Aquastyle LED

[Ingwe]

I placed an order with Aquastyle on the 30th of December and the package just arrived at my doorstep a few minutes ago.

Many thanks to oceanviper and reckless for introducing and answering questions on the lights!

I'll be posting pictures when I get home. Please post any specific requests (close ups etc) if you have any.

A set of 20 3 watt (Bridgelux) leds, with drivers, plugs, fan, lens and heatsink costs 75 US dollars, shipping (FedEx) costs 23 US dollars.

Link: http://www.aquastyleonline.com/

stay tuned..

Cheers

[Ingwe]

How closely can I place the LEDs from each other without overheating them, (using the heatsink and fan included)?

I'm installing the 20 LED kit on my 60 x 30x37cm tank. Trying to get them as close as possible to prevent light spilling out of the tank.

Secondly do I need to cool the driver?

[sherman]

What is your tank height?

The distance between each LED (3W) can varies from 1 inch to 3 inch

[oceanviper]

Based on the tank dimension, probably you can have a gap of 2 ~ 2.5 inch with lens of 60deg.

If my comment above is not correct, DIY gurus, do help to comments.

Thanks.

[straydum]

will be watching this thread in great interest for my tank size is near to yours. if i ever get down to it, i would intend to have my lights strong enough to keep sps at the edges of the tank and at the bottom near the corners even.

may i ask if your plan to keep light demanding corals near the edge of the tank? from how i see it, having the lights closer to the center would mean the corners would get lower light although this would prevent the overspill. did you consider optics? especially for the bulbs towards the edges.

[silver2578]

Hi, I may not be a LED guru, but, I'm pretty much a technical guy. Firstly, I'd like to sincerely apologise if I offend the Treadstarter or put a damper on ur parade... But it seems to me that this 20 LED kit is really underpowered?

I'm looking at the LED driver that is spec'd at 680mA CC, so u get two of these, and u'll put 10 in series to each Driver. Roughly, that makes a delievry of 68mA per LED ? For a 3Watt rated led, maximum Vf of maybe 3.7Vdc at 700mA, i'd say that u're driving the LED at 1/10 of its potential.

So LED gurus, what am I'm missing ?

[silver2578]

Hi, I may not be a LED guru, but, I'm pretty much a technical guy. Firstly, I'd like to sincerely apologise if I offend the Treadstarter or put a damper on ur parade... But it seems to me that this 20 LED kit is really underpowered?

I'm looking at the LED driver that is spec'd at 680mA CC, so u get two of these, and u'll put 10 in series to each Driver. Roughly, that makes a delievry of 68mA per LED ? For a 3Watt rated led, maximum Vf of maybe 3.7Vdc at 700mA, i'd say that u're driving the LED at 1/10 of its potential.

So LED gurus, what am I'm missing ?

I think I've gotten it wrong seires led , so current in n out of every led is still 680mA! I think haha Cheers! I'm looking very much forward to this build !!!

[BH2O]

I think I've gotten it wrong seires led , so current in n out of every led is still 680mA! I think haha Cheers! I'm looking very much forward to this build !!!

!

[Ingwe]

I've got a total of 24 3 watt LEDS on my array now, 12 cool white, 10 royal blue, 2 UV.

I ordered two as spares but decided to throw them in, because the 2 UV chips were really quite dim, enough to look at it directly. However from what I've read most of its light is in the invisible spectrum so it is probably not a good idea to stare at it too long if you've got a similar setup.

Ray (Aquastyle) also threw in 2 free chips complete with lenses , on top of that I was surprised to also get a AA battery holder that was invaluable when it came to testing the soldered connection.

The heatsink that came with the set measures 40 x 12 x 3 cm long. My chips are placed 2.5 cm apart from each other horizontally and about the same diagonally. The heatsink itself is in black so if you're unwillig to score it to mark the positions of the chips, a pencil works well too.

Again, the wires supplied was a lot more than enough. Pictures coming up next!

[Ingwe]

Hey straydum,

My tank is populated mostly by soft corals now (4x24w t5). I can try a small frag of sps under this lighting in the future.

I'm going to use the 60 degree optics that comes with the set, no point letting them go to waste

If I can do this again I'll get actinic instead of UV

I've found this thread on nanoreefs really useful

Link: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=186982

For pictures of DIY this site from reefledlights.

Link: http://reefledlights.com/how-to-diy-led/

[Ingwe]

moar pictures.

If you draw a rectangular box around the chips you'd get a measurement of 29x9cm.

[Ingwe]

thanks for the advice, sherman and oceanviper, it worked out!

Picture of the heatsink flipped over with where I intend to place the drivers and the fan.

[Ingwe]

Two questions

1. Do I need an acrylic splash guard of some sort if I'm hanging the set above my tank. I have come across the term "salt creep" that damages electronics but have no idea with this will affect the current project.

If so where can I get something like that?

2. Is there an elegant way of attaching the drivers to the heatsink? The current plan is to use a stretch of masking tape stretching from the side of the driver onto the heatsink. lol.

cheers

[straydum]

hmm wouldn't optics act like some sort of splash guard already? since you'd only be concerned about the bulbs and not the remaining exposed heatsink etc.

i would glue a small binder clip onto the driver and just clip it on to the a fin on the heatsink

[Ingwe]

yeah.. I'm not sure what exactly to be worried about actually.

Good idea! How does it work? If they are glued together lengthwise the clip can't open..

[straydum]

yeah.. I'm not sure what exactly to be worried about actually.

Good idea! How does it work? If they are glued together lengthwise the clip can't open..

you can always pluck out the metal extensions, or just blend them out when it hits the driver. not a longterm solution for everyday use, but good enough for one time clipping and forgetting about it

[oceanviper]

Two questions

1. Do I need an acrylic splash guard of some sort if I'm hanging the set above my tank. I have come across the term "salt creep" that damages electronics but have no idea with this will affect the current project.

If so where can I get something like that?

2. Is there an elegant way of attaching the drivers to the heatsink? The current plan is to use a stretch of masking tape stretching from the side of the driver onto the heatsink. lol.

cheers

Hi Ing.

You can get those acrylic from ubi area or at toh guan area.

Depend where you stay or convenient for you.

They can cut according your size.

[tomowilson]

You can use a plastic spray (Servol or something, cannot remem the name) to coat the LED and the soldering joint, this will help to prevent short circuit. Can buy it from Sim Lim Tower (level 3 is cheaper).

I can pass you mine to coat your LED system but pls return the spray back to me . IMHO, acrylic splash guard is a must.

[Ingwe]

Before I forget.. other essentials

1. Soldering Kit

2. Wire stripper

3. Drill and hooks (if you want to hang your light set)

4. Multi-plug with individual switches (if you've wired different colors in series and want to control them individually)

Note: I've replaced the fan found in the set with a dymax fan.

hey tomowilson where do you stay? Thanks for the offer! Just spray the whole led side of the heatsink?

[Ingwe]

Ok. Less talking, more pictures!

First light up

Putting the optics on

Topside

Hanging out

[Ingwe]

In real life the tank is much bluer, and when only the royal blue/UV string is turned on the colors really popped.

[dmck]

perfect led build. Ive used these DIY leds a few times for tanks I maintain in australia (i work for an aquarium store). The price is great. I use silicon to ensure no conductivity/corrosion between the soldered points. (make sure you use a High temp/ motor vehicle silicon so it doesnt melt/warp) just wipe a small amount over the soldered points. (1mm think) silicon is easy to remove and very cheap compared to your lighting cost.

the optic lenses are a good guard to salt spray for the led's themselves, just make sure you clean them (once a month to once every 3 months depending on how dirty they get) to ensure correct light transfer into the tank.

these lights are perfect for a tank up to 45cm deep to keep LPS and soft corals but would recommend to keep SPS at a max of 35cm deep if light was 20-30cm above the tank.

[Ingwe]

Thank you. Is the silicon needed even if the lights are about one feet above the tank?

Some updates:

The heatsink is around room temperature, about the same temperature (by touch) as the wooden table top.

The color in this picture is closer to that in real life

[Ingwe]

[tropic]

cool fancy cover. may i ask , is your tank level? the water seems slanting to one side or my eyes....