DIY Lights - V3

dacianb · Feb 24, 2016

BeastMode335i said:
Understood

I saw a DIY using eBay LED's and it actually came out fairly well so just figured I'd ask.. I'm a very novice DIY so I'd hate to spend such large amounts of money on something I've never done before so I contemplated on giving it a shot using less expensive items the first time around so figured I'd pick your brain a bit.. Thanks!

leds are only a small part of a system. Think like this.
Use cheap leds, will need 2-3 times the power of a high end led system. Will buy leds cheaper, but will need more of them, also from power and cooling everything will be bigger, more expensive.
Efficient leds are more expensive, but last longer, need smaller quantities, less energy (drivers), can handle higher temperatures (cheaper cooling system) and so on. A cheap light is not always cheap.
The lights I am doing are more expensive than ebay style, but much lower than top brand light systems at similar power. And I build them as I wish I think are quite OK.

nervousmonkey · Feb 24, 2016

Following. I like the high grade industrial aspect of the build.

dorky · Feb 25, 2016

i still love the board that u design when are you planning on a selling those lol

dacianb · Feb 26, 2016

Power boards finalized. Theoretically this week-end I can start the lights (at least with half of leds mounted, as I still miss some leds)

Here is one of the boards.

dacianb · Feb 29, 2016

Of course my wife had different weekend plans than me, so not too much time to work on lights, but still enough time to do tank maintenance, buy 2 nice corals

and solder 64 LEDs on 4 boards. Tested and works great.

All 4 boards are the same, on each light module will use 2, solving channel 1,2 and 5.
So on each board I put:
- line A - 3X Oslon Square Neutral White with CRI 90 + 2X Oslon Square Deep Blue (440-450 range) - channel 5
- line B - 6 X Oslon Square Deep Blue (440-450 range) - channel 2
- line C - 2X Prolight Opto violet (395-405 nm range) + 3 X Prolight Opto violet (430 nm)

michaelrc51 · Feb 29, 2016

Looks awesome.
Do you have a Par meter?

dacianb · Mar 1, 2016

michaelrc51 said:
Looks awesome.
Do you have a Par meter?

nope, I dont have one. I am just spending the money for a parmeter on lights and will just ramp up slowly until corals are happy.
I dont really believe that PAR is necessary and I am more in favour of PUR.

dacianb · Mar 1, 2016

I went a bit further, in first pic are the 3 thermal switches mounted - the 2x blue ones will shut down the lights when sensors get to 60°C and the black one on top is the fan start/stop system (fan on at 50°C and off at 30C°). Heatsinks and sensors are not aligned / screws not tightened yet.
On the second pic I mounted 4 boards on each plate (2 with leds on, 2 only as dummy to check holes alignments). Removing the protection foil is now visible how nice and shiny this part is

dacianb · Mar 9, 2016

Finally a weekend with a lot of free time, so I worked hard on the lights and are almost finalized (actually works great above tank already, but I still mis the top covers (to hide electronics), but is just a visual detail, not a functional one.
Still the lights are using only half of the planned leds, but the missing ones will be added a bit later - just have to be sure if I will need some new, different colors

During mounting things.... dang so many wires

- by the way, this is the living room table - so bet my wife was not happy

Here is the light with all wires where should be and all side covers mounted - just the fan is missing

Finally the fan is in:

And a view of bottom part - splash screen mounted (I used Lexan sheets as are way superior to regular PMMA) - still not all leds in, this is the reason of the hanging wires around. Once will add the missing boards, all wires will get into place.

Some more details....

And mounted on the tank:

Eckolancer · Mar 9, 2016

Looks good.

dacianb · Mar 9, 2016

Eckolancer said:
Looks good.

Thanks. Still need to make the top cover - so no fan / electronics to be visible.
Also have to rise a bit the rail system as due to my new pumps I have large waves in tank which comes really close to splash screen

and of course to add more 32LEDs / module.

Will be too much in the end, but better to use lights at very low power - you are led guru, so you should know why

dacianb · Mar 17, 2016

A quick phone picture with the 2 modules installed over tank. Even if light is uniform, if corals grow too large there may hit the shadow cones. So I ordered some 25 cm feets for the light ramps to rise the module higher.
Also due to high flow in tank, now waves are few mm under the lights and already salt builds on splash screens.

Please ignore the left side of rockwork - need to add more rocks and make it look more like right side

dacianb · Apr 26, 2016

New things to the light system after some long weeks...
- I added some metal covers on top of the lights - another cover will be added on the fan, also to keep the fan steady on it - this is ordered as 3D print
- also, in order to increase the coverage I build some feet to the initial light bridge in order to be able to fine tune the height of lights for max coverage and not too much light on carpet. Seems that now I find the right spot, so I can cut down the extra length of legs, so the whole system will look nicer

dacianb · Apr 26, 2016

Here are some full tank pictures (sorry I forgot to turn off the UV channel, so pictures looks so pink - in reality is a beautiful color - will try next days to take proper pictures)

jsker · Apr 26, 2016

Very nice setup, nice job on the lights.

dacianb · Apr 26, 2016

jsker said:
Very nice setup, nice job on the lights.

Thanks

actually the work on tank starts from now, as I am confident that the lights can sustain anything I will drop in there. The few corals you can see in tank are mostly "lab rats" and were there to see their reaction at different changes I made in lights. I burned couple of them (but they recover nicely), all other have great colors and grow.