DIY LEDS - save me

[Xavier613]

So I decided that I was going to make some LED actinic bars for my 75...
Started off well, ordered royal blue, blue, turquoise, and green leds. Great.

Then I got 8 feet of U channel aluminum and 3 feet of L channel. Going to use L channel on each end as the holders, and mount the U channel onto it at each end. Making a square that fits Just inside the TEK light I have.

From here I ordered 2 meanwell eln 60-48D sinkable drivers from some electronics site. Also picked up 2x 10k ohm 1/2 Watt pots.

So I soldered Everything together and its all wired right, and (at the time I didn't have the pots) used a 9v battery to test. Worked wonderfully, and I was extremely happy. Aside from having to hold a 9v to it for it to work lol.

So today I went to radioshack and got the pots, and tried to hook one up and nothing happened. I read somewhere about a wallwart 10v or some junk, but I don't know. No where has a straight up wiring guide for this crap and I've never done any sort of electric anything so I'm teaching myself as I go lol.



So finally my question is. What the hell do I need to do buy or hook up for this to work? By the sounds of it I need the wallwarts, but I don't understand why I need a plug for each driver and each wallwart.... so for my 3 sets of 14 leds I need 6 damn plugs?


Please help if I missed something. I will make sure to post pictures this evening.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Xavier613]

Here's a few pics
Nothing extremely relevant lol

 

[Fish Brain]

Having done a DIY LED build myself I can help but I'm a little confused on a few things. So you have two drivers but I'm a little fuzzy on the "3 sets of 14 LEDs". Is that 3 sets for a total of 14 LEDs or 42 LEDs? Each Meanwell driver can run 8-14 3W LEDs, so you either have an extra driver or not enough drivers. However if you are only running blues you can not go past 60% or 6V (input) or you will be over driving the blues and shortening their life. You can avoid this by adjusting the the driver internally to a max of 750mA. Depending on the number of LEDs we can figure out the required forward voltage and how many drivers you need.

And yes you will need some form of input voltage to the driver by a power supply (0-10V). I use a radio shack 3-12v (depending on where you are you can have mine, I run my LEDs off the ALC module of my RKL to control the dimming.) The Red and Black wires on the driver are for the LEDs and the Blue and White are basically the on/off switch based on, 0V being off and 10V being 100% on.

 

[Xavier613]

First im in cherry hill, and second I am one driver short. Unless I'm only running the blues at 750mA then can I do parallel strings?

I dunno I just have to do a little more research I guess Haha. Maybe if someone is in my area they can give me a hand lol otherwise we can try to hash it out on here.

I'm pretty sure as soon as I get that 10v power source ill be good. And I did not know I couldn't run the blues at full power... is that the royal blues or regular blues?

 

[Xavier613]

I THINK I Got It

Anyway, My questions are
How many drivers can be hooked up to one enercell and one potentiometer? Just one per? or can multiple drivers be controlled through one dimmer and one enercell?
Also, since i will have to run the 13 XP-E's at 750mA, can i then run 2 strings of 12 or 13 leds at 600mA to run the meanwell 60-48D at 1.2mA? That is how i am reading it on the reefledlights website FAQ section.

If so i would like to use my (2) Two meanwell 60-48D drivers to run a total of (4) Four strings (2 parallel sets of 2 strands) of 12-13 LED's driven at 600mA each, in which case i adjust the driver to run at 1.2mA (since the ammount is divided by the strings, 2.

So to summarize.
To run the above setup (4 strings w/ 12-13 leds each, totalling 48-52)
I will need :
TWO Enercell 300mA Ac Adapters
TWO Potentiometers
TWO Meanwell eln-60-48D Drivers (adjusted to 1.2mA then divided into two strings at 600mA each)

 

[Fish Brain]

750mA is recommended, 1000mA max on the blues (both royal and blue) and the driver can put out 1300mA, so you can see the issue of blues at 100%.
Inside the driver there is and internal pot that will adjust the amps out. Using a voltmeter you can set the driver at 1000mA and not have to worry about over driving and burning out the LEDs.

For supplementation, I would say give 24 LEDs a try and use the two drivers you have now.

 

[Xavier613]

Ideally i would like to slowly take out bulbs from my 8 bulb t5 fixture and run the LED strips instead. Adding white and such later.

Is there an issue running at 600mA with parallel strings? How much output is lost versus the 750 recommended?

 

[Fish Brain]

For the blues, not that much of a difference between 600 and 750, it matters more with the whites. You can max the driver output and get 650mA/series but to be honest I never made it past 35% output running the 12 Crees (50/50 W/B) over my 20L frag tank. I didn't have the depth to keep some corals from bleaching at over 35%.

You can run both drivers off one power adapter and pot. RapidLED sells a dimmer kit for white / blues. Here is the instruction guide you can use for a reference: http://www.vinnymarini.com/pictures/rapid_docs/RapidLED_diy_dimmer.pdf

 

[Xavier613]

gotcha gotcha. Im having a convo on reef2reef simultaneously so im sorry if i mix anything info wise.
Bill from reefledlights is explaining to me the whole parallel strings and such, and i am planning on following what he has laid out, cause its pretty much what i wanted to do.

I am "Planning" on running 4 sets of 12 leds. Mixture of colors. all cept white pretty much.
These 4 strings will be run at 600mA each.
they will be powered by two meanwell eln 60-48D drivers run at 1.2-1.3mA
these two drivers will be hooked up to a single enercell 300mA power adapter. I am going to use the voltage adjuster on this to change the brightness, I dont really have too great of a need fora dimmer and can wait for an apex with the ALN module to dim eventually when the full build is complete.

I am waiting for him to describe what i need in terms of fuses and resistors so that i can wire all 48 leds on 4 parallel strings to the two drivers.



For the time being i only have the single 14 led bar and am going to adjust the driver to 750mA at 10v until i hook up the rest.



Does all of this sound good? Do you know anything about the fuses and resistors to run parallel strings?

 

[TanksNStuff]

I know nothing about electrical work, but I'd like to stop by and see your DIY once you get it working Xavier.

Brian, nice link for the dimmer from RapidLED. It would be great if I could get one of those to control the Apollo Reef LED's that I was looking at. I'm sure it would be possible, but they were designed to be controlled with an Apex. But, I believe they are using the same Meanwell drivers and as such this should work if I could somehow hook this up in replacement of the controller connections they come with.

 

[Xavier613]

Okay well, after spending the last 2 hours on this project (only time i get to myself is past midnight lol) i have finally completed the hard part. all 3 sets of leds are wired up and firing.

They are configured a little whacky for now but it works atleast lol. i can pry em off and change em later if i feel like it.

First bar is driven at 750mA by 1 meanwell eln 60-48d. this contains 14x 3w CREE XP-E Royal Blue (450-460nm)

Second bar contains 12 Leds total. 6x 3w CREE XP-E Blue (465nm-485nm) 2x 3w Bridgelux? Green (530nm) 2x 3w Bridgelux? Turquoise (495nm) and 2x 3w CREE XP-E Royal Blue
Third bar contains 12x 3w CREE XP-E Royal Blue

The second and third bar will be run parallel at 600mA each using a single meanwell eln 60-48d, once I get the fuses and such together. Hopefully tomorrow I can make my final trip to radioshack lol. I fired each string individually and all leds work great. the second bar has an interesting color, and the green definitely overpowers the other colors on that strand. im hoping that once the rest are running it wont be as noticable. But if not i have a few spare royal blues

I am going to be mounting the aluminum U channel to Aluminum L channel that i just picked up, and rigging it up inside my TEK t5 light that i am running. Hoping to eliminate a few of the t5's, and play with the color scheme a bit using the combination.

The actual bracket will be similar to this:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/q5FOUKDfvEYk2RB-iuJ-80GwvVygLUjeaAK_hyYqfGU?feat=embedwebsite

I believe that a combination of T5 and LED will produce the best balanced spectrum and lead to the best growth and coloration, based on the many tanks i have seen with both different types, and the few i have seen that utilize both.

I will take the best pictures i can possibly take tomorrow night, and anyone interested when everything is all said and done is more than welcome to come by and check em out. Price of admission is one frag haha

 

[Xavier613]

Done done done. Pretty awesome looking, gotta tweak with the brightness, and I think I'm gonna pick up another driver so I don't have to run the 2nd and 3rd strings parallel at the lower amperage.

Aside from that I'm very happy with how it turned out. Now to mount it onto my fixture.

 

[toad2169]

looks pretty good, i can't wait to start my diy led to replace my mh

 

[downbeach]

Done done done. Pretty awesome looking, gotta tweak with the brightness, and I think I'm gonna pick up another driver so I don't have to run the 2nd and 3rd strings parallel at the lower amperage.

Aside from that I'm very happy with how it turned out. Now to mount it onto my fixture.

Looks great Xavier, nicely done.

 

[Fish Brain]

Looking good.

 

[Xavier613]

Thanks guys, I need to throw some more U channels on there, rivot em to the existing ones to disperse some heat... this thing gets hawt. Atleast till I can rig up some fans or something for some active cooling.

 

[Fish Brain]

Just out of curiosity what is the cost of the u channel you are using?

If you are going to piggyback the u channels, it would be a good idea to put some thermal paste between them, then rivet them together.

 

[Xavier613]

Exactly my plan. Because of blackfriday sales they cost me like 60$ each I think. About. Driven with all hardware.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Looking good Xavier. I definitely want to come see that thing in action.

Too bad you didn't order the meanwell eln-60-48P drivers instead... you could have gotten This controller for it for only $75.

You can use This one though.

 

[Xavier613]

im going to eventually upgrade from my aquacontroller JR setup to an apex or RKE controller, where a breakout box or module will be able to power and control the lights. Thats the ultimate goal. Probably about another 2 or 3 months. once i get my student loan check erm... yeah books... right...