48" LED upgrade

[davross]

Hi all,

Since I finished the LED retro on my xcube26 I have been really impressed with the vibrant colours, coral growth and amazing shimmer so after much planning and advice I have decided to start a bigger project and upgrade my 75g to LEDs.

The tank is a Fluval Osaka 320 and measures 48"(L)x18"(W)x24"(H) and is currently running 4 x 54w T5's. The rock is arranged in 2 "islands" so the plan is to have one array above each island and Im hoping this will give a nice unique lighting effect as well as reducing the cost a little as I will be using less LEDs than if I were to cover the entire tank. each array will have 12 CREE XR-E R2s and 12 CREE XR-E Royal Blues giving a total of 48 LEDs. These will be fitted with 60 degree optics.

The LEDs will be cotrolled by an arduino which will allow automatic dawn/dusk as well as monitoring of the heatsink/led temperature. The Arduino will also control a small LCD screen allowing me to veiw usefull info such as temp and the current intensity of each colour of LED and there will be a joystick allowing me to set the time etc. Luckily, someone I work with has kindly done most of the work for this and its almost ready to go.


I have made some drawings of the design I would like to follow.

Light fixture in dark oak to match the cabinet. The panels on top will be made of metal grille to allow enough ariflow



Heatsinks/Fans: 2 heatsinks on each side. They will be closer together than in the image. There will be enough space to add a third heatsink in future if required.



Centre/cotrol box: The centre of the fixture will house the buckpucks, wiring and aduino etc.



LCD Screen and joystick



Underside.




Photo of arduino, LCD screen and other components.



I ordered the LEDs, drivers, heatsinks, fans and power supplies yesterday. It all came to just over £550 which im pretty happy with. All thats left to pay for now is the case and some connectors etc as I have already bought the arduino parts. Im dying to get started now but the LEDs are coming from Cutter (Australia) and the buckpucks are coming from LEDSupply in the US so it will be a week or 2 till I have all the parts I need to get started. I suppose I can drill and tap the heatsinks while I wait.. oh joy!

[Rogue]

I really like the look of that

[TAD]

So do I very nice ! Are you going to do a detailed write up for all us less intelligent peeps who cant build anything unless it has instructions?

[davross]

Originally Posted by TAD

So do I very nice ! Are you going to do a detailed write up for all us less intelligent peeps who cant build anything unless it has instructions?

lol.. I needed instructions too for my first LED build.

I will post details of the whole build as I go.

[johnski]

looks like it will be a very nice project , my next tank is 48" and i'll be doing a diy led build , so will be watching with interest.
Interesting your going 4 sections of 12 leds each, what is the pattern of whites to blues on each section?

[Emperor Angel]

Wow - What a project - Subscribed!

[adambrum]

Nice looking project love the nokia shield, how many of the pwm pins does it use ?

[davross]

Originally Posted by johnski

looks like it will be a very nice project , my next tank is 48" and i'll be doing a diy led build , so will be watching with interest. Interesting your going 4 sections of 12 leds each, what is the pattern of whites to blues on each section?

There are a few reasons why I chose to go with 2 seperate heatsinks on each side.. I thought it would give me flexiility with positioning, enable me to remove heatsinks individually to resolve any issues so I dont lose all the LEDs if something goes wrong. Also I will be leaving enough space on each side so I can easily add another heaksink/12 LEDs if I need them in future. It will also make it much easier to re-use parts of the array for projects in future if I need to.

The pattern will just be alternating R.Blue and white on each heatsink.

[davross]

Originally Posted by adambrum

Nice looking project love the nokia shield, how many of the pwm pins does it use ?

The arduino part of the project is being mainly done by someone else so Im not 100% sure of all the details. I will ask the guy who designed it when Im back at work on tuesday though and let you know.

[markcox]

I think you should look into venting the buck puck section and spacing the bucks out a bit more, they can get very hot when running at 1000mA. Just my 2 pence worth.