My winter led project

coralbeauties · Mar 19, 2016

I thought that I would share my led project that I just finished. I bought a piece of crap diy setup that had all cree leds and a jardurino controller with ldd drivers. I removed all the leds that were only 1/2 usable due to poor cooling. It has been a night mare trying to rewire it all and figure out the ardurino controller. My old setup was all cree leds on 3 different 9x14 sinks. I had them all running on nondimmable drivers. I wanted to add more leds but my sinks were already full with 47 leds per sink. I ended up adding 6 2x14 sinks with 11 leds on each sink. I wired them all in 7 different strings with each color on a different string so I can control it with the controller using ldd drivers. I did royal blues, blues, greens, whites, and reds. I found small 2in muffin fans for each of the new sinks for cooling. I am anxious to get my hands on the clubs par meter to see what kind of par I am getting. I was getting 600 par six inches below the surface with my old lights so really curious to see what they are now. I have a 180 gallon tank that now has 206 3 watt crees. My addition added 66 more leds to the system.
Jeff

Reefing Madness · Mar 20, 2016

drernesto · Mar 20, 2016

Nice!

Scottsquatch · Mar 20, 2016

Keep us posted on how it works out. I've often considered DIY LED systems. I'm curious as to how much your parents went up.

coralbeauties · Mar 20, 2016

I have always enjoyed diy projects. It has been a long road to get this new system up and running. I have seen magical smoke several times when I wired things up wrong. Dont know if I would undertake it all with the costs and quality of some of the lights that are available today. There is the satisfaction part of the project seeing it all come together but also alot of headaches. I will post up some par readings once I get my hands on the clubs meter. I am guessing I will have to turn down the output some. I am almost afraid to start up the extra strings till I have the meter.
My next project is to get the moonlighting function to work that the controller will do.
thanks for the good words
Jeff

Salty1962 · Mar 21, 2016

Very cool! That's allot of light

revhtree · Mar 21, 2016

Dang!

coralbeauties · Mar 23, 2016

I checked the par level tonight for just a bit before the lights started to dim. i saw 700 par at one of my show pieces, my av99 orange crush that is about 8 in below the surface. In that same area I was getting 300 par on the tank bottom with my 24 inch deep tank. My center light doesnt have optics like the other two and it showed in the par readings. Looked to be about 100 par or so lower. I will do some more through testing tomorrow.
Jeff