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Does new lighting have to be expensive?

Mark, done right. Cree LED's, heatsinks and controller. Can we have some pictures please...?
 
I am setting my tank up with the TMC Aquabar 500 LED light unit, and at £50 for the tropical white and £55 for the coloured (in case you do not want washed out colours in fish and red plants), I do not think they are too badly priced. The light output is very good for such a cheap fixture, so it will be interesting to see how my system fares when it is set up.
Also, you can buy the the dimmer switch for around £13 each - so can flex the intensity too.

Jay
 
ukjay said:
I am setting my tank up with the TMC Aquabar 500 LED light unit
Click to expand...
I really love these ones: http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/tmc-grobeam-600-ultima-twin-p-3799.html
But if you add a dimmer and the mounting brackets we are again around 300 pounds/euros

I am slo seeing this one that looks nice http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/classica-freshwater-led-otl-60cm-p-6684.html, again 300 pounds/euros (includes controller), as well as some Arcadia that have similar prices. Giesemann are really out of this range...

And TBH, my preferred one (the most beautiful I would say) is the ADA AquaSky (model 601 is the one that should be compared to the previous ones). Around 250 € (not bad if compared to the previous ones) but cannot be dimmed... so you got to know what you have in your hands.

However, as mentioned I am happy to grow my plants with T5s for the moment and spend my money on plants and upgrading other pieces of equipment in my tanks that are more important for me now (especially filters)

Jordi
 
lighting wise iam using one of the fluval led overhanging luminieres cost £150....its a cracking light grows rotala and everything else at a decent rate
 
markk said:
I'm currently retrofitting an old hood for some new LEDs. I wasn't really interested in anything other than genuine Cree XM-L2, so spent a little time digging around for ideas and components to make sure I was getting the best value:-

20volt/90Watt laptop power supply - £2 (ebay second hand)
10 * Cree XM-L2 cool white LEDs on stars - £35 (ebay - search for 'ledbloke')
10 * LED star heat sinks - £27 (Farnell - http://uk.farnell.com/ohmite/sa-led-113e/heatsink-led-12-7mm-black/dp/2097677?CMP=i-bf9f-00001000)
2 * LDD-1000H LED drivers and board - £20 (from Coralux in USA)
Thermal paste/wires/screws - £10

So £100 or so gives you the guts of a well spec'd LED system with what are notionally the most efficient LEDs available atm. I'm setting it up to run the led's at 1000ma which should generate something in the region of 4100-4600 lumens for about 30watts of power.

I don't currently need anything else for the retrofit and I'll dim them via my raspberry pi.

I'm quite sure this is serious overkill for a 60*30 tank though. You could probably reduce the number of LEDs and maybe lower the cost even further with a couple of larger, individual heatsinks (such as http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/heatsinks/1898628/) for a slightly different approach.

The main attraction (other than cost!) for me, however, is the flexibility. At some point I'll transfer the led's to a home grown luminaire over a new, larger tank. All of the components are re-useable - I may need to add some additional drivers, or swap in a different power supply, or change the drivers and run them at a different current but the bulk of that £100 won't be wasted. Plenty of options if you're happy playing with electrickery and do a little research on how to set them up (pretty straightforward these days).

No doubt someone will be along shortly to burst my bubble :) - but so far the build is working out pretty well.

Cheers, Mark
Click to expand...
Reckon this will work really well for you. Here's a link to my little journal on retrofitting cree leds into hood: http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/diy-move-from-t5-to-led.33917/#post-389229

would be confident to do it again but reckon those cree xbd floodlights linked above would be just as good...all options come in under £100 for equivalent of 4 TMC grobeams worth of power.
 
NatureBoy said:
doh, linked to wrong ones...
check these instead: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Qual...982?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2a34c23416[/quote]
Couple of suspicious points.
1. Cost is awfully low for a genuine Cree product. but XB-D are less than £2 each in quantity.
2. XB-D range is not available in 6000-6500K range, which in the scheme of things is actually a virtually impossible to achieve a narrow range.
3. There is no picture looking straight into the LED's so we can see if they are genuine Cree.

I would again be very suspicious.
Click to expand...
 
ian_m said:
Mark, done right. Cree LED's, heatsinks and controller. Can we have some pictures please...?
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay in replying - got distracted by family/half term.

At the moment, everything is a jumble of wires on the floor and I'm concentrating on the software side of the controller - but I'll post some details/pictures when it starts to come together.

You have to promise you won't laugh at my hood though - I realised today it is 23 years old (as is the tank it sits on!), hence not exactly 'fashionable':)
 
NatureBoy said:
Reckon this will work really well for you. Here's a link to my little journal on retrofitting cree leds into hood: http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/diy-move-from-t5-to-led.33917/#post-389229

would be confident to do it again but reckon those cree xbd floodlights linked above would be just as good...all options come in under £100 for equivalent of 4 TMC grobeams worth of power.
Click to expand...

Hi - yes, I'd spotted your build a few days back.

What led configuration (ie. current) did you finally settle on? and what does that equate to roughly in terms of consumption and output?

I'm guessing that the heatsink barely warms up - as you say, that's a large chunk of metal:)

One of my criteria was to keep everything fairly 'minimalist' (not sure that's the right word) - so that when the time comes for the new build, it can be as slim and streamlined as possible. The smaller the heatsink, the lower the weight - and much less risk to the tank when the inevitable accident happens. Really impressed with the small ohmite led heatsinks - though haven't really had a chance to see how much they warm up yet in a confined space (slightly worried they'll runner a little hotter than I really want). The 'minimalist' approach was also why I went down the xm-l2 route - the extra efficiency not only gives the extra light output (and lower running costs) - but also reduces the heat generation.

Cheers, Mark
 
Decided I'll go with the cheapy £40 2xT5HO ebay fixture, can't see myself needing 4 bulbs any time soon. And once I'm done with uni I'll have more time to get the soldering iron out and DIY some LEDs if I need something better. DIY LEDs certainly look the best value (perhaps obviously...).

cheers for the replies! hopefully my CO2/flow are good enough
 
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