My LED build

[Ben]

Just got done getting all my LED fixtures built so I figured I would throw up some pictures. I have 2 Ecoray 60 OEM fixtures that I got strait from china. I also built 2 fixtures based on the Maker's LED 12" heatsinks.

The Ecoray 60's originally came with a single non-dimmable driver for the 30 whites and the same for the 30 blues. I designed my own LED drivers based on the PT4115 driver chip and had the boards built at seeedstudio. Each Ecoray 60 now has 12 independently dimmable channels, 6 blue and 6 white. All are running at 350mA. I also swapped in 2 red LED's. I might swap in some UV and green some time in the future if I'm not happy with the coloring combined with the Maker LED fixtures.

The drivers are controllable via I2C and have 4096 different levels. Each driver also includes a temperature chip to get the board temp and and external temp sensor hookup to attach to the fixture heatsink.

The Maker LED fixtures have 9 neutral white, 18 royal blue, 4 Ocean Coral White, 6 435nm UV, and 3 405nm UV. The whites are on 2 channels running at 1.2a, the royal blues are on 3 channels running at 1.2a, the OCW are on 3 channels running at 500mA, and the UV are on 2 channels running at 700mA.

I got all the Maker's LED kit and LED's from LED Group Buy and I cannot recommend them enough. The owner worked with me and took back a lot of LED's that I ordered when I changed my mind on the optics to use. I also had 2 bad LED's out of all the ones I had and he sent replacements out immediately when I sent him an email informing him of the issue. Finally I he upgraded most of my LED's to the solderless chips for free when he didn't have the regular ones in stock. Great customer service and great communication.

Ecoray drivers

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Ecoray unlit

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Ecoray at lowest output

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Maker's LED drivers

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Maker's LED unlit

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Maker's LED lowest output

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All 4 mounted in canopy

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[Eckolancer]

Looking good I will say that you may want to add more whites as they will grow the coral, blues are for our eyes and colors just give the coral coloration.


Sent from inside the shark tank!

 

[Ben]

I have a full spectrum build and more than enough white with the one to one ratio on the ecoray fixtures. A one neutral white to 2 royal blue is the current recommended ratio. The ocean coral whites help bring back some of the missing green, red, and turquoise colors and the ultraviolets give corals and fish that nice "pop" and also are claimed to help with growth.

The beauty of having so many independently dimmable channels like I have is that I can tweak the spectrum any way I want.

Corals use any wavelength of light within the usable PAR spectrum but they make better utilization of wavelengths in the royal blue range. I learned that at one of the nextwave seminars.

 

[niteowl03]

@Eckolancer wrote:

This statement is totally backwards. A fixture could be created with no white that would be very effective. True white LEDs dont exist. They are blue with a phosphor coating to make them appear white. Whites are strictly for us to be able to see the tank.

 

[Ben]

I've done a lot of updates on this build now.

On the Ecorays I've replaced one of the RB strings with 3w RB LED's instead of 1w. I've also replaced 2 of the white strings with 3w 430nM UV LED's.

On the MakersLED fixtures I've learned a few things. Default 120 degree optics will not cut it for 24" depth of water. There just isn't enough punch to keep the stuff at the bottom happy even if you increase the output enough to toast everything up at the top. To fix this I've added 80 degree optics to everything and things look to be doing much better now. I'm still tweaking the color spectrum and output levels.

I've also learned that salty air and electronics don't mix. Even very slightly humid air causes issues. I thought I would be okay with all the fans and ventilation I had in the hood. This was causing issues with my LED drivers. To fix this I've run all 24 wires from each fixture to a remote driver enclosure that I built so I can keep things cool and dry.

I've also switched drivers on the MakersLED RB and NW channels from my own drivers that could only do 1200mA to some drivers made by sure electronics that will do 1500mA.

I'll be taking par readings this weekend and posting up pics and levels.

 

[Mike R]

Sounds awesome.... Can't wait to see your setup!