Honest Opinion ON DIY LED

A

AlreadyDead

Ok,

I am looking to put in LED lights on my 14G BioCube. Rapid LED makes a kid for this how much cheaper can one do it for buy ordering the parts themself from a diffrent vedor? It seems as if the price is pretty reasonable but if you can do it for half that I would be intrested in giving it a shot. If anyone has some input on the best place to get the parts to build and LED DIY that would be great. Also what is the best color and ratio to use for 12 LED Set up

Joe
 
I have done several DIY fixtures, i use rapid for 95% of my parts. You might get slightly cheaper sourcing parts elsewhere, but i doubt it will be worth it.

I always like a 2:1 blue to white ratio.


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I am with Joe on this. Ive done everything through rapidled and could not have been happier with Mike and his teams service.
 
You can check out a few of our sponsors here that cater to DIY led setup's, http://www.stevesleds.com is one source. He carries both Cree as well as the superior Luxeon rebel's led's. You can also check out this place. http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/look .

Cheers,
 
@bimmerzs wrote:
You can check out a few of our sponsors here that cater to DIY led setup's said:
lets not be too quick to say one is superior to the other. Last I checked steves doesnt carry nearly as many cree leds as rapid. There are plenty of threads debating leds and which is better so on so forth. Interestingly enough the big name manufactures are using cree leds in their builds. Both are good products and both I feel would get the job done.

I am of the opinion that its really about spectrum.
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Steve switched to Luxon which has better color and lumines compaired to Cree. Your little tank, just run 7 cw and 7 blue.
 
I would go Cree LEDs they are the most used in the pre-built fixtures, and when compared to their equivalents its not even close.

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I have put both luxeon and cree over the same pico tank, got noticeably better coloration out of the crees. My mohawk palys looked like a solid brown under luxeon. The crees brought out slight hue differences that added some speckling glow towards the mouth and on the skirt.

Cree for blues for best color
Whites seem to be a wash in my experience, I use luxeon since they are a good bit cheaper
Drivers go meanwell for sure!


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Already. I will be back in town next week, feel free to come over and take a look at my seup, i have a mix of rapid and steves over my tank. I prefer steves drivers over rapids, simply because i ordered some meanwells and the quality was not there. Being an electronics tech and doing a lot with ac to dc converters and dc to dc converters the quality of steves drivers over meanwells is quite apparent. The only advantage meanwell has is there nice little case that makes em look clean. Im right off of 380 in the neigborhood behind taco bell.
 
@bimmerzs wrote:
Did the color shift immediately said:
The change was immediate, it was something in the spectrum of the crees that highlighted the color variation in the Mohawks. They looked like poo (really, solid poo brown) under my first fixture in my pico, and the minute i turned on the new fuxture I was pleasantly surprised to find they looked like most people's mohawks!

Regarding quality of drivers, i have had 2 steve's drivers burn up out of owning 5 total, for no apparent reason. The meanwells I have all have worked perfectly, and the wiring is a little simpler for those that aren't electronically inclined.


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The biggest problem i have had with meanwell have been stupid little parts. For example out of the box i had a 27d with a broken micro potentiometer. No big deal called em up... Guess what 27d are on backorder for 7 months...... Ok well what if i replace the potentiometer, talked to them and it voids my warrant. Ok well this is silly so i replaced it myself. One month later the driver fried on the back of the board from a cold solder from what i could tell. Now i have a one month old paper weight because it is out of warranty.
 
What all are you driving? I'm finishing up on my driver design. It will drive 12-24v, 5 independent channels rated for 7A each. The driver is control is powered by Arduino.
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