After reading all the hype about LED's in the past a couple months ago I set up my own little project. I have been asked by a couple people what I am testing, wattage, blah blah blah. I figured I would throw it up. Most LED retros you see on the boards all you hear is good good good. This post is not here to bash anything or any kind of lighting. It is here to show my experience with the LED's. This is not a post put up to start any fights, arguements, or anything. If you want to argue (You know who you are!) take it somewhere else. This is a informative thread ONLY!
Here goes:
Tank:
14 Gal BioCube with 2x24w PC's
I did not take many pics of me doing the actual build since there are so many other pics and builds out there. The LED's are wired in series and I have 6 led's on 1 driver.
I wanted to see what the difference was in the cheap LED's (ebay) and the LED's that are sold on this forum in group buys. I am still waiting on my controller to be built for the LED retro I made for my 28g NanoCube but the person has been rather busy and I guess does not have the time to finish the controller. I hope he actually does finish it one day because I would also like to test those LED's. The tank was a FISH ONLY tank so in the end it did not really matter how it came out.
Now for the lights. I installed 3 x 12000k 3w and 3x 445nm unknown LED's that I bought off ebay which came with the driver/power supply. Here is the link.....
http://www.ebay.com/itm/110726579034...#ht_823wt_1031
Here are the specs.
Power Supply/Driver:
Constant Current power supply (can not dim)
Input Current: 0.25A
Input Votage: 100-240VAC
Output voltage: 12-25VDC
Output current: 660mA
Dimensions: 2 3/8”(long)x 1 1/4”(wide) x 3/8”(high).
Water proof: IP65.
Here are the LED's:
Blue LEDs: 445 nm (wave Length)
Voltage: 3.4-3.8V
Current: 620mA-650 mA
View Angle: 120 degree.
Emitted Color: White
Color Temperature: White @ 12,000 K
Luminous Intensity: 120~140 Lumen
Voltage : 3.4V~3.8V
Current : 650mA
View Angle: 120 degree
As you can see not the best LED's out there by any means. After doing research most BridgeLux led give about 170-190lm so these "cheap" LED's are not too far behind the BridgeLux. At the high end the are 50lm less per chip which means I would need 1 more of this type for every 3-4 BridgeLux to get about the same lm. The total cost of the entire project including thermal glue, wires, etc was under $40.00. The LED's with power supply/driver ended up being just under $29 shipped to my door. Had I gone BridgeLux it would have cost me more for just the LED chips then I spend on the chips and drivers from ebay. I am not trying to say the ebay LED's are better or anything. I wired up the driver I got from ebay to a string of LED's I bought from someone in SDR and side by side the lights did not look any different. Maybe its just me but only a par meter will tell the secrets which I do not have. I would love to see a PAR reading if anyone close to Vista would like to come and test it for me.
Here are some pics of the finished build. Pics are not the best because I had to take them with my crappy camera phone. I gutted the hood of all the CF junk. I left the moonlights and just used the reflector from the old CF light as my "heatsink" for the LED's. I did not figure I would need a huge heatsink from HeatsinkUSA or anything.
I ran the tank for a couple weeks without Optics and coral. I do like the blue color the mix of lights give off that is for sure. I do not lose much light into the room either. Most of the light stays in the tank which I also like. As of right now the tank went from using about 50w to using just under 14. The way I see it is if I have to add another 6 LED's I will not be saving much off the power bill. With 12 LED's I will be looking at about 30w give or take which is only 20w under the stock PC lighting which is nothing of a savings which I thought LED's was suppose to do. Save me money.... After a few weeks I threw some Kenya in the tank. About 1-1.5 weeks later the Kenya died (lived just fine under the PC's). I am guessing it died from lack of light. So back to ebay I went and got some Optics. 6 optics 60 Degree for about $5.00 shipped.
Installed the optics......
Fired it up with the optics.
As of right now I have a rock with a couple more Kenya Trees on it giving the lights another test. If things do not work out this time I will go ahead and add 6 more LED's for a total of 12 which is what every other 14g LED build had I looked at. I just wanted to see if 12 was actually needed or if I could get away with less. Trying to prove to myself that LED's do actually save you money. As of right now it is saving me money but it is not keeping any corals alive. With the visual proof and what is going on in the tank I am still not that impressed with LED's. Only the color. Again I did not go out and buy the highest priced led's on the market. I am trying to do a build at a decent cost.