yman182
Active Member
Hello all,
About 7 Months ago I built an evil cluster for my 65 Gallon tank. The Bridgelux LEDs were always a little to yellow for my liking so I always pumped the other colors up to compensate for it. Now I had the itch to try something different and put my DIY skills to an hour of good use.
I began tinkering with the setup of my fixture:
My original setup had the following:
2x Bridgelux BXRA-409050-B-03 LEDs
7x Exotic Hyper Violet LED -430NM
6x Luxeon ES True Cool Blue
3x Luxeon Cyan
6x Luxeion M Royal Blue 12 Watt LEDs
Below is the original configuration of the LEDs
IMAG0135 by yman182, on Flickr
To do a side-to-side comparison I replaced One of the Bridgelux chips with the following:
5x Cree XT-E Bin 0D0 R5 Cool White LEDs from reefledlights.com
I know cool whites are not the popular LEDs to use right now, but I wanted to see how they would look.
Below is the new Configuration of the LEDs:
IMAG0473 by yman182, on Flickr
You can see I removed one of the Bridgelux LEDs and replaced it with 5 3W Crees.
For the install of the new LEDs I used the BJB Solderless LED Connectors and the accompanying optics and optic holders. I must say I wish I used these the first time around. This would have saved me a lot of time soldering and they hold the optics in much better than my dab of hot glue that I used.
As for the color of the Cree Cool White vs the Bridgelux Nuetral white, I cannot say which I prefer better. They are just a little different. I am going to look at them for a few days and update on what I think looks better. The cool white definitely seems a little less yellow.
I wish I could take good pictures and show you a good side-by-side comparisons of the colors.
One thing I do like better about the 3w LEDs is that I can place them more evenly across the fixture. Since my light is only 24†long and my tank is 36†I had to raise the light fixture pretty high to get the proper coverage of my tank. With the 3W LEDs I would have been able to place the fixture much lower since I can put LEDs all the way to the end of the heat sink.
TLDR; Still waiting to pass judgement on if I like Neutral or Cool White better. I love the BJB mounting hardware and optic holders.
About 7 Months ago I built an evil cluster for my 65 Gallon tank. The Bridgelux LEDs were always a little to yellow for my liking so I always pumped the other colors up to compensate for it. Now I had the itch to try something different and put my DIY skills to an hour of good use.
I began tinkering with the setup of my fixture:
My original setup had the following:
2x Bridgelux BXRA-409050-B-03 LEDs
7x Exotic Hyper Violet LED -430NM
6x Luxeon ES True Cool Blue
3x Luxeon Cyan
6x Luxeion M Royal Blue 12 Watt LEDs
Below is the original configuration of the LEDs
IMAG0135 by yman182, on Flickr
To do a side-to-side comparison I replaced One of the Bridgelux chips with the following:
5x Cree XT-E Bin 0D0 R5 Cool White LEDs from reefledlights.com
I know cool whites are not the popular LEDs to use right now, but I wanted to see how they would look.
Below is the new Configuration of the LEDs:
IMAG0473 by yman182, on Flickr
You can see I removed one of the Bridgelux LEDs and replaced it with 5 3W Crees.
For the install of the new LEDs I used the BJB Solderless LED Connectors and the accompanying optics and optic holders. I must say I wish I used these the first time around. This would have saved me a lot of time soldering and they hold the optics in much better than my dab of hot glue that I used.
As for the color of the Cree Cool White vs the Bridgelux Nuetral white, I cannot say which I prefer better. They are just a little different. I am going to look at them for a few days and update on what I think looks better. The cool white definitely seems a little less yellow.
I wish I could take good pictures and show you a good side-by-side comparisons of the colors.
One thing I do like better about the 3w LEDs is that I can place them more evenly across the fixture. Since my light is only 24†long and my tank is 36†I had to raise the light fixture pretty high to get the proper coverage of my tank. With the 3W LEDs I would have been able to place the fixture much lower since I can put LEDs all the way to the end of the heat sink.
TLDR; Still waiting to pass judgement on if I like Neutral or Cool White better. I love the BJB mounting hardware and optic holders.
