Another NC 28 LED Retro

[klevur1]

sweet i like seeing this DIY with the LEDs. making your own saves money and is more enjoyable as well as you don't submit to buying an LED unit @ astronomical prices. theoretically this should drive down the price hopefully. LEDs have been around for a while now... still frickin' expensive which is a pity. since LEDs lower your carbon footprint and there's no bulb(s) to replace and polute the environment with mercury they really are on their way to one upping HID systems woot woot KUDOS on the LED build =)

[willp2]

Thanks!

While still pricey, they are affordable if you are willing to do a DIY setup. Not only affordable, but the power savings for light and cooling are so significant that at least on smaller tanks, I can't see any reason not to go LED. I think the cost to build is probably close to the cost of a good traditional light fixture, but then it’s all payback. No new bulbs all the time, far less power to run the lights and far less power to cool the tank.

While no doubt there will be some hold outs that swear that traditional lighting is the way to go, I think in 5 years we'll all be using LED's as the advantages far outweigh the perceived disadvantages.

[CCLansman]

For all the people asking about the par and how it stacks up here is a good set of measurements done by melev:
http://www.melevsreef.com/par_readings.html

So 97 par is more likely closer to 150MH while with optics and over 250 at the sand bend is near a 400wMH

I had 12 led over my old 12gal nano, at 1A and 3V and really fried everything in that old tank not realizing just how strong leds can be.

[Batman]

i'm curious if these could be set on some sort of a digital timer that will dim/increase the lights at certain hours to make it fully automated. that is a flippin sweet setup

[willp2]

i'm curious if these could be set on some sort of a digital timer that will dim/increase the lights at certain hours to make it fully automated. that is a flippin sweet setup

I'm slowly working on something like this. Trying to make something cheap and dead simple.

So 97 par is more likely closer to 150MH ...

Not that it matters much but I was at 130 PAR at 350mA on the sand

[splitkooks]

any update with your new drivers? Im engineering a like build for my BC14 w/15 CREE LED's and *hopefully* employ your timer

[willp2]

I wasted a bunch of time with a bad batch of controllers. Once I finally figured out it was a hardware problem I ordered a different controller. That came in the mail today and I started putting this thing together finally and am testing it out now. So hopefully in the next day or two I’ll have this design wrapped up and well tested and can start looking at building a few more.

[DiverDave]

Hey Will. Where are the picts of the tank? I'd love to see and hear how the corals have been doing through out your project. How's the growth been since inception? Would you go back to other lighting options? Supplement the led's? Throw us a bone!

Dave

[willp2]

Hey Dave, thanks for reviving the old thread.

I'm all in on LED's and at this point. I love the control and versatility I can have. The power savings alone have made this whole thing worth it.

This tank was mostly softies and I've been adding SPS over time. I kept the light sort of low for the first few months, acclimating slowly and because at first I didn’t have much that needed more light. In the last few months things have really sped up a lot. SPS frags are showing good growth, even when on the sand bed. The few SPS in there all started as tiny frags. I've had to get rid of or heavily frag several things. The toadstool in back totally outgrew the tank and had to go. The green monti has had about a third of it taken out and is bigger than it looks in the pic, it pretty much dominates the tank at the moment. The hammer up top pretty much tripled its size and I got rid of most of it. The tank is in need of good cleaning now and I need to get rid of some more stuff to make room for more SPS and do some general redecorating.

Growth has been excellent I think. Here are a few pics from Mid November then today. Just cell phone pics but should let you see what’s happening.

November 2010


April 2011


November 2010


April 2011

[DiverDave]

Looks great. My 5 gal was only up for about 6 months beore I had to take it down. Growth was slow and almost seems retarded by the light's intensity; almost like a slow bleaching. I had a Garf Bonsai that grew low but it had more purple coloration where it grew into shade vice in direct light. You're looks awesome and I look forward to getting back to the states and starting up again. Thanks!