Advice on a LED build

[Totara]

Hi all,

I am building a Reef LED for a person I know. So far I have pretty much completed (On a breadboard) the DIY Typhon based LED Controller, attached a fan to the heatsink, and prepared what I want to order from RapidLED.com. The tank is 30W 40L 40H (cm). I have designed the light (View the attached template) to have 9 x 3W LED's. The LED's are arranged as shown on the template and are as follows, 3 x XT-E Royal Blue, 2 x XP-G Cool White, 1 x XP-G2 Warm White, 1 x XP-E Green, 1 x XP-E Red, 1 x XP-E Blue. They will be divided onto 3 channels, White, Blue and Special. I believe that I can drive each channel with Meanwell LDD-700HW. This is what I need advice on, will the drivers I have selected be adequate, and will the spectrum I have chosen be good for what he wants to grow, mainly softies and some lps.

Cheers,
Will / Totara

[Totara]

Sorry for double post - forgot to attach some extra images I wanted people to see.

[marspeed]

Get the data sheets for the leds and see what the maximum current (millamps) is for your leds and size the drivers accordingly right now those drivers are 700 MA
I would also skip the red you have warm white there is plenty of info on color combos on rc

Marc

[perkint]

I would say you'd end up with a fairly warm light with the main source being 3 RB, 2 cool white (get these as XPG2 as well if you can) and 1 warm white. I'd slap a few more RB or even some blue XPEs.

Also, agree with the above - warm white should give enough red to not need the separate red LED.

Lastly, and I'm not sure about this, but I would think you'd either need more LEDs or up the power from 700mA. The XTE and XPG/XPG2 can all take double that. Personally I'd stick with the driver and simply add more RB & B.

Tim

[Totara]

Ok how about this for each of my channels:

Channel 1: 3 x Royal Blue XT-E (Driven by a Meanwell LDD-1000)
Channel 2: 2 x Cool White XP-G2, 1 x Warm White XP-G2 (Driven by a Meanwell LDD-1000)
Channel 3: 1 x Blue XP-E, 1 x Green XP-E, 1 x SemiLEDS True Violet UV (Driven by a Meanwell LDD-700)

Basically I have taken out the red, and replaced it with a violet, and bumped up the current on my RB and White

[perkint]

To be honest, i still think you may find it a bit warm, or maybe not quite bright enough. Worth a punt, but I'd stick more royal blues/blues on there. You are only looking at tweny odd watts there. Also, double check the max drive for your UVs - some don't take a very high current, so be sure it can take 700mA!

You have control over the different channels, so you can play and see what it's like :)

Tim

[marspeed]

I think you need more royal blue

[Totara]

Since it is such a small tank I was thinking that it would be enough, I also used a similar color spectrum to the MicMol Aqua Mini Color Gen 2, because that has been working really well for me. What should I swap out for more Royal Blue? Get rid of the UV and just have the Green and Blue on special channel?

[Totara]

What about going with 5 x XT-E Royal Blue on one channel, 3 x Cool White XP-G2 and 1 x Warm White XP-G2 on the other channel?

[perkint]

That sounds better. Personally I dont think you'll need to up the white count, but as it's on a separate channel you can always turn the whites down if you find that you need to :)

Tim

[Totara]

Sweet, as I understand it, I can use 2 x Meanwell LDD-1000 drivers, 1 for each channel? And the drivers will draw 1A each? So I need a 2A power pack?

Cheers
Will

[perkint]

1 for each channel, yeah. To work out the power supply requirements:
5 x XTEs at 1A. Check the datasheet for fV at 1A (it's something like 3.2V). 5 of them gives you about 16V. Then the LDD will need an input voltage of 3V. So that's about 19V. Do the same for the other strings. You need a power supply that puts out at least the voltage of the highest string (in your case that will be the XTEs). And less than the LDD max of 56V. In your case you need at least 19V, so cheapest solution would probably be a 24V supply.

Then multiply each string voltage by the current you will be driving it at to get the power requirements. That gives you about 19W for the RB, about 16W for the whites and less than 10W for the exotic string (depends on the LEDs you use). So you want a 24V supply capable of giving 45W. I would always go at least 30% over as power supplies generaly don't like being run flat out. In this case, probably cheapest solution would be a 60W (or 72W) 24V. Just depends what you can get :)

Tim

[Totara]

Will I get any real benefits out of the exotic string? I was thinking of dumping it so I still have 9 LED's total. I have a few PSU's lying around that I think can do the job...

[perkint]

I think you would get a good light that would give good colour and definitely good growth, from just the whites and royal blues. Would you get better rendition of colour (not growth or actual coral colour) with the exotic? That's a different matter. I think you might - definitely better "pop" with the UVs.

But, if it fits what you have (ie PSU) try it with just the whites and RBs. I doubt you will be disappointed and if you are - you built it, you now how to tinker with it :)

Tim

[Totara]

Thanks perkint for all the help. I have two PSU's, which one if either will work best? The first one is 4.0A at 16v, the second is 3.5A at 18.5v

Cheers,
Will

[perkint]

Do they have any adjustments for output voltage? If not you will probabpy only be able to run strings of 4 XTEs on either of them. I'd try the 16V one, but that will be very close - you might need to use the 18V. But, either would probably do if you drop to 4 LEDs max.

Tim