NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Well I went ahead and took a few pictures of my build the other day. I could have gotten much more detailed but was too excited to get them going in the tank that I cut out a few parts of the process. For starters this light setup is for a 29 gallon Biocube. You can purchase this kit at http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/StoreFront for $245 shipped. You can change how many bulbs of each color as well. I wanted something closer to a 20k look so I went with 15 blues and 9 whites. Make sure you state which type of controller you plan on using with the lights. It makes a difference on which driver will work properly with them. I am running a reefkeeper lite with the digital aquatics ALC module. This is straight from their webiste: This retrofit kit will fit seamlessly into your existing Biocube 29 hood (once gutted), and attaches via 4 screws. Please note you will need a reef controller or potentiometers + 10V AC Adapter to run the dimmable drivers. 5.9" x 10" Heatsink drilled/tapped for 20 LEDs and 4 installation holes 12 Royal Blue CREE XT-E LEDs 12 Cool White CREE XP-G LEDs 2 Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable driver or 2 Mean Well ELN-60-48D dimmable driver 1 tube of Thermal Grease 60mm Vantec Stealth Fan Kit 4 water repellent wire nuts 2 power cords to attach to the drivers (US orders only) 12 feet of black bulk wire (if we're out of black wire we will send blue) 5 Cord/Zip ties Screws (for the LEDs and to mount the heatsink to the hood So when you first get the kit home this is what it looks like. Pretty overwelming if you don't know what your doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 So the first step is to figure out how you want your led's laid out on the heatsink. I decided to stagger the blues and whites on the back side of the heatsink and two rows of complete blue. You can place them however you want since you are wiring them up. The drivers can have some difficulty with the current running through them so I decided to go with running 14 blues on one driver and 1 blue and 9 whites on the other driver. The leds between the colors require a different amount of voltage to run them properly. If you run too many blues and whites on the same driver you could run into problems from what I have read. Here is a picture of the first leds going onto the heatsink: All of the leds made it onto the larger heatsink now. The biggest worry here is to not over tighten the screws. You can potentially damage them. Good thing is they only run about $5 each to replace! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 Now that all of the leds have been placed onto the heatsink it's time to start soldering. They do make a solderless kit for about $40 more. I figured the little bit of time it would take to do this it wasn't a big deal. Now if I was doing a much larger tank I would have to consider doing the solderless kit. The total time for this project took me about 1 1/2 hours to complete. Other than installing it into the hood, which took about an additional 1/2 hour. All of the leds are wired up now in this picture. Looks a little odd to someone that doesn't know wiring I'm sure but it's really simple. You run them all in series which means you hook up the postive terminal to the next units negative terminal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 This is a picture of a test run we did at my parents house. With these ballasts you need to hook up the dimable source as well or it will not work. I skipped the part about tearing everything out of the old hood. I figured it was pretty explanitory plus I forgot to take pictures. This is a picture just before I placed the plastic cover back over the leds to protect them from the water in the tank. Doesn't look all that pretty here but boy when you see the difference from the before and after WOW!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 And that's about it. I'm still playing around with the controller to determine how long my lighting should be on. Keep in mind that the tank had old compact florecent bulbs installed previously. I want to be able to have just about any type of corals in the tank and did not want the powerconsumption of a MH. The tank is extremely quiet and if you know anything about these biocubes the fans they come with are terrible. The replacement ones that come with this kit are amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impur Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Nice job thanks for the pics and walk through! Do you have an shots of wiring up the drivers? I see 2 power cords and a transformer power supply, where did these come into play? Also is the battery thing for testing the LEDs? What is that black box above the battery thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 Nice job thanks for the pics and walk through! Do you have an shots of wiring up the drivers? I see 2 power cords and a transformer power supply' date=' where did these come into play? Also is the battery thing for testing the LEDs? What is that black box above the battery thing?[/quote'] The drivers are fairly simple to wire up. There is a positive and negative adapter to wire to the led's them self. On the opposite side there is 4 wires. 2 go directly to the outlet (positve and negative) and the other two go to the ALC module for the dimmable aspect. The battery thing is exactly that. to test the led's before you start to wire them up. Once you wire them up they will not warranty them so you need to ensure that they all work before you set them up. The black box above the battery tester is the box for the fans to connect to. You have to cut the wire off of the power adapter and hardwire it to that module. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 Nice job thanks for the pics and walk through! Do you have an shots of wiring up the drivers? I see 2 power cords and a transformer power supply' date=' where did these come into play? Also is the battery thing for testing the LEDs? What is that black box above the battery thing?[/quote'] The drivers are fairly simple to wire up. There is a positive and negative adapter to wire to the led's them self. On the opposite side there is 4 wires. 2 go directly to the outlet (positve and negative) and the other two go to the ALC module for the dimmable aspect. The battery thing is exactly that. to test the led's before you start to wire them up. Once you wire them up they will not warranty them so you need to ensure that they all work before you set them up. The black box above the battery tester is the box for the fans to connect to. You have to cut the wire off of the power adapter and hardwire it to that module. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 looks good you have me questioning my diy that only has 28 LEDs for a 40B hmmmmm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 looks good you have me questioning my diy that only has 28 LEDs for a 40B hmmmmm Sure is. Forgot to add that in there. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 also something i figured out when building mine is if you are short on sockets you can wire multiple drivers to the same power cord unless you intend to have some lights on at different times and dont have a control Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 also something i figured out when building mine is if you are short on sockets you can wire multiple drivers to the same power cord unless you intend to have some lights on at different times and dont have a control I have mine setup on seperate outlets since I wanted to have a sun up sun down cycle. Maybe with a larger thank that would make sense though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 that is true i know Eugene reef has a 90g and he has at least a few drivers powered together and uses the apex control to do the sunrise sunset thing it is awesome your livestock are gonna be living in style Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 oh im sorry to be bombarding your thread here but did you bump your current output down for your blue LEDs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 oh im sorry to be bombarding your thread here but did you bump your current output down for your blue LEDs? I'm running them at about 50% if that's what your asking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattv Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I thought it was the whites that ran a lower current? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 25, 2012 Author Share Posted January 25, 2012 I thought it was the whites that ran a lower current? The whites are 1500 mA max The blues are 1000mA max Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattv Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Its been awhile since I did mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 50% dimmed or did you open your driver and adjust svr2 if not you may need to do that or your blues could burnout in a hurry also you may want to check your whites i had to bump my whites down because these drivers have a max current output of 1.3 Amps and as you mentioned the whtes are rated for a max of 1 Amp food for thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarpeTheDiem Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Looks GREAT!! How long did it take you? Took me 8 hours. What dimmer did you go for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 I'm using the ELN-60-48D drivers. Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 50% dimmed or did you open your driver and adjust svr2 if not you may need to do that or your blues could burnout in a hurry also you may want to check your whites i had to bump my whites down because these drivers have a max current output of 1.3 Amps and as you mentioned the whtes are rated for a max of 1 Amp food for thought I didn't open the drivers. Guess I will check that out as well. I just figured with the dimmer on the reef keeper it would be fine Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 im not absolutely sure but i believe dimming with the controller either increases or decreases the voltage but not the current again im not positive but i know on mine it specifically said in the driver manual to open it up and reduce the current its worth checking on even at $5 a pop no one likes wasting money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoobtoSalt Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 I went ahead and opened them up this morning and adjusted them. Thanks for the tip. It looks much nicer now in color. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewey McLovit Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Beautiful color! Are they on the ramp up cycle or are they on 'high noon' full cycle? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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