DIY lights

Greetings! Have not posted for awhile but have been browsing on here for years now.

I'm wanting to build lights for my tank. The idea is to use a heat sink that I got at work. It will be hanging one inch from the tank with no reflectors on LEDs. I want to use my own power supply with DLL drivers. I'm an electrician so I'm pretty handy with that. The sink is 4 feet long by 7 inches wide and fins are 4 inches tall so I gave a bit to play with.

Any suggestions? Advice?

 

Looks nice, are you gong to drill and tap or are you going to use the sticky thermal pads to adhere your LEDs?

Also do you have your color spectrum, drivers, controller, LED manufacture and total LED count picked out yet?

What is your current tank size (dimensions and gallons) also what's your stock list?

 

Biocube - I am intending to drill and tap for a better heat transfer. For the lights themselves, I an using 8 XML, cool white cree LEDs, 8 neutral white LEDs, 8 blue LEDs, and 8 royal blue LEDs. Does that sound reasonable? I am also wanting to add purple, red, and green for a full spectrum but am still researching about it. I will control my lights with arduino so I have full control.

For drivers, I want to order LLD from Led Group Buy since they are cheap and can be used with a power supply that I already have.

 

Your LED choice sounds good to start, once you play with that a bit and get used it then you can add other colors. I myself added, deep red, cyan, and UV and love the control it add to fine tune my spectrum. I dont know anything about the drivers you speak of because im using meanwells, so i will let someone else chime in on those.

Might want to hang it more than one inch over the tank, or at least make it adjustable so you can move it up if it you get too much spotlighting.

EDIT: just got on the led group buy sight and saw that LLD drivers are meanwell from what im reading, my bad.

 

What size tank? How deep? 1" from water is quite low, so I would definitely consider dimmers and I would most certainly add an acrylic cover.

 

BTW - I have an 80 gallon tank with an algae scrubber system. I'm OOT this weekend so do not know the exact dimensions of the tank. Its about 48 long, 16 in wide, and 30 in deep.

 

I think you will want more whites and blues over that tank and at 30" you may want to consider optics, depending on your coral load.

 

So which kind would you add?

At this point, I'm trying to come up with a list if things to buy so I can start putting my lights together. I don't want to use optics because I'm not fond of the disco effect

 

I would triple the royal blue, double the cool white and add 16 violet LEDs. Maybe add a few reds and greens if you would like.

14-16 cool white
6-8 neutral white
8 blue
20-24 royal blue LED
12-16 Violet
reds and greens for color.

Just a guideline of course.

 

I found that the guys at Ledgroupbuy know there stuff. Maybe you can toss them an email and get a list of LEDs they recommend. I know I have read that you can us their OCW LEDs with Turquoise and Hyper Violet to give you a full spectrum look. Mix them with RB/NW 2/1 ratio.

This is all what I have read. I have no experience with them at all.