Every Spectrum LED Build A.K.A "Alphabet Soup"

[zachts]

Well, not quite "every spectrum" but close. The LED Colors per typical abriviations: R,G,B,RB,A,C,V,HV,CW,WW,UV....
thus the title. (I will expand on the specifics, later)

This started as an expansion on a previous build to up size it to what I would ultimately double to light my display tank, while allowing me to fine tune the exact color I would ultimately need to suit my taste............It turned into something more of an experiment in LED spectrum and color mixing.............

This is going to be sort of quick what I did and why (as it's built and been running for a month now) followed by progress, observations, and results, and tweaks, etc. over time. Hopefully, a very useful project for the DIY community and progressing LED for Reef lighting in general, as I've not seen anything quite like this documented, yet. (there are a few commercial fixtures that do something similar, but not quite, as I will explain)

I'ts going to take me awhile to get every thing posted for the build part with adequate detail, so if I don't get it all up right away please bear with me.

To start off a couple pretty pictures of the end result.

The business end.




The Housing, re-purposed from an old light box I used on my first 10 gallon reef tank.




Control.




And with that I break for diner............to be continued.

[2clown]

What type of control are you using?

[tdb320reef]

Nice work.

[eznet2u]

Originally Posted by 2clown

What type of control are you using?

It looks as if he is using this...http://coralux.net/?wpsc-product=storm-x-led-controller

[zachts]

Yes, I'm using the Storm X controller.

[zachts]

Here is a picture of the guts of the fixture. Two very cheap fans wired in series to run off the 24v power supply used for the LEDs. The board on the left is a simple control circuit to allow pwm control of the fans from one of the Storm X LED channels and a second input to allow the fans to turn completely off at night.

The on/off part is important for the fans so they don't run below 30% duty cycle. or rather they can start up at 30%, otherwise they might burn out. The Storm X allows setting the minimum pwm value for the fan channel and the extra code I added for one of the boards spare pins switches the transistor that controls the fans completely off at night, allowing use of any type of fan, either 4 wire pwm capable or standard 3 wire pc fans.

the blue capacitor on the control board helps to even out the pwm signal and reduce the whine that regular fans sometimes make when controlled with pwm speed control.

The black connector is just one I had laying around and is used for 24v power to the fixture. A 15 pin D-Sub connector I got from Radio Shack serves as a sturdy signal cable for all the pwm channels I'll be using in the fixture.

[zachts]

For this project I chose to use Sure Electronics driver. they work basically just like the Meanwell LDD drivers. They are very efficient and can run even a single LED without over heating. They just have lower voltage input tolerance so cannot run as many LEDs per driver.

What I like about these is that when I bought them I got the "0.5 watt" versions which run at ~160mA for around $2. The drivers have extra resistor pads (used to set the output current) so I just soldered in a .33 ohm resistor to an open pad and that brings the current up to around 500mA. Which is what I'm using for the initial part of my fixture test. I may increase the current on some of the drivers later if I need extra output from some of the LEDs.

The drivers also come with screw terminals that can be soldered on, which is very handy.

A little more info on the drivers and how they can be modified can be found here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2267561

For this build I used 9 drivers, one for each LED color used in the build.

pic of the driver boards before assembly:



close up of the driver board showing the extra resistor pads used to set the output current:



Extra resistor soldered in:



All finished with modifications and adding screw terminals:

[zachts]

On to the LEDs.

The fixture houses 40 LEDs.

From a previous test fixture I had a basic formula for a good blend of LEDs that gave a look that I found pleasing and proved to also grow SPS and whatever else I put under them. That fixture was all on one string so I had no control to fine tune the color of the light.

This Light will have each color controllable to really dial it in and determine just how many of each LED will be needed when I build a bigger version for my display later on.

The LEDs, a mix of Luxeon, Cree, and Semi Chips:

2 x 405nm Violet (UV) - on driver #1
4 x 420nm Violet (V) - on driver #1
6 x 430nm Hyper Violet (HV) - on driver #2
6 x 445nm Royal Blue (RB) - on driver #3
4 x 480nm Blue (B) - on driver #4
4 x 500nm Cyan (C) - on driver #5
2 x 530nm Green (G) - on driver #6
2 x 590nm Amber (A) - on driver #7
4 x 620nm Red (R) - on driver #8
4 x Cool White (CW) - on driver #9
2 x Warm White (WW) - on driver #9

[zachts]

The basic idea is to put all the colors and white in the center clusters close together to minimize disco and get good color mixing. I broke these into two smaller clusters to get better coverage. Ultimately my plan is to use Steve's LED 3-up stars for these in future builds to get the LEDs even closer together. None of these color LEDs are meant to run at full power likely 25%-50%, maybe less, when compared with the number of Blues in this build. I used more color chips than needed to ensure good color mixing and even coverage.

The two outer heat sinks are basically actinic strips to give wide even coverage of the blues and violets. I did this so that I could use some sort of diffuser over the white clusters if needed to better blend them without diminishing the output from the blue strings. I may add optics to these in the future to further increase the amount of blue getting down into the tank where I want it, but for now no optics are used.

In this schematic layout W = 2 CW & 1 WW on a 3-up star.

V-RB-HV-UV-RB-HV-V-RB-HV
C-B-R C-B-R
G-W-A G-W-A
R-B-C R-B-C
HV-RB-V-HV-RB-UV-HV-RB-V

[zachts]

The heatsinks are relatively simple, just some 1" C channel I had leftover from other builds. I spaced them out with a gap to allow air flow between each one for better cooling and air flow using a minimal amount of heatsink materal. not counting the weekend it took me to drill and tap by had with my trusty black and decker corles drill it cost all of around $12 for the heat sink assembly after throwing in the broken tap (tried to multi-task, grumble, grumble, Schlafly's, grumble ). probably only took around 6 hours, but I'm easily distracted.

LED mounting side. the studs are for the Drivers, which turns out grounds the whole heatsink nicely.




Back side:

[zachts]

Mounted a DS18B20 temp sensor to the back side of one of the violet LED mounting spots to monitor what should be the hottest point behind the LED with the Lowest Heat tolerance. Eventually I'll use this to control the fans but for now it just displays the temp on the Storm X controller and I can manually adjust the fan as needed.

Mounted with a liberal amount of one part thermal paste:




All wired up and ready to plug in to the wiring harness after mounting the heatsink to the fixture housing.

[zachts]

All assembled and connected, ready for LEDs:




The LEDs all mounted, wired up, and working.




On a side note when doing final testing for shorts after getting everything wired up it threw me for a brief loop as I forgot the heatsink was grounded thru the drivers so for a minute I thought I had a short but actually it's just how the drivers work. It took me about an hour and a half to realize this, I couldn't figure out why it was shorting, as I checked and rechecked my solders.......... I have to stop drinking & soldering

[Sacohen]

Looks interesting. I'm going to read up on it a bit more.

Thanks

[zachts]

I've got this running over my frag tank for the time being. It replaced a 24 LED aquastyle kit from way back. Already I'm seing improved colors in the corals from the previous Royal Blue and White mix.

Frag tank pics, been running about two weeks now over these corals, slowly acclimating everything up to full power. Pic from 8/31/2013. I should mention I neglect the holy heck out of my frag tank, thus all the algae, but coral seems to grow fine, so I don't worry about only doing water changes on the occasional whim, and remembering to dose supplements even less...

Top view:




Partial tank shot:



Please no comments on the color or the ugly tank, more recent pics coming as soon as I find my camera and upload the pics I've taken. The change in coloration and growth has been quite impressive despite my continued neglect. Proof, i.e. pictures coming shortly.

[Sacohen]

What size tank was this for?

[zachts]

Intended to illuminate one half of a 75 to 100 gallon, but shown on my 55 gallon frag tank here for evaluation of the color ratio, coral growth and coloration, fine tuning the LED mix, and determining relative drive currents before building bigger setup for my display tank.

[Sacohen]

OK. Thanks. I'm looking for a set up for a 55 gallon.

[zachts]

Originally Posted by Sacohen

OK. Thanks. I'm looking for a set up for a 55 gallon.

Double the blues, and divide the two color/white pods up into smaller clusters for each half of the tank and you'd have much more than enough light for a 55 gallon, It's quite bright and very white with high color rendering when everything is dialed in to 100%.

One of my goals with this build is to determine how many of each of the colors is needed and at what drive current relative to the 'blues' in order to get the color I'm looking for with minimal use of dimming to achieve the overall look. So I'll be fine tuning the color ratio over the next few weeks/months.

[Sacohen]

Thanks.
I'm probably going to combine this with some other DYI LED threads I've found.

[stancfii]

What happened to the pics? What does it look like if you don't run the whites?

[Jonviviano]

Are you running 3-ups in the center of each cluster? excellent build

[zachts]

Originally Posted by Jonviviano

Are you running 3-ups in the center of each cluster? excellent build

Yes just for the whites, as I had those lying around from another project. ideally everything will be 3-ups to better blend colors, but using this to fine tune what wavelenths I need and how many of each.

Originally Posted by stancfii

What happened to the pics? What does it look like if you don't run the whites?

I keep getting distracted, I'm easily distracted I spent last week fiddling with the new firmware from CORALUX which allows moon lighting to work off the main PWM settings by modifying the night value for a selected channel. I first had to modify the code to cram in a few tweaks to the code that better suit my tastes relating to cloud behavior and lighting, and incorporating my fan on/off code back in.

Now after a couple days running it I realize it will be a problem for the fans as it also will cut the minimum fan setting down to almost 0 before they swithc on/off, which will be an issue in the morning at start up on the day with a new moon. I think I can alter the timming of the on/off setting to compensate for this, but that will be another while fiddling with the code.......

Or I need to edit the code for the fan channel which might not be possible, or rethink how I've got the fans controlled. I'ts just a test and in my basement so I may just let the fans run full throttle and only turn off at night. sounds like a jet engine but who cares. Using 4 wire PC fans would solve the issue but I can only fit a 10mm thick fan in this housing and they don't make a 4 wire fan that thin.

Using the main LEDs for moon lighting probably isn't practical anyway as even at pwm setting of 30 out of 4095 they are too bright on any of my blue channels.

[zachts]

Picture updates.

During Sunset. No whites, about 25% on the rest of the channels (except for cyan, red, amber, that are running probably around 15% at this point). I'm still fiddling with color balance.
Whites are set to run as a "high" noon right now and are on about 5 hours a day.

Camera settings are the same as before, on the aquarium mode of my crappy point and shoot so color change should at least track consistently. on screen the pics look close to real life on my computer, though a bit blue'er than in person.

Vast improvement in color. Many of the peach and red pigments are much brighter now. I've only done one 4 gallon water change between the pics otherwise no difference other than lighting and adding half a dozen cerith snails to replace the ones my sally light foot eats from time to time. I did scrub algae off the racks, re-organize, and frag some new corals though. that montipora dead center on the original pic has colored op like crazy, I fraged the branch from the first pick and you can spot it in these:

[stancfii]

Very nice!!

[chema]

Hi Zachts: very interesting experiment. The kind of work we need to evaluate the colors we need in our LEDs fixtures. I'm very excited about some of the conclusions you may get from the results of the experiment. As you have a lot of experience with LEDs I'm interested in the conclusions you are obtaining about:

1. Does the mixture of violet LEDs (400-430 nm) improve what you get from a single violet?

2. Do the green, amber and 620 nm red LEDs make a significant difference?

Please, keep up with the good work