DIY LED for Pico

Wonder what your guys thoughts are on this.
thinking of making a diy led for my 4g pico. i dont like or want the look of a par bulb so i want to do a standard heasink with some leds.
came across this kit.
aquarium DIY 8 LEDs kit
its 8 bridelux leds and i can get a meanwell driver with it, the heatsink would fit perfect over my tank.
i dont need anything fancy here, but it is not dimmable and i dont know if it would fry corals in my tank since it will have to be within 8 inches of the water.

 

Bridgelux will work fine for a 4 gallon. 8 is probably enough, but the dimming could be a problem. I'm running 3 bridglelux (2 blue, 1 10k) on a 1 gallon pico and have them 50% dimmed. Spread them out and you can make it work. Otherwise make the kit yourself via ebay or some like site and use a meanwell ELN 60 27D or another smaller dimmable driver. Just make sure you crank the internal potentiometer in the 27D driver's down to 700mA or you will fry the bridgelux.

 

Those are NOT bridgelux, don't buy IMO.

 

It says right on the description bridgelux?

 

Aquastyle=pass

 

But why?
I understand these arent cree leds. But from what Ive read the bridglux do a good job also. The driver is a meanwell not the maxwellen crap they usually sell. So why not?

 

They are for sure bridgelux. I used aquastyle to build my first DIY LED. They are Chinese as hell, but for tanks <~20 inches they are outstanding for the price. I have not tested it, but they could probably do fine up to 25-30 inches. The Chinese drivers are kinda crappy, but I have been running 2 of them for 1.5 years and they are going strong. For reference I have 38 bridgelux LED on a 40 breeder with mostly SPS and 150 PAR on the bottom center with the lights at 70% power. Again though, you have to keep in mind the max 700mA thing if you use drivers other than those on aquastyes site.

 

Mainly because of this:

They might claim they're "bridgelux", but it's been shown in detail by others there's no way they're actually real bridgelux.

Can they work? Sure, but you need far more diodes than you'd need if they were CREE or real Bridgelux.

So I don't see saving a small amount of money for a knock-off product.

The Chinese drivers are a whole 'nother mess, but if you were planning on Meanwells that eliminates my rant there (risk of an electrical fire, being the concern).

 

I know many people that use the 3w LEDs from Ebay. One is running a 550 gallon tank(with many other tanks in the house using the ebay leds as well) and the other a 320. And many other locals use them or at some point did. They have worked just fine growing lps/sps and every other coral with no problems. And for the price you can't beat em.

My diy chinese leds fixture will be up and running in a few days once my heat sink comes in.

I will however be getting the phillips rebel royal blues in a couple of weeks but I will be running the chinese 3w white leds with them.

I would not skimp on the driver and if you want you can always upgrade to cree leds later. If I were you I would pick up 5 white and 5 royal blue chinese leds(if you want to stay cheap). Or you can always pick up a few phillips rebels of each color and still stay kind of cheap.

http://www.rapidled.com/philips-rebel-es-cool-white-led/

http://www.rapidled.com/philips-rebel-es-royal-blue-led/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-pcs-3W-E...198?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23288c98f6

Just search ebay for 3w LED.

And get a meanwell ELN 60-48D driver.

http://www.onlinecomponents.com/mean-well-eln-60-48d.html?p=37809828

And then whatever heatsink will fit over the tank.

http://www.rapidled.com/heatsinks/

 

Or you could just look at something like this:
Panorama Pro LED Module
Or two of these:
Stunner LED Strips - 6watt, 12in.