Building a led fixture to resemble the *Ecotech Radion*

I would like to build a led fixture thats the same as the Ecotech Radion. www.Rapidled.com has every LED the Radion uses plus some. Question is where do I start? The tank i'm getting is 48inx24inx18in. For example the Radion uses

• 8x Cree XP-G Cool White LEDs run at 5W each
• 8x Cree XP-E Blue LEDs run at 3W each
• 10x Cree XP-E Royal Blue LEDs run at 3W each
• 4x Cree XP-E Green LEDs run at 3W each
• 4x Osram Oslon SSL Hyper Red LEDs run at 3W each
If I was using the Radion I would need 2. When buying my LEDs would I just buy the same LEDs the radion uses and double it by 2, with dimmers? Also how would I place the colors?

 

Here is a decent picture on advanced aquarist where you can see the lights better to see how you would cluster them together.

Feature Article: LED Lighting Tests: Radion, Orphek, Mvava, Ecoray and Ecoxotic — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Are you sure that the XP-G Cool Whites are run at 5w and not 3 watts?
If you want to simulate the radion exactly, each set of LED's would be dimmed independently; however, to save a few bucks you may consider putting the reds and greens on the same driver. You also need to know that the Meanwell 60-48D/P drivers must have at least 8 LED's on the driver. I would email Mike over at rapidled and he can better direct you how to get the control out of the LED's that you want (staff@rapidled.com).

One of the things that you will not be able to simulate "exactly" as the radions is the storm / cloud feature. Creating a cloud feature is doable and not that difficult, creating a "realistic" storm, however, seems to be limited to the Apex and / or the driver speed response time to create a "snappy" lightning effect.

At the bottom of this thread http://www.3reef.com/forums/led-aquarium-lighting/weather-rapidled-133856.html I posted a simulated storm that I created on my friends DIY rapid led setup using meanwell drivers.

 

Thanks alot

 

So there is no way I could put all the LEDs on one power supply and use a control to control the LEDs?

 

So, to answer question 1.)
Question: So there is no way I could put all the LEDs on one power supply......
Answer: I'm not really sure what you are asking, but I'll give my best shot at what I think you are asking =).
Each meanwell ELN-60-48D or ELN-60-48-P driver can power approximately 12 - 14 LED's (depends on the forward voltage of the individual LED) and will dim all LED's on that driver at a time. You could use another driver such as the hlg-185-42b (Mean Well HLG-185-42B dimmable Driver - Rapid LED) which can power up to 60 LED's IN PARALLEL (this must be done PERFECTLY or you WILL burn your LED's out if you do not wire them in parallel properly). The HUGE drawback to this is that all 60 LED's would dim at the same time, therefore, you will NOT have individual dimming control over the different colors! Not to mention is is a lot more difficult to wire it up b/c you need to make sure you wire it in parallel correctly (as opposed to in series like most people do with the eln-60-48D or P drivers)!

Using the meanwell eln-60-48D or P drivers you MUST power a minimum of 8 LED's and UP TO a maximum of 14 depending on the forward voltage (most people use 12 LED's). This will give you control over those colors on that driver and you could dim all of your other colors independently just like the radion does.

You should note that the drivers do NOT come with a power cord already attached on the end! You must wire it up yourself! With that said, one thing you could do to eliminate wire havoc, however, is wire up all of your drivers to 1 or 2 power cords if you like (A power cord should, in theory, support up to 10 meanwell eln-60-48D or P drivers). This is what I did... I hooked all my blue drivers to 1 power cord and all of my whites to another power cord. Therefore, instead of having 6 power cords to plug in (I have 3 blue meanwell drivers and 3 white meanwell drivers), I just have 2 power cords.

Question 2.)
Can you use a control to control the LEDs.
Answer: I am guessing you are referring to using a "knob" to control the intensity of the LED's instead of a controller such as an APEX or a reefkeeper? The answer is yes and what you are referring to is a Potentiometer (10K Ohm Linear Potentiometer - Rapid LED or you could use an already put together dimming control station http://www.rapidled.com/diy-2-color-dimming-kit/ but you still will need to do some soldering). To use a potentiometer, you would need the ELN-60-48P drivers (Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable driver - Rapid LED) and NOT the ELN-60-48D driver . Notice the ones I linked to would need soldering. There are a lot of build threads on here with examples of how to hook one up properly. I'm sure a google search would also yield some good results too =).

I hope this makes sense to you =).

 

thanks a lot rite now I see it would be better to just buy two radions lol

 

Nice explanation.

 

I follow