DIY LED Makers

[High ICP]

Are there active DIY LED makers in this forum?

I used to be pretty active at Nano Reef, but that’s a ghost town now.

Anyway, I have 6 Ecotech G3s pucks for a DIY light. I just dug them out of storage.

I can’t really see myself putting them together today instead of just buying new lights. I don’t really want to put them up for sale, I just won’t get anything close to their value from them.

They didn’t have T5 LED hybrid fixtures back in 2014. The ones now look nice.

 

[High ICP]

Oh, have an idea

If someone has 3 Radion G2 that they want to sell cheap. In good condition. The pucks were G2 to G3 pucks.

That might work out for me. Just swap them out.

 

[Lingwendil]

A lot of us still build, but you may have better luck posting them up in the marketplace... Most of us like to go with a mix of individual LEDs and CoBs to get more versatility for later upgrades. The pucks lock you in to a single layout that isn't easy to upgrade without a complete swap.

 

[Equipt]

Hi, any chance you would consider selling the Radion G3 puks?

 

[Hermie]

A lot of us still build, but you may have better luck posting them up in the marketplace... Most of us like to go with a mix of individual LEDs and CoBs to get more versatility for later upgrades. The pucks lock you in to a single layout that isn't easy to upgrade without a complete swap.

What power level of LEDs do you prefer? I am doing research on a DIY light build and am looking at diodes now... I guess most are around 1 Watt? The ones I am looking at anyway... so I would need to solder a ton of them (ie: 30) when I'd prefer to just deal with 5 or 6 high power LEDs (blue)...

What do you think?

 

[Lingwendil]

I only recommend using quality brands like Bridgelux, LumiLEDs, Cree, SemiLEDs, VioSYS, Citizen, etc. Most are "3 watt" nominal, with some of the larger stuff being very powerful. It really depends on what you want to do. A very nice LED fixture can be built with 5-6 LEDs if you choose your stuff well. A single Luxeon K16 royal blue, a couple SunPlus cool white, a 460~ blue, and a violet or two would hit commercial level quality for a very modest budget, while being capable of very high output at great efficiency.

Depending on how blue/white you like it you can do well with 8 parts royal blue, 2 parts regular blue, 2 parts violet, 1-3 parts white as a start. Throw some cyan in there and pull the white down to get more of a natural look. It's all about personal taste and experimenting, as most reasonable builds will all grow coral well.

Stay away from the "blackbox" style of LEDs and arrays. Use the good stuff if you're buying from scratch, it's definitely worth it.