a bit, therefore it's difficult to judge for sure by them. Like the image of the lights on top of course makes the rest of the tank look very dark obviously because of their relative brightness playing havoc on the camera's auto adjustments. 

As I'd said, these are just temporary lights that I have draped across the top as I'm preparing my other ones. But as 120 totally generic warm white LED's they seem to do a sufficient job of lighting this 6 gallon Fluval Edge. I'm happy with the intensity of them and how they light up the tank. 

There is a slightly amber tinge to the tank, which is a result of the bogwood leaching some tannins still, so I guess I need to change my carbon as well to clear it up once more. 

http://img89.imageshack.us/i/edge001.jpg/
http://img193.imageshack.us/i/edge002.jpg/
http://img375.imageshack.us/i/edge003.jpg/


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## E.Eliveld (Jun 19, 2010)

Hi,

What kind of LEDs your using on the photograph? 

warm white - how many mA?

And how many?

120?

There is no other lightning? Only the LEDs? How high is the aquarium?

(sorry for asking but I just want to be sure I did understood correctly...)

Erwin


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## Mxx (Dec 29, 2010)

E.Eliveld said:


> Hi,
> 
> What kind of LEDs your using on the photograph?
> 
> ...


What kind? Um, Ebay. These are absolutely generic warm-white LED's that I bought cheap directly from a supplier in Hong Kong off Ebay. They are warm-white, but I have no idea how many mA. It's a 1.2 meter long string with 120 LED's. They're actually intended for use on cars but seem to be working just fine for me to use them to 'pimp' my tank instead. 

The tank is a Fluval Edge and I have little LED bulbs plugged into the stock sockets there, but that actually contributes a small amount of the total light, but I still need to keep it on or I have a dark spot at the back of my tank as I cannot drape the LED strip across that area as well of course. The tank is a nano obviously, and it's only 8.8 inches tall. 

This was just a temporary lighting solution, as I've already received some other flat LED strips which I'm going to mount to the underside of a flat acrylic 'C' shape piece which I will lay on top of the tank. And then I'll coil this LED strip around the stock lighting in case I really want to juice the lighting in that area, but it'll probably be too much so I'll probably trim this strip at least in half in order to do that. The design of it is important so I want something much more discreet looking than having this visible like it is now, but with a more standard aquarium hood I think these could work great and it'd be easy to string them around the underside of one.


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## E.Eliveld (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks Mxx for your reply.

The Led density is around 1 per cm (1.2 mtr of LED string / 120 LEDs). And your tank is 8.8 in = 22.4 cm in height.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Does anyone know what the max voltage is for these? Spec'd at 12V, but if you use them in a car, the voltage can be quite a bit higher. I have a transformer that outputs 13.6V in idle, not sure if that's okay, I guess trying is one way to find out. :tongue:


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## majstor76 (Jun 11, 2010)

I received today my 30cm 5050 strip. Here how it looks like










Aq is 1300 mm long


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Very difficult to judge anything from a photo, since cameras do all kinds of adjustments. Put the "regular" light aside of it and snap a comparison shot if you can.

I just put up some 5050's as under-cabinet illumination. Next project is the refrigerator. :icon_eek: I am still planning to set up something to compare the 5050's and some regular T5HO's side by side in one image.


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## Baadboy11 (Oct 28, 2009)

Dragging this back from the past, Wasserpest did you ever do the camparison shot with 5050's and T5hos?


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Sorry Baad, totally missed your question. I was going to do some comparison shots, but then I realized that there is no comparison. While these LEDs are great for lighting up cars and under cabinet spaces, you need stronger ones for planted tanks. Even en masse, these quarter Watt LEDs are too dim.


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