Steve's LEDs are here.

A

Acrodisiac

Hello all, i bought 28 RB 2 chip LEDs from Steve's LEDs. Happy with the price and the completeness of the kit. It took me 2 hrs to assembly one of my 22" arrays. I'm using these LEDs for actinic supplementation. I was sick of spending $60 every 7 months on VHOs and the 220watts it took to drive them.

Steve sends everything you need, dimmer, drivers, heat sinks, fans (QUIET!), optics (if you request them), wire, power supply, and wall wort for the fan. Everything you need to get the LEDs together.

I happen to own a Apogee par meter and i decided to see how well these things perform. I can say they do a great job. PAR from just 14 RB LEDs with 60 deg optics positioned 12" above the water, delivered 240 12" below the water surface. Not bad for actinics! We'll see how they do when mounted 18" above the water. Not that i'm using them for PAR, i have 200 PAR at my sand bed due to my most awesome 400W 20k Ushio bulbs.

Oh and the color is INSANE, makes all the corals come alive!

Pics to come this weekend. I still have to figure out how to mount the arrays to the underside of the hood.

Jason

Here is one array

296b68ea.jpg
alt="">
 
You really have them packed on there, don't you? I don't see a lot of wire anywhere. Did you run it inside the tubing? Looks good!

Is there a way to tell by looking if you have a 2 chip or 1 chip LED? I got some from him back in October and I don't know which ones that I have.

David
 
Thanks for your reply!

OK, I guess these are 1 chip because I see 1 square, white chip under the clear dome, and so, the 2 chip would have 2 chips there. That makes sense!

I am wondering if I could light a 29 gallon - 30X12X18 - with 21 LEDs. I am only planning to keep a couple of anemones, and a couple of big mushrooms in that tank. 28 seems like it might be too many, especially when you say you are getting that much par off of yours.

David
 
Is that a heat sink or just squared aluminum that the LEDs are mounted to?
 
It's squared aluminum. There is a fan blowing through the center of it that keeps it all cool. The aluminum never got hot when I was testing, not even warm.

DFW, I would run 28 if I were you. Nems need a lot of light to thrive. You can alwayse dim the LEDs if you need to. Also If you were to do LED over your 28 I would find a flat heatsink, it will be easier to spread out the LEDs over your tank.

The square aluminum works best for me since I still have metal halides that I don't want to block.

Jason
 
With shipping and Tax is was $240ish. It would have been cheaper without optics or another fan. I wanted to have two seperate arrays so i needed two fans.
 
They are LEDs from Steve's LEDs, a sponsor here. They are a similar LED that are about half the cost. These are Royal Blue 450nm and driven at 700ma. Since I was interested in LEDs for my actinic lighting, i didn't feel like spending $350. I can't tell you how easy it was to hook everything up. Steve puts time and consideration into email responses. We were able to put together a package of exactly what I wanted.
 
@Acrodisiac wrote:
It's squared aluminum. There is a fan blowing through the center of it that keeps it all cool. The aluminum never got hot when I was testing said:
If doing 28 LEDs, I was thinking of getting 2 of the tubes, and putting 2 strings of 7 LEDs on each 20 inch long tube - the tank is 30 inches long - like this:

RB-White-RB-RB-RB-White-RB.

I don't know which white would be best - he sells 3 different white LEDs. Do the LEDs need to be spread out better than that? The tank is only 12 inches wide, and I can put the tubes 6 or 7 inches apart. I am thinking of hanging them above the tank with optics, not sitting on the tank in a hood. I know that I will not be able to dim the whites separately from the blues doing it this way, but that is why I have a lot more blue than white.

Thanks for your insights!

David
Click to expand...
 
With those PAR levels you could grow anything, even SPS.

Be careful of running them too long. They are powerful. And although you may look at it as "its just a few LEDS compared to the next guy over" its still a lot of power. I would honestly get another strip and ditch your MH. <--- This might be a controversial statement especially for someone who loves their MH's I KNOW... but now you see how little power it takes you to run LED's and how much punch they pack.

When i say thats a good amount of LED's, consider my tank. I grow EVERYTHING (have a bunch of those "hard" acros, many ORA's, 3 Clams, Capret Anemone's, chalices, and everything in between. My tank's footprint is 48x24" and I light everything using 1 watt leds. 48 of them with 40degree optics and 48 of them without. (96W total). 24 whites and 72 blues. I have them 10" above the water because any closer and i start bleaching everything (have 700par at my tanks mid-height which is 10").
 
@TCUguy wrote:
With those PAR levels you could grow anything said:
Hi Tito!

You really get PAR like that? Wow! I just calculated that you have .08333 watts of LED per square inch of tank footprint. Extrapolating that to my little 29 gallon, I would need right at 30 watts to do the same thing that you're doing. That would only be 10 3 watt LEDs. I could easily use 2 strings of 7 2 chip LEDs from StevesLEDs and would actually have 40 % more wattage per square inch than you have. That flies in the face of what most people are doing. And I recall that your tank is taller than this 18" tall tank. Do you think it would be ok to use 3 watt LEDs instead of 1 watt like you have? I can raise it up and use optics. I like the ideas that you have put forth about using less LED wattage and running them at full power! Your insights would be much appreciated!

And thank you, too, Acrodisiac, for your insights! I have time to figure this out, so I am going to be asking lots of questions! I'm making the rock for this tank, and it takes 3 months to leach out the lime properly anyway.

David
Click to expand...
 
Tito,

I couldn't get away witn another strip. That wouldn't cover my entire tank. If I were to do away with my MH all together I would need around 88 LEDs. I would build two 49 LED arrays. I could probable get away with runnin two 35 LED arrays but i would rather have more LEDs and just underdrive them a little.

The only way to get high PAR levels with 3w LEDs is to use 60 and 40 deg optics and have the LEDs 18" or so off the water surfice.

That is something I'll be doing in the future. For now, I already own great fixtures, ballasts, and have found a great powerful 20K bulb.


David,

If I were you I would get the quad driver, powersupply, and 28 LEDs. You can alwayse dimm them if you need to. Having a setup like that would allow you to have SPS in the sand. The 28 LED array would give you 100% coverage. I would not use the tubes if I were you though. Use a heat sink that's a few inches smaller than the footprint of you r tank and stagger the LEDs out RB W RB W RB W ect.

HTH
Jason
 
Jason,

I tend to think the way you do that more is better, just in case. That is the way I have been thinking, except for the heatsink, because this little tank is only 12 inches wide. I'll certainly check in to that, though.

How can Tito have 700 PAR with 96 watts of LEDs? I don't understand that. If it were possible to duplicate that, I would want to because that is the most efficient lighting that I have ever heard of.

Tito, hook me up with that super efficient lighting science that you got goin' on! If I can run my tank with 30 1 watt LEDs and have 700 PAR I will sure do it!

David
 
@DFW wrote:
Jason said:
Remember thats at the top half of my tank, at sand bed its around 150 ish (still way more than i would ever need. sometimes i wish i had less so my sandbed would stay a tad bit cleaner).

Also remember some people may have "300w" of leds, but when they dim them they cut the power dramatically on them so might only be running 120-150w which is not far off what i have. Also remember PAR is not only from the light but the water it has to go through; if its not "clean" and "clear" par will be severely lowered, same with "film dirt" on the surface, surface agitation, etc. Every little thing adds up.

Also, choose how many led's you need for your aquascape. Do you have light demanding corals AT the front glass? at the sides? at the back? all that depends how many you need because LED's are directional remember. I don't have light demanding corals at any edge of my tank (6" off the front/back/sides) so all my lights are focused right at the middle of the tank... where I need the light. I could light every single corner of the tank... but why? i don't have acro's there nor plan to keep any... so... its just more light for algae to grow on the glass lol.

I do try to do everything as efficient as possible. Remember i have 40 optics instead of 60 (what most people use), so that in itself produces more par. Last but not least, don't fall into the "horsepower" race of reefs; PAR. You DONT NEED 1000 PAR... you dont even need 500. Realistically if you can get 100 at the sandbed and 300 at the top you will be able to keep everything if positioned right. I dont undestrand why people want par to put sps on the sandbed... sps on a sandbed just looks wrong to me lol plus i can use that space for clams and cooler things that can't be on rocks.

the thing to take away from all this, is that yes you can do more with less. Just think about what you really need, and when placing corals make smart decisions (please dont overlook the MOST important part of corals... FLOW... more important to concentrate on that than to try to squeeze out 10 more par out of a set up).
Click to expand...
 
The second array almost done.
965b40b1.jpg
alt="">

The first array installed, temp install.
77668437.jpg
alt="">

Half tank shot
9c2fe3a1.jpg
alt="">

47d66929.jpg
alt="">

a6aa62df.jpg
alt="">

097c9b0e.jpg
alt="">

42dd3de9.jpg
alt="">
 
@kuyatwo wrote:
Are they Cree? If so what version did you go with said:
I found this on Steve's site:

ABOUT EPISTAR:

Steve's LEDs high powered 3 Watt LED packaging is specifically designed to tolerate high humidity environments, large temperature tolerances, and maximum thermal efficiency. Steve's LEDS use the highest quality oversized EpiStar 45mil square LED chips, which are known for extreme efficiency and reliability. Epistar Corporation is the largest manufacturer of light-emitting diodes in Taiwan. The company was established in 1996, and its headquarters are in the Northern Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, In 2009 it had an annual turnover of $300 million USD. Epistar specialises in high-brightness LED products, which are used in general lighting, traffic signals, and various consumer products such as mobile phones, televisions and laptop computers. The company supplies the LED backlighting for industry leading brand Samsung's liquid crystal displays. They are the world's largest manufacturer of red and yellow LEDs, and hold over 1000 patents. It has a history of patent disputes with competitor Philips Lumileds over the use of AlInGaP LED technology. However in September, 2009, Philips Lumileds signed an agreement to license AlInGaP technology to Epistar, which means they share the same technology.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top