One off DIY LED setup

[Woja222]

I decided to do an led setup with SMD leds...I know what youre thinking...not bright enough but I dont think that's the case. I did a lot of research and calculation. So the white cree led has 3w and approximately 130lm per bulb. I see people usually do about 24 blues and 12 whites on a 75 gallon tank with 60 degree optics. So just to get in the ballpark range I'll do the numbers on the comparison of whites between cree and SMD. Did a lot of reading and the SMD cool white average watt is .24W and 14lm per chip. I have 288 white chips and no optics so I wanted to at least double my lumens since the viewing angle is doubled.
Cree @3W and 130lm----12 white cree = 36W and 1560lm w/60 deg optics
SMD @.24W and 14lm----288 white SMD = 69.12W and 4032lm no optics

My current setup is 288 cool whites, 216 blues, and 72 pinks. All on seperate power supplies and dimmers. In the picture below from top to bottom it goes two small blue pieces for moonlight, then pink-white-blue-white-white-blue-white-blue-pink.
I plan on changing the setup by taking the pinks out completely and replacing them with blues. Then adding one row(72) of red and one row(72) of green. So that will be 5040lm/86.4W of blue, 4032lm/69.12W of white, and the green and red with just be accent color only ran for a short time. Dont want to run the green long because it with "warm" the light spectrum up too much.

[pwreef]

Did you measure PAR? How are your corals doing under this light? What kind of corals do you have?

[pwreef]

The numbers you listed for Cree LEDs are at 350mA which is very low current. To run them at 3W you need to be in the 1A range. At 1A Cree XP-G R5 bin produces 348 lumens.
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP-G.pdf

[Woja222]

Originally Posted by pwreef

Did you measure PAR? How are your corals doing under this light? What kind of corals do you have?

Corals and fish seem to be doing great under the light. I have Erythropodium, leather cabbage, blue pulsing xenia, a green sinularia, green mushrooms, a lavender mushroom, an sps acro(very new though-in as a test), crossbread frogspawn/hammer, torch coral, green and red zoas, green star polyps, a feather duster, yellow tang, green chromis, black ocellaris, orange ocellaris, sifter goby, scooter dragonet, blood shrimp, and the cleanup crew.
Havent been able to test par yet but I will as soon as I join the local club and borrow it.

[kory1006]

Originally Posted by pwreef

Did you measure PAR?

I too am curious as to what your PAR readings are.

I am also wondering what optics have to do with lumen output, they are only used to focus light. As pointed out a CREE XP-G Cool White at 700mA puts out 270lm, driven at 1000mA they put out 348lm.

[Woja222]

Originally Posted by pwreef

The numbers you listed for Cree LEDs are at 350mA which is very low current. To run them at 3W you need to be in the 1A range. At 1A Cree XP-G R5 bin produces 348 lumens.
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP-G.pdf

Oh...did not catch that one. But that will put 12 white crees at 4176lm and my current amount of whites is about 4032lm. Not too far off considering the cost difference in parts love money saving DIYs

[Woja222]

Plus my rating on the SMDs could be a little low for what they are capable of. I got my specs as rated per meter. The 5m 300 led roll rates the luminous flux at 800-900lm. I just split the difference and went with 850 and that comes out to about 14lm per chip. If they actually put out 900 then that would boost my whites to 4320lm.

[Woja222]

Ok, so the par numbers are in....conclusion=SMDs are a no go for a reef setup! Par at water level was only 160 and 40 on the sand bed. Suprisingly everything in my aquarium had been doing well so far but I had to upgrade quick.
So, since my birthday is in 3 days i decided to treat myself a little and do 3W leds from Stevesleds.com Went with 12 of the cool whites and 24 of the royal blues. Also ordered 3 meanwell ELN-60-48D drivers from power supply emporium. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME! Gonna start without optics since I have a canopy and have the light fixture about 6 inches or so from the water.

[mike&kel]

I love your ideas on this build. Go for it but please post pix when ur done and try to get some par numbers for us readers. Lots of people post I'm gonnas but never finish the story after they are done with the project.

[Woja222]

Current update...
Got the leds in two days ago thanks to the fast shipping from Steves leds. just testing one at a time with two AA batteries I am already amazed how bright these puppies are!! Got them glued down to some angle aluminum with a mix of two ton epoxy and heatsink compund.

[Woja222]

Also got a steal on a carbon reactor for $15 and a little maxi-jet for $3 to power it at the LFS sale/garage sale. Been running it for a few hours and the clarity is amazing! I was using piddly carbon pads before thinking they were actually working....NOT. Cant wait to get a phosban reactor running too!