DIY LED LIGHTING

[EdKaz]

 So the mailman dropped off my roll of LED's today.

Bought them on Ebay...$17 for a 15 meter roll, 5050 LEDS that measure (with my photography color meter)  at  6743K .
The 15 Meter strip contains 300 LEDS( or 60 per meter).

These things NEED to run at 12volts. Having an old PC power supply handy, I hooked em up and hit the on button of the power supply.

HOLY $#!%!!!!!
DONT look at the roll and power em up.......it was like standing 2 feet from a photo flash and getting BLASTED. When my sight returned I HAD to try a quickie experiment.

One of my Breeder racks holds 4 29's a 20 and a 37Gal cube tank, all lined end to end stretching around 16 feet.
I took the roll and just laid it across the tops of the tanks half assed. Didnt bother to get them nice and flat, so the strip raised up a few inches over the cords and back down of the lights I did have on them. hooked em back up to the power supply and......

LET THERE BE LIGHT!



For light intensity and color reference, the tank on the bottom left is a 40 with a "standard hood" and Aquarium light(Ill check later for bulb size and type  and report later). The corner of a tank on the Btm right is a 75 with a shop light for a light and 2, 4 foot aquarium bulbs in it.

First impression based on just sloppily laying the strip across the back of the row of breeder tanks is............THIS IS GONNA GET GOOD.........and SAVE LOTS-O-MONEY!!!!!!!!!

This next picture I tried to show the difference between the two 40's.( Breeder tanks are lit now with their usual lights)

The 40 on the left is again with the stock hood and bulb.......the 40 on the right I just half ass laid 3 rows of the LED strip on the top, and covered the whole mess (LEDS were NOT all pointing downward) in alum foil to keep the lights from glaring back into the camera.



Two more pix and Im gonna go play some more.

This one was taken with just the "stock hood and bulb" on a 29, with the hood moved all the way forward


This one was taken with a single LED strip Laid across the WAY BACK of the tank.


A29 hood is the first Im going to rip the guts outta, and  implant the LED's into. Im going to try  2 rows, and place the hood where it normally sits(just behind the glass top hinge) and report back if anyone is interested.

[Mugwump]

It looks pretty dang nice from where I'm sitting.....real nice......I may need a tutorial...

[EdKaz]

I may need a tutorial

Pretty simple and straight forward actually.

The strips come with double sided tape installed.
Looked around the last couple days and there seems to be LOTS of stuff available for these LEDS....including  12 volt power supplies for 10 bucks a piece That will tuck up inside a regular hood, and allow you to use use the original hoods power cord and switch as well.

The PITA MIGHT be in soldering wires to the sections of strips....... but I also found a crimp on sorta deal made for these strips that will let you just cut a strip to size, put the LED strip into the  connector, and squeeze down on the connector with pliers for the strip section connections.

Ill have to see how it all works out and what I can figure in my experiments.

[BallAquatics]

The PITA MIGHT be in soldering wires to the sections of strips.......

I just took a piece of Cat-5 network cable and used the individual wires to solder the strips together, (there are 4 pair or 8 wires in total all colored differently).  I found that they solder very easily.  I also have the connectors you mention, but I haven't used any yet.



Dennis

[EdKaz]

So I took a shop light and temporarily taped 4 strips of the LEDs to it.....



75 with 4 foot shop light and Aquarium Florescent bulbs



75 with 4 foot shop light and 4 rows LED's



90 with same 4  foot shop light and Aquarium Florescent bulbs



90 with 4 foot shop light and 4 rows LED's




Plenty of light at the Bottom of the 90 even




The first batch of pictures I took were using an old computer power supply for the power source........figured I'd check and turns out it was only putting out 11.18 volts. Grabbed my adjustable supply and set it for 12 volts......light intensity increased A LOT
Couldnt resist and hit the LEDS with the full 15 volts the power supply will put out......damn near had to go get my sunglasses 

They will run at 15 volts......and BRIGHT, but after 15-20 minutes at 15volts the LEDs were getting noticeably warm. (surprise)
Im gonna torture test these things tomorrow for S-and-G when I can keep an eye(and nose) on the LEDs to see IF and when they might start popping at 15 volts.

[EdKaz]

I just took a piece of Cat-5 network cable and used the individual wires to solder the strips together, (there are 4 pair or 8 wires in total all colored differently).  I found that they solder very easily

The Cat5 cable is a good idea.
One of my other hobbies is flying model airplanes. Had a few junk servos laying around so I wound up using some servo lead wires (MAYBE a little thicker than a single piece of Cat5 wire) to connect mine all up. Soldered up easy enough not to even bother with the fancy connectors.


The LEDs I got, put out a noticeably cleaner?.....bluer looking light than the Florescent bulbs Ive been using.I might get a roll of the "Warmer" LED's to check out as well. Might take out one strip of the 4 I have now in the 4 foot light, and replace it with a strip of the warmer ones to tone down the apparent color of the LEDs a little.....of course those RGB LEDs and controllers look tempting as well.

   

[BallAquatics]

The LEDs I got, put out a noticeably cleaner?.....bluer looking light than the Florescent bulbs Ive been using.

That's the way mine are too.  I picked those due to the 6500K rating.  I keep live plants in all my tanks and that's perfect for them to thrive.  I really like the way they look too. "Cleaner" is a very good description of the light they put out.  I think the advertisements like to call it "shimmer effect".  LOL

One of the other things that attracted me to these lights is the DC power requirements..... at some point down the road, I'd like to power as much of the fish room as possible using solar power.  DC equipment is perfect for that!  Also, for the price, they are a DIY'ers dream.

Dennis

[EdKaz]

I picked those due to the 6500K rating.  I keep live plants in all my tanks and that's perfect for them to thrive

As ya might have noticed my current "plants" do great in most any light or none at all even 

Did you by any chance try the RGB LEDs? Those look interesting  in that it seems you can vary the color output to SOME degree. Im curious if the variability is adjustable, and to what degree....or if youre stuck with BLUE blues RED reds ,and GREEN greens.

[BillT]

It seems that not all LEDs may not be created equal(ly good).
When I went up to Portland a few days ago I visited a guy's fish room. He had several of the LED strings that are coated over with a clear silicon like water repellant coating strung over several tanks. (I mostly have this coated kind.) He had bought them at different times. Some looked great, but one batch had the coating yellowed and the LEDs had dimmed significantly. It wasn't clear if they might have gotten wet or something or were just of poor quality.


I have a lot of LED strings now and have tried different ways to mount them. I have usually found the sticky stuff on the back not always dependable. What seems to work best for me is to peel the non-stick paper of the sticky stuff and the put a very small (~1/16" thick) bead of gorilla glue on the LEDs or where I want to stick them, mist it with some water to start the glue curing, and weight it down (since the glue foams up when it sets up). This has worked great for me. Gorilla glue is waterproof.


Since I have a lot of tanks in rows and I am somewhat lazy, I want to minimize the amount of soldering so I have mostly made long strings (6 feet) over rows of tanks. I have tried a number of different thing to put them on, but have finally settled on something I am fairly happy with. I am not using the parts of aluminum window screen frames that you can get at places like Home Depot or Lowes. They are about 8' long, a bit wider than the LED strings, very light, fairly stiff, reasonable cheap (~$3), and glue well with the gorilla glue.

[BallAquatics]

Did you by any chance try the RGB LEDs?

No, just the 6500K white for me thank you.  The multicolored ones I've looked at seem to have 4 leads, a hot for each RGB and then they share a common ground.

I have some that I've dropped into the tank and they look just as Bill described.....  very dim, they are history.

Dennis

[BillT]

I am trying out some green only LEDs now because a friend of mine found an article that said green LEDs promoted breeding in a goldfish (close to Danios) and some other fish. Their tests took several months.

Due to a mistake in what they sent I also have a red string which I don't know what to do with.

I think the green light should be exactly what plants do not need, since it is the color that plants reflect (and therefore don't use) to our eyes. Might cut back on algae growth as a result.

[Ron Sower]

Due to a mistake in what they sent I also have a red string which I don't know what to do with.

There are others that are probably much more current on the subject than I, but from my biological past I remember that the red, blue, and uv wavelengths are the major lightwaves that plants use in photosynthesis, which creates food for growth. So if you want to grow plants, use them with some of your white LEDs! 

Actually I use a lot of Finnex LED lights (not much into DIY at the moment). and the most recent light I bought was their Plant lamp. It has a separate strip of red LEDs in addition to the whites. The plants are doing very well with this lamp!