Planning out DIY LED for 29gal

1140 Views 8 Replies 4 Participants Last post by gus6464, Sep 20, 2012

gus6464

Discussion Starter · Sep 15, 2012

Got a 29 gal at Petco today and need to figure out what to do about lighting situation. I will be going Luxeon Rebel ES either 6300K or 5000K all around powered by a single Meanwell ELN-60-48P and a Typhoon controller that will be added later on. For heatsink I will be using 80/20 extruded bars taken from a build someone else did on theirs.

Should I go 2-30in bars with 7 LEDs each for a total of 14 or will 12 do? Lights will be sitting on top of the tank with no optics.

Also 6300K or 5000K or combo of both?

Pressurized CO2 will be used and not looking for super high light just something that will grow anything including HC carpet.

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Hoppy

· #2 · Sep 15, 2012

My guess is that if you use 2 rows of LEDs spaced 2.75 inches apart, with the rows about 3-4 inches apart, running at 700 mAmps, you should get around 40 micromols of PAR. That would be 9 LEDs per row, 18 total. I don't think you will have a good enough heatsink to use more current.

The color temperature you use is a personal choice, but I would use the 6300K instead of 5000K.

I haven't done anything with Luxeon LEDs so there is a lot of guesswork involved in this.

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gus6464

Discussion Starter · #3 · Sep 15, 2012

Hoppy said:
My guess is that if you use 2 rows of LEDs spaced 2.75 inches apart, with the rows about 3-4 inches apart, running at 700 mAmps, you should get around 40 micromols of PAR. That would be 9 LEDs per row, 18 total. I don't think you will have a good enough heatsink to use more current.

The color temperature you use is a personal choice, but I would use the 6300K instead of 5000K.

I haven't done anything with Luxeon LEDs so there is a lot of guesswork involved in this.

Damn I wanted to push the Rebels at 1000mA. This is the alu bars I was going to use:
http://www.8020.net/25-5013-Pop-Up.htm

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Hoppy

· #4 · Sep 15, 2012

Going to the higher current doesn't give you proportionately more lumens, because the efficiency drops as the current goes up. But, the only way to know if you can run them at that current is to try it and see how hot they get, remembering that it is the temperature of the star mount, not the temperature of the heatsink, that is critical. It might work fine at 1000mAmps.

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paronaram

· #5 · Sep 16, 2012

Gus, how much are this aluminum bars?

Thanks.

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gus6464

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 16, 2012

paronaram said:
Gus, how much are this aluminum bars?

Thanks.

Here are the amazon links for all of them up to 96".

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...-keywords=80/20+25+SERIES+25-5013+50mm+X+13mm

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paronaram

· #7 · Sep 16, 2012

gus6464 said:
Here are the amazon links for all of them up to 96".

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...-keywords=80/20+25+SERIES+25-5013+50mm+X+13mm

Thank you!
This are nice alu rails, but I'm afraid they may get very hot, you probably will need some fans going with this setup.
(small fan will be noisy)
But again, nice hardware for this price!

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Geoscouter

· #8 · Sep 19, 2012

I used 2 rows of 6 Cree XPG cool white LEDs running at 1000ma on my 29 gal tank. No optics. 2" aluminum c channel. Plenty of light, in fact I have them dialed down significantly with a potentiometer since I don't have co2 yet but even at 1000ma the c channel is just slightly warm to the touch. No fans.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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gus6464

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 20, 2012

Geoscouter said:
I used 2 rows of 6 Cree XPG cool white LEDs running at 1000ma on my 29 gal tank. No optics. 2" aluminum c channel. Plenty of light, in fact I have them dialed down significantly with a potentiometer since I don't have co2 yet but even at 1000ma the c channel is just slightly warm to the touch. No fans.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have been actually leaning toward Cree XT-E now and getting around 12-14 of them. Do you have any pics of your setup?

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