DIY LED lights?

J

JJC

Reefing newb
Ok so here's the plan I have been doing a lot..a lot of research with my time off on LED lights and have found a company that makes everything to the same specs as any pc halide or anything out there. I would tell you the name of the company but then I'd have to kill ya..it's all only on paper but I'm thinking of putting something together as long as my fellow fishermen disagree with me..a blue actinic should produce somewhere between 400 and 700 nm and a white bulb should produce around 10k..the company I found..has a blue LED that produces 465-475 nm each..and the whites produce between 5k and 10k..My plan is to make a 36" with 18 total 6 being blue 12 being white. If you add that up it's umm bright..but with some switches you can regulate which ones are on.

All that is needed besides the LEDs and a housing..that anybody can make out of anything is a driver and a power supply..so if anyone has any input on this or have tried to do it let me know..because if it works and no one has done it..well it should be the number one DIY on here..let me know what you think..
 
I've seen a DIY on LED lights but it was done by a guy who did LED lighting for a living. Kinda no fair on the DIY he had everything already. LEDs are so much more controllable than other lights. I would love to know how the cost of supplies compares to MH lighting for a comparable fixture.
 
That would be cheap especially since you wouldn't have to change the bulbs yearly. So can I look forward to reading your DIY LED lights thread? :D
 
If you wanna give me 200 I can start now. Sitting and thinking doesn't make money..prc the lowest they produce is 5000 depending on the voltage applied to them.
 
I've been following this thread:

DIY LEDs - The write-up - Reef Central Online Community

He's using cree's. We're going to be trying out P7's -- much more powerful. I have a p7 arriving sometime within a week or two (coming from Hong Kong) that we're going to play with. If it doesn't have an extreme spotlight effect, we will be going with these, plus some blue LEDs for the moonlight effect :)
 
Hmm good link but maybe he just had too much light..thanks anyway I didn't really try looking into other forums..I just wanted to reseArch it and see if it was possible..I'm not yet detered by that guys thread..who gets scared of algae anyways..sissys..so now that I read that the price just went down because I obviously don't need 18 total lights..I was worried about that being too much any way..I'll just leave room to put in extras. For a bulb change in the far far future..hehe..so long bulb changes..when I put it together that is..
 
What's wrong with crees that was my secret ingredient..if there's an issue let me know before I buy..and thanks for crushing my cheap dream I've been having all day
 
Yeah, we've been researching the led's, too, and ordered an LED w/ heat sink base already, so we can play with it :)

EDIT: LOL sorry :) didn't mean to crush dreams....just sharing in put, cuz we've been researching like mad. My 125 has no lighting atm and figured now's the best time to start it.

The cree's are fine. Most of the LED setups out there now are using crees. But the -p7's are among the next gen in LED, but others have said it might cause too much of a spotlight effect. Hence why we're testing it out first.
 
Thanks for the links there. Deffinantly going to look into a DIY on this.

I also agree that the algae problem that the guy in the first link had was from poor water quality. Not because of too much light. He just needed to spend a couple months battling it.
 
bjohanson1234 said:
BTW I looked into the Cree's over a year ago and they were 12-15 bucks a pop. Looks like the price is starting to drop:^:
Click to expand...

Because, as with all technology, they're being replaced by better lights. Even the p7's are being replaced by an even more powerful light (someone in this forum posted that one video of a single LED light that's MEGA powerful -- one LED comparable to I think a MH or T5 -- can you imagin?? ONE LED.
 
wontonflip said:
Because, as with all technology, they're being replaced by better lights. Even the p7's are being replaced by an even more powerful light (someone in this forum posted that one video of a single LED light that's MEGA powerful -- one LED comparable to I think a MH or T5 -- can you imagin?? ONE LED.
Click to expand...

I may be thinking of a different post but, the one you're talking about wonton was actually a plasma light, not an LED ... I'm not sure if I totally bought into that though, I thought it was weird that he posted a bunch of pics from his setup, then only wrote about his progress growing corals and such, and never added any pics after that to show any actual proof of how they were doing.
 
JJC this sounds like a very interesting project. I'm not a DIY person so I would never attempt to undertake a project such as this. Good luck with it. I look forward to seeing it built.
 
BL1 said:
I may be thinking of a different post but, the one you're talking about wonton was actually a plasma light, not an LED ... I'm not sure if I totally bought into that though, I thought it was weird that he posted a bunch of pics from his setup, then only wrote about his progress growing corals and such, and never added any pics after that to show any actual proof of how they were doing.
Click to expand...

AH yes,....you're right...it was plasma!

I got LED in the brain LOL
 

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