LED help

[SmokeyCFH]

I intend on building an LED setup for my 135g some time in the future and I wanted to get a head start on trying to figure everything out. I'm still more than confused with LED's and drivers and all stuff so I'm requesting help. I see a lot of people using cree LED's but I've been told that since the whites come in 7,000k that they're not the best you can find...I found these lights that come in 2800k - 20000k and I was told that's what most corals prefer but since I'm still trying to learn I don't know what to believe.

These are the specs on the LED's I found...if anyone has any input and could help it would be much appreciated...also I wouldn't even know where to begin to get the right hardware to power these suckers (drivers, controllers, anything and everything I need for em). Thank you all for your help, I trust this site more than I do most LFS' and hardware stores lol Thanks again.

[h=3]Product Details:[/h][TABLE="class: tables data, width: 100%"]
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Place of Origin[TD]Guangdong, China (Mainland)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Brand Name[TD]FEDY[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Model Number[TD]FD-3W220-Y1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Color[TD]White[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Input Voltage[TD]3.2-3.6V[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Life[TD]50,000h[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Current[TD]700mA[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Intensity[TD]180lm available[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Intensity 2[TD]220lm available[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Chips[TD]Epistar , bridgelux[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Viewing Angle[TD]60-120degree available[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Lifespan[TD]50 000hours[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
Warranty[TD]1 year[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
CCT[TD]2800K to 20000K[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[jelly]

get 3 phoenix 45 kit from reefledlights The DIY Phoenix 45 Kit « Catalog Products « Shop « « ReefLEDLights | LED Aquarium Lighting ReefLEDLights | LED Aquarium Lighting
or 3 phoenix 55 kit The DIY Phoenix 55 Kit « Catalog Products « Shop « « ReefLEDLights | LED Aquarium Lighting ReefLEDLights | LED Aquarium Lighting

i got 3 55 kits on my 180 and i love them. the phoenix kits uses the best stock numbers that reefledlights have. get more info from bill in there forum.

 

[SmokeyCFH]

I was looking more towards building my own to further understand the pro's and cons of it all.

I'm just curious to know if the color temperature on these LED's are better than the cree LED's due to the fact that they run hotter. But with that said, how do I know what drivers or modules or whatever I need to to start my planning process. Thank you for your input, it's much appreciated!

 

[CJO]

I'm glad you're doing more research before buying. You've been given some incorrect information. Crees come in all different wavelengths, which are first broken up into colors for the major ranges and then into bins for the more specific ranges within the major ranges.

For instance, Cree bulbs are first broken up into color ranges- white, high-efficiency white, royal blue, blue, green, amber, red-orange and red. These are then further subdivided into smaller ranges.

Take white lights- white lights are broken up into cool white (5,000K-8,300K), neutral white (3,700K-5,000K), warm white (2,600K-3,700K), etc. Each of these is further broken down into bins. As an example, the cool whites can be broken down into WB (7,000K-8,300K), WC (6,350-7,000K), WD (5,700K-6,350K) and WJ (5,000K-5,700K). To confuse things a little bit, there are several more bins that are in the same ranges but that are further from the BBL- basically how close the color is to the reference black body.

To say that a coral "likes" a higher color temp (10,000K-20,000K+) has been thrown around by some people, but, to my knowledge, has never been proven. In fact, most coral grows in natural sunlight, which is at 6,500K. People, however, may tend to like what the coral looks like in the higher color range.

In order to get a higher color temperature, you can mix in blue and/or royal blue LEDs at various ratios. I have about a 2:1 ratio of blue to white LEDs on my tank.

There are also some downfalls of using no-name LEDs. The efficiency of the LEDs are generally much less than the better LEDs (CREE, Philips, Bridgelux) and they generally max out at a much lower current. This means that you have to buy more LEDs to get the same amount of light, need to buy more drivers to drive them, and you use more electricity. Also, there is no regulation to these LEDs, so you don't know what you are getting. They may say that you are getting 10,000K LEDs, but you may infact be getting 4,000K LEDs or 15,000K LEDs.

To me, the best reason to use CREE over other brands, especially when first starting out, is that there are many people who have done so before. You can find quite a few people who have step-by-step guides of how they built their's and what their results were. If you go with another brand, you will likely be on your own and have to do a bit of experimenting.

Hope this helps.

CJ

 

[Onedesign1]

+1 to what CJ wrote up. One thing I can add from my experience is that my corals under LEDs seem to do better under a more blue color temperature. I know the sun is 6500k but by the time the ocean filters out most of the spectrum its seems blue is the most dominant wavelength. I have experimented over the past 2 years and under a white spectrum my SPS started to bleach quickly...that white spectrum was 50% cool white and 50% Royal Blue. Once I moved to 66% Royal blue and 34% white everything changed.

In my experiments I have also used those FEDY LEDs and they are simply nowhere near as efficient as CJ points out. They run very hot compared to Cree, cannot be push anywhere near their max rating of 700ma and lumen for lumen there is no comparison to Cree.

 

[yeldarbj]

Agree with the two posts above: stick with Cree and go with 2:1 blue to white ratio. I've done several re-configurations on my LED build and continue to make tweaks to it. I tried 1:1 cool white to royal blue and didn't really like it. I'm now experimenting with mixing in some standard blues with royal blues and a separate string of true violet 420nm. Both seem to help a lot.

 

[SmokeyCFH]

This is what I was told by ReefBliss on facebook: "

There are 3 main LEDs used in fixtured today. Cree, Epistar, and Bridgelux.

Crees are what was used in the original Solaris LED models, that is how they got so famous in this industry. They are high quality but unfortunately only offer white LEDs in 7,000k.

Epistar manufactures 3w LEDs of equal quality to Cree but they have a spectrum more favorable for coral (14,000k-20,000k). You can google "Epistar" and see some of their test results.

Bridgelux manufactures 95% of the LEDs used in 1 watt and below models. They are the industry standard for 1 watt fixtures.

We have 120 watt dimmable models that offer Cree LEDs on sale right now for $350.00 + $15 shipping if interested."




I was told this which is why I thought I would come on here and ask. I want to do the DIY because I wanted to further understand how all this works and how it all goes together and since all of you guys seem to be the most knowledgeable I figured I'd ask all of you.

Thank you for your response CJO, you've helped quite a bit, great information! Thank you!


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[culturecorals]

Check out rapidled - Eric can help you.

 

[Warus]

+1 to RapidLED. I worked with Michael.. super nice guy.. I had never done this before, but I bought a DIY Nano Kit for my JBJ Nanocube.
Just built it two days ago.. was pretty simple, write up step by step they provide is excellent.

One thing i would do differently today, I bought a 4 LED moonlight kit to add-on. They are not dimmable and much too bright for my small tank.. I'll end up cutting two lights out of the loop and eventually buy a dimmable driver for them.

I bought the dimmer controller for this kit.. it works great, but I'll be buying something like the DIM4 Sunrise/Sunset controller soon.

My main goal was to complete a DIY project and learn about the LED world AND keep cost as low as possible while providing a quality light replacement. I feel I hit the mark on both goals.

Hope that helps.. I'd be happy to provide any assistance that I can.