Algae Scrubber Advanced

[Floyd R Turbo]

That's the right LEDS, but the placement of the blues is not distributed well (all in the center does you nothing IMO) and they're 1W LEDs with lenses and 36 LEDs on a 10x10 panel. My fixture has over 100 in the same if not smaller area. So it might work, also it looks open (no housing) so probably not for use near water, no cooling, etc...

[Northside Reef]

Thanks, I agree it definitely looks suspect, I will probably do a DYI model and get my feet wet with these LED's.

[el aguila]

Anyone have a good link to some red 1W or 3W LEDs at a reasonable price?

I like the price on these but don't like the 60 degree viewing angles:
http://www.clay-boa.com/deep-red-660nm-2-pack-1-99ea/

[Floyd R Turbo]

link blocked

[el aguila]

Sorry, I didn't think about them not being a RC sponsor.

Anyway the LED group buy has some red 3W LEDs that are right at $2 ea but they have 60 degree viewing angels. I would like something that has more like a 100 degree viewing angle for around the same price.

[el aguila]

I found these on Northside Reefs link:
http://ledwholesalers.com/store/inde...&productId=274

Not alot of info here, I guess that they are less than .5W per LED, but if they can be mounted close to the screen, I would think that they would work.

[Floyd R Turbo]

13.8W total for the fixture, 225 LEDs = 0.06W per LED. One of these fixture *might* be equivalent to one 18W or 23W CFL, but that's about it. Also it's 12 x 12 and that's way, way to little light for a 12x12 screen.

[Nathan.Titulaer]

I have a similar panel to the one listed and it needs to be at least 6-8 inches away or it just makes little dots on the screen. I was also enticed by the low price but it was no where near what I had hoped.

[el aguila]

Thanks for the replies from both of you.

I will probably go with the 3W reds from Rapid LED and place them about 6" from the screen unless someone can come up with a link for 1W, or something similar in price to the LEDs from Group Buy.

[Gorgok]

If you don't particularly care about efficiency (i would assume they aren't at least) or name brand stuff for the ATS, you can get some real cheap 3W 630nm reds here: http://www.suntekstore.com/goods-140...%28Red%29.html

Get 2 sets and price gets discounted too =D. Plus they have working coupons for something like 15% off. And shipping is free... I got 2 sets to replace my whites as suggested, and i'll add some more reds at the same time, because i really couldn't say no to $0.97 per LED.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Interesting, except I wonder what this disclaimer means:

"We ship directly from Hong Kong, China. Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer's responsibility."

I would expect about 2 out of every 10 of these to fail pretty quickly since they're cheap, but dang that is pretty cheap...

[Gorgok]

They will most likely put 'gift' on any customs forms thereby going past any fees... It seems common practice for shipments from China in general and i have no idea how legal that is. I don't know enough about LEDs to say much about them failing... it seems like such a simple thing that failure would be pretty hard to do. Then again just looking for failed parking videos shows how much failure people really can do on simple things.

[el aguila]

Thanks for the link Gorgok.

Actually I found some 1W a little cheaper on E-bay. Going with 72 per side - 70% Red 660, 22% Red 630, and 8% RB. Going to order a few extra RB and CW for moonlights.

I realize that they might not be the best concerning effieincy, but they are surely better than the CFLs that I'm presently running.

Curious those who are presently running 1W LEDs, are yours about 2" from your screen?

[TheFishMan65]

I ordered from Cutter a while back for a group buy. I did quit a bit of searching and finally concluded that LEDs have no import fees/additional taxes/tariff/or what ever it is called. There is a rather lengthy Government document that spells it out (if interested I can try and find it again). I also did not have a problem with the shipment YMMV

[der_wille_zur_macht]

el agulia, those LEDs you found on eBay, if the specs are real, are actually pretty good. And a fraction of the cost of other alternatives.

I'm just curious to find a similarly-cheap source for other wavelengths. iirc, your eBay find was 630nm?

Also curious how close people are putting LEDs to screens. I'd like to get mine as close as possible to take up less room. Ideally I'd like a skimmer I can put on the eurobrace of my tank, which means I have roughly 5" of width to work with, plus maybe a few more inches if absolutely required and I'll just let it hang over the edge of the brace.

[Floyd R Turbo]

der willie, do you mean a scrubber you can put on the euro? and what eBay listing are you referring to I can't find an eBay link.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Yeah, I want something I can set on my eurobrace, or hang above it. Basically, my canopy area is a rough 6' x 4' rectangle about 28" tall, and there's a ~5" eurobrace around the entire perimeter. I had originally thought of doing a long, very narrow trough-style, but I'm thinking that might not be optimal. Now I'm daydreaming of a self-enclosed vertical screen unit with LEDs. Ideally the whole thing would fit in an acrylic box large enough to house the screen, with a minimal thickness so it could be located right on the eurobrace.

The driving force here is that I'd love to actually get rid of my sump. Every time I open my stand doors I shake my head at the "waste" in terms of energy and space considering I have a roughly 75g sump and a gigantic pump, pretty much just to have a place to put the ATS. I have an overflow box into which I'd put ATO switches, a heater, and a submersible pump to run the ATS, and it would basically become an in-tank sump.

Edit - the above user had posted an ebay link in a thread in DIY, that's what I was referencing.

PS - my tank is relatively lightly stocked and I feed sparingly most of the time, so based on the "feeding size" I don't really need a large screen.

[el aguila]

Originally Posted by der_wille_zur_macht

el agulia, those LEDs you found on eBay, if the specs are real, are actually pretty good. And a fraction of the cost of other alternatives.

I'm just curious to find a similarly-cheap source for other wavelengths. iirc, your eBay find was 630nm?

Also curious how close people are putting LEDs to screens. I'd like to get mine as close as possible to take up less room. Ideally I'd like a skimmer I can put on the eurobrace of my tank, which means I have roughly 5" of width to work with, plus maybe a few more inches if absolutely required and I'll just let it hang over the edge of the brace.

I'm at work and can't pull up E-Bay, but this E-Bay seller has about whatever you want. There is a link for the LEDs on a thread that I posted in DIY asking about drivers. Look in their seller's store.

Looks like I'm going to solder this ATS up before I finish my DT lighting phase 2.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Good, you can be the test dummy.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Sounds like you have a good idea of what you need to have for a top-of-tank scrubber. That's what I'm running now and the main drawbacks are controlling the water drop into the tank and the bubbles that accompany it, and blocking the light from the DT. Both have caused an issue for me (it's on a temporary setup as I am housing the system while my customer's new tank is getting set up). The noise of the water dropping to the tank is also a concern.

Having some kind of baffle system or bubble diffuser that hangs into the tank for the effluent off the scrubber is pretty much a must have. Plus making all of this work without interfering with the DT lights.

Here's what mine looks like right now



doing with with LEDs would require quite a bit of black acrylic to shield the light. When that nice red light gets into the DT, esp at night, it's just a matter of time before you get some algae growing in there. Plus protecting the lights themselves with the acrylic enclosure.

Supposedly the new design is geared toward a sumpless setup, but no one will see that until March

[der_wille_zur_macht]

I need to do a sketchup model, but my design idea is basically a big "U" of black acrylic. This will form the sides and bottom of the unit. The pipe will run across the top. A panel of clear acrylic will be located on each side of the screen (really close to the screen). These clear panels along with the black acrylic form the "wet" chamber around the screen. The black acrylic "U" will be a few inches wider than the panels, such that it extends out far enough to meet a flat aluminum panel on each side, which will form the outermost "wall" on each side. This will be the heatsink for the LEDs. There will be a loose piece of black acrylic on top for a lid.

This should form a light-tight box with zero leakage, but will expose the backs of the two heatsinks to free air for good cooling.

So the overall design is similar to your unit there, but with black acrylic on the "ends" and bottom, and a flat heatsink basically where you have your reflectors.

That just leaves the drain as a problem to solve and I don't see that as a huge obstacle. I'd imagine you could build a mini standpipe of some sort to help with bubble trapping. Plus if I'm dumping bubbles into a back corner of this gigantic tank it won't exactly be as noticeable as the same amount of bubbles in a typical tank.

How wide is your unit? How much narrower do you think you could get it? I guess this is based on, how close to the screens could you place an array of those 1W LEDs?

[Floyd R Turbo]

9.75" wide. Due to the components, can't get much closer.

There's probably a limit to how narrow you want the box to be, or how close you want the panels to be to the screen. Once the 3D growth kicks in, it can fill it up quick.

In most cases it's mandated by the diameter of the bulkhead flange if you have one, which is usually a little less than 3". I don't see a need to get any closer than 1.5" from screen to edge of lamp. For my 1W LED array I can't imagine it's any different, just far enough away so that you don't get any "spotting" effect. but that'll be part of the experiment as well.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

If I could get the whole thing 8" from edge to edge I would be happy.

[Floyd R Turbo]

If using 3W LEDs I'd go bare and put a diffuser plate next to the clear acrylic, then 3" wide box (inside) and 1-2" between LED and diffuser/acrylic, add the thickness of the stars and aluminum and you're right about 8" I think. If using 1W LEDs you might be able to go closer and no diffuser.

Oh hey I just talked to my hydro guy and they apparently have some new fixture coming out with a next generation LED that is not really considered a 3W because it puts out more lumens and uses less wattage. It's starting to get silly now because the current 3W chips don't use 3W, they use more like 2.2W and these new ones use even less power and produce more lumens.

It's kind of looking like the LED industry needs a new way to classify LEDs, not based on the wattage. Because that method is way outdated an only a marketing thing currently.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

It's kind of looking like the LED industry needs a new way to classify LEDs, not based on the wattage. Because that method is way outdated an only a marketing thing currently.

None of the real "players" from a marketing or manufacturing standpoint refer to the LEDs based on power dissipation, it's really only an approach that has sprung up at the hobby level. Anyways, I totally agree, it's a very meaningless term to the point of being harmful in how it's used.

But yeah, the LEDs I'm considering are "1W" LEDs anyways, so I'm hoping I can get them really close.