SNEAK PEAK- O2Surplus' 300 watt LED lighting retrofit

[O2surplus]

]Hey Everyone.

Here's a sneak peak at the new LED lighting system that I've been working on. There will be a build thread to follow, as soon as time permits. This setup may give others additional info/ideas on their own plans.
I have nearly all the parts I need to complete the project. I just waiting on 4 more Bridgelux leds to arrive in the mail. I have already completed building my custom Drivers and my custom built controller is being tested as I write.

Here are a few photos- The first is an old 4' CURRENT OUTER ORBIT EXTREME power compact fixture. I've mounted 2 of the 6 BridgeLux BXRA-c4500 led arrays to heatsinks. The heatsinks have a 12 volt blower attached to them, that are hidden behind the stock reflector.

The next photo is of a custom built Led driver of my own design. Each driver will control 2 of the LEDs, so I've already built 3 of them for the project. This driver is similar to the one I built for JCardona1's project.More details to follow

[IWANNAGOFAST]

wow this is nuts! How strong are those LEDs?

[evilc66]

C4500's? That's some serious LED action.

[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by IWANNAGOFAST

wow this is nuts! How strong are those LEDs?

They're gonna be run at 25 volts with 2 amps of current,so about 50 watts each. This particular LED is rated to deliver 5000 lux at that power level.

[IWANNAGOFAST]

wow so crazy! Why so high? Why not use crees? just curious. This should be an awesome fixture.

[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by IWANNAGOFAST

wow so crazy! Why so high? Why not use crees? just curious. This should be an awesome fixture.

The system that I have on my tank right now consists of 90 Cree XRE-Q5's, running at 270 watts. The tank is a 225 gallon, so it requires quite a bit of power to keep my plants going strong. I've had it up and running for the last year and am really happy with it so far.

This new fixture may replace the old one on my tank, but I haven't decided yet. I am building the new one just for fun, just to see if it will work. It may prove to be complete "overkill" as I normally subscribe to the "some's good- more must be better" approach to doing things,but I won't know for sure until I try.
Here's a recent photo of my tank and a pile of drivers that I built for a LFS.The photo shows 20, and I built a total of 30. 30 drivers will drive 360- 3 watt leds.

[redfishsc]

Definitely one of the coolest LED setups I've seen yet.

Will you use any reflectors or just use the 120 degree beam angle they come with?

Originally Posted by IWANNAGOFAST

wow so crazy! Why so high? Why not use crees? just curious. This should be an awesome fixture.

A few reasons, even though the Cree's are usually more efficient than the Bridgelux.


For simplicity sake, using 6 LEDs makes life much easier on the setup.

Also, he chose some NICE LED's--- those big Bridgelux will probably have superior color rendering to the Cree's.

I know the 10-watt Bridgelux 402's gave some very nice, balanced spectral curves on the radiometer this weekend. We're compiling the data now on what all we tested.

[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by redfishsc

Definitely one of the coolest LED setups I've seen yet.

Will you use any reflectors or just use the 120 degree beam angle they come with?

Thanks for the compliments and nope, I won't be using any optics on the LEDs. The 120 degree angle should spread the light on my 6' tank nice and even.

[jcardona1]

Very nice Aaron, I was looking forward to seeing this beast. Can't wait to see the finished product!

[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by jcardona1

Very nice Aaron, I was looking forward to seeing this beast. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Hey Jose- thanks for the encouragement. This things gonna be a PAR "monster" that's for sure HaHa! I've got to give you credit though- because of you, I'm gonna throw in a couple "warm white" emitters. Just to bring up the CRI a bit.

By the way- How are those "sunrise and sunsets" looking for ya?

[IWANNAGOFAST]

Any idea what kinda commercial driver can run these LEDs? I have a buddy that wants to light up his 200 gallon tank, I think using 3w cree's on that big of a tank would be way too expensive.

[audioaficionado]

I'm really looking forward to your build thread

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[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by IWANNAGOFAST

Any idea what kinda commercial driver can run these LEDs? I have a buddy that wants to light up his 200 gallon tank, I think using 3w cree's on that big of a tank would be way too expensive.

I suppose one of the higher capacity MeanWell's could drive'm, but this particular led's specs would cause a trade off to need to be made. They're listed with an "average" Vf of 25.6 and a maximum current of 3 amps, but the ones I have are happy to light up at voltages as low as 22vdc and 1 amp of current. I suppose you may be able to drive one with a meanwell- with the current maxed out, but 2 may exceed that driver's voltage limits.

[evilc66]

Originally Posted by O2surplus

They're gonna be run at 25 volts with 2 amps of current,so about 50 watts each. This particular LED is rated to deliver 5000 lux at that power level.

You mean lumens, right

Those are CAT4101 drivers right? I'm assuming you are paralleling them on the pcb to get 2A?

[O2surplus]

Originally Posted by evilc66

You mean lumens, right

Those are CAT4101 drivers right? I'm assuming you are paralleling them on the pcb to get 2A?

Yep, your right it's lumens not lux, and yes the cat4101's will be run in parallel to reach 2 amps.