I would be interested in a group buy and working together once we get all the details figured out. I am hoping to order the controller parts in the next couple of weeks and getting that built then moving on to the leds. I wasn’t clear if you were using a controller or building your own, what are you doing?
At the bottom of this post
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...postcount=2193 is a link to the BOM and board design. I was getting ready to order some boards some seedstudio, you have to buy in quantities of 10. But wanted to get controller done first. I am planning on 8 different colors (white, RB 450nm, RB 465nm, blue, green, red, red/orange, UV) with each being dimmable so I will be using 8 boards and may use the other 2 boards for the sump and put some frags in the sump.
For the controller I am leaning towards using the hydra-reef described here
http://hydra-reef.com/wiki/Home.
I did quite a bit of reading on using U channel on RC. I tried to find some of posts I read in the past but I was not finding them. Here is a thread that people describe their LED build…post 16 terahz details his build and is not using a fan. But if you start searching you will find lots of info on not using a fan with a few stipulations. The obvious big one is that you have to have adequate ventilation. I have hood on my tank that is open on top so that should fine for convection cooling. Also it is going to depend on how close you put your leds. There was a post where they tested using an aluminum plate with no fins and no fans and if I remember correctly if spaced the leds 3” apart convection cooling was enough.