Be careful using rivets for the LEDs. They can come in contact with the voltage in your led and ground it out and fry your driver. I'm using past for my LEDs, the driver boards are getting riveted to the heat sink since they need to be cooled.
LED build for my 120G
- Thread starter jaustin
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0032AM6EI">Polyimide</a> works great for isolating the contacts from whatever.
The LED board in my Pacific Sun unit is secured to the heatsink with about what seemed like 10,000 little screws. The back of the LED's were isolated from the heatsink by the Polyimide. Of course the LEDs had thermal paste on them, which then contacted the Polyimide, which is an excellent heat conductor from everything I read.
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Are you following a guide? Or is all this just through your own knowledge and experimentation?
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how much do you think it will end up costing to build that fixture?
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when you look at how much a led fixture is, thats like half the price.
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Or for me to buy the 6 recommended for my 180 its over $3k...
For a 180, you should be able to build your own with controllable dimming for $1200 or so. Roughly the same LEDs as 5 AI units, but spread differently so you get more out of the light.
It really isn't that hard to put these things together. It's not rocket science. I had more trouble with my T5 retrofit than my LEDs.
It really isn't that hard to put these things together. It's not rocket science. I had more trouble with my T5 retrofit than my LEDs.
LEDs are glued. The mounting of the heat sinks starts tomorrow. On a side note...I used 3/4 of a single set of silver adhesive. I bought three thinking that should just about do it.......
Not much adhesive is needed, one order is enough for 100+ LEDs. I glued 96 and still could do another 20-30.
Like I said earlier, each grouping has one XPG white, one XPE RB, and one XPE blue. With the exception to one grouping on each heat sink which has two XPG whites and one XPE RB. The 8 whites will be for dusk dawn settings and the 4 Royal Blues will be for moon lighting...none will get optics and they will be on their own drivers.
Can't wait to get this thing over my reef and get some PAR measurements. The numbers should be higher than my 400W 20K Ushios.
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Not much adhesive is needed, one order is enough for 100+ LEDs. I glued 96 and still could do another 20-30.
Like I said earlier, each grouping has one XPG white, one XPE RB, and one XPE blue. With the exception to one grouping on each heat sink which has two XPG whites and one XPE RB. The 8 whites will be for dusk dawn settings and the 4 Royal Blues will be for moon lighting...none will get optics and they will be on their own drivers.
Can't wait to get this thing over my reef and get some PAR measurements. The numbers should be higher than my 400W 20K Ushios.
All LEDs on and at full dim.
Edit: The pockets you see that aren't on are for my dusk dawn dimming and my moon lights. Each pocket has two white LEDs that will come on at 7am and slowly ramp up with the rest. They will be the last to go out. The third is a RB LED that will come on at full dim sometime around 7pm and stay on for 12hrs; they will not ramp up but remain at full dim.
The pockets that aren't lit will not get optics
Happy Reefing everyone!
Edit: pics of the box coming.
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That looks phenomenal. I would love to see you make a video
Edit: http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i19/ickisgtp/?action=view¤t=5865e4e8.mp4
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i19/ickisgtp/?action=view¤t=f14d23ac.mp4
Edit: Ignore the post above, here are the two vids I made.
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Did you buy the LED Retrofit Kit Packages? I'm really thinking i should retry my led endeavor
