How Many LED's - need verification

lemonyx · Jul 23, 2012

So I think I have the total LED count down now and just need the LED Guru's to verify.

The tank is currently 48'lx36"wx24"h shallow sand bed about 3", SPS, some LPS several clams and a recordia garden and several rbta's and gbta's, so for LED's @ 3w:
30 Cree Premium Cool Whites, XP-G,
60 Cree Prem Royal Blues XT-E,
12 Cree Prem Blue XP-e
12 Cree Prem Red XP-E
Heat sinks will be 2x 18"lx8"w and fans if needed
drivers, Meanwell ELN-60-48P about 9 of them
and for Optic's the Carclo Ripple Wide?

tia

Reef Breeders · Jul 23, 2012

The carclos are a little tight for that tank, 8" wide heatsinks will cover 36" x 24" max with no optics. I would go with 4 12" x 8" heatsinks, with a total of 50 cool white, 50 royal blue, 10 blue, 10 violet, and 8 red.

Reef Breeders · Jul 23, 2012

Oh, and with the 4 heatsinks, you would have enough spread for the carclos.

Young Frankenstein · Jul 23, 2012

Why not a single heat sink ?

Reef Breeders · Jul 23, 2012

Young Frankenstein said:
Why not a single heat sink ?

It would need to be massive to cover 36", lets say somewhere in the neighborhood of 36"x24", unless a circuit board was used, in which case you could make a tight cluster and raise it really high.

mcghee33 · Jul 26, 2012

Have you thought about using U-Channel? That is what I am building with right now and for the cost you cant beat it. about 10 bucks gets you 96 inches. I am just cutting mine in half and using 2 of these and L Channel at the end to hold it together. You may need one more piece than me since my tank is only a 75 gallon but 40 bucks and drill a few holes and your done. Just my 2 cents.
As far as color goes I went with 42 royal blue, 6Uv and 24 Cool whites. All from bridgelux.

Reef Breeders · Jul 26, 2012

mcghee33 said:
Have you thought about using U-Channel? That is what I am building with right now and for the cost you cant beat it. about 10 bucks gets you 96 inches. I am just cutting mine in half and using 2 of these and L Channel at the end to hold it together. You may need one more piece than me since my tank is only a 75 gallon but 40 bucks and drill a few holes and your done. Just my 2 cents.
As far as color goes I went with 42 royal blue, 6Uv and 24 Cool whites. All from bridgelux.

The heat transfer will be less efficient, unless you can have a lot of air flow over the u channels, they will not work.

ReefLEDLights · Jul 27, 2012

anemonekeeper said:
The heat transfer will be less efficient, unless you can have a lot of air flow over the u channels, they will not work.

+1

Thermal Management is two parts. Mass and surface area. U Channel falls short in both counts unless you buy a bunch of it. At that point a quality heatsink costs about the same.

The cooler your LEDs say the longer they will last.

As far as optics go the Carclo are the best. If you have the luxury to hang the fixture 18-24" above the tank and mount the heatsinks perpendicular to the back you will be fine and have more PAR on the sand bed with little light spill.

Cree LEDs are much brighter than the bridgelux, run cooler and draw less energy. In the long run they are a better value.

Bill