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DIY LED lighting help !

lil-lynx

lil-lynx

Member
Joined
23 Jan 2010
Messages
499
Location
Staines
Hey guys im looking to take the plunge in to the DIY led lighting, im looking to light a 1ft cube, just need some advice !
What type of LEDs ?
How many and of which colour , blue to white ratio
Which driver ?
What to mount them on ?
Where to buy from !

😀
 
A very open-ended question! There's so much experimentation with DIY LEDs, which is kinda the fun part. I'd recommend something like 5x 3W LEDs from Cree. Optics/lenses might be needed depending on how high up you want to suspend the unit. You'll need a heatsink or at least an aluminium plate to mount them on, preferably blow with a fan as well. As for drivers, reputable ones are like Luxdrive or Meanwell. You should get the dimmable ones. As for where to buy from, I can't advice because I'm not from the UK. I got most of mine from DealeXtreme - Cool Gadgets at the Right Price - DX Free Shipping Worldwide which ships worldwide for free, but there's quite a bit of wait, 2-4 weeks usually.

Here's my DIY LED lighting retrofit thread: My DIY LED retrofit | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Also a link to one of my journals which shows what my LED lighting unit looks like now: flygja's 60cm NAC | Page 2 | UK Aquatic Plant Society
 
The easy way would be to buy 4 x GU10 fittings from B&Q & then choose from the many bulbs on offer, perhaps a combination of colours in 9w?
You would just need a wooden box to install the fittings = very simple.
You could fit dimmable bulbs (GU10 dimmable bulbs are readily available)
I dont doubt Flygia method is a better methods but the Gu10 route works extremely well.
 
There is lots of information around on DIY led setups. The reef guys have lead the field with this. With a lot of the using an arduino board to control the brightness and fade different colours in and out. There are some real good write ups out there. Just google it.
 
4 x GU10 fittings & 9w bulbs from B&Q about £60 but then you need to build a box to hang them from & it has to look nice.
If you are handy then thats fine but if you have to pay a carpenter £25 per hour then that would probably be another £75 -100 + materials maybe another £30!
If it were me, I would want independent timers on all four dimmable bulbs & that would bump up the cost with another £100.
However you could buy a wall mounted 4 x spot light from B&Q add some bulbs & be done for £80 total!
 
Without loosing the point of the question that the OP asked. He was after LED. Deal extreme has some very cheap LEDs and drivers, although they may be of questionable quality. Personally I'd buy the cheap LEDs as you can buy many of them from DX cheaply and then replace if necessary. As for the drivers, they can be the major stumbling block, and buying better quality would be advisable.
Ultimately whether using dichroic lamps or LED the end result is the same I suppose, which is light. But it depends on what you're after.
 
Hey guys I was looking at 3w cree leds, looking for around 6, 3 rows of 3.

Iv seen reef people using 10w leds , I was wondering if one of these would be decent , if so what driver would I need ?
 
i got my diy led too
i bought LED from LED-TECH very quick deliver (black one) and the Deal Express (round white one)
so many choice of led you can pick royal blue for reef or white for plants or red and blue for grow light.
i just glue the LED on the heatsink connect to the Constant current driver from Maplin

8581843536_94d7472323.jpg

for last longer of your led you can put the fan on but have to use another transformer (12v dc)
and you can buy hanging kit from all pond solutions.
8580740505_1ba1b88f36.jpg


8591304386_de5cdda04f.jpg

8580752681_57d01cba45.jpg


you can try the GU10 9w LED but i'm not recommend due to very low output
8583057682_53925a1227.jpg

here is the VDO from my last diy hope it will help.
 
Right guys got a lil shopping list going but need help !

10pcs 3W High Power SMD LED 240LM + 20mm PCB base Cool White 3.0-3.6V 700mA | eBay Will cool white be ok in colour wise , or shall I use better LEDs , Cree ?

Different Power 10W/ 20W/ 30W/ 50W/ 100W Waterproof Power Supply LED Driver | eBay 30w driver to run 3 rows or 3 (27w) , 3w LEDs

Some cable
A heatsink to mount the LEDs on
And a CPU fan

Or I was looking to use the same driver or the 30w and run these
10W LED Pure White 6500K 9-11V, 1100Lm 1050mA for fish tank light led floodlight | eBay run 2 or 3 of the 30w led driver , and just link these to the heatsink ?

Am I missing anything
 
For the price of the 3w LEDs you could get some Cree LEDs if you shop around.
The colour temperature or K (kelvin) is a hot topic of debate. Purists argue that 6500 is good for plants. But there are some very knowledgable folk here that say the plant just don't care and the colour temp is up to you. So choose one you like the look of.

The driver looks good, but maybe you could consider one with PWM, so that if you decided the light output was too high you could dim it. Or use two lower wattage drivers to have the option to switch half of the LEDs off.

I recon those 10w LEDs are going to get real hot which reduce the lifespan considerably. Also you'd need to consider light spread as LEDs give a more direct light, unless optics are used.
 
this is what i made my home made LED out of LED on a roll
003-15.jpg

005-13.jpg
 
Hey guys ,
I have just made my own led light ,

Cost me £67 in total

I used bridgelux 30 x 1 watt LEDs (actually work out at 1.2 watts ,+ 10 royal blues which I haven't used ,
Pln 48 60 mean well driver
Some thermal compound
60 degree lense which I haven't yet added ,
All bought from a sound guy from eBay apart from lenses which are from china , the lenses seem exactly the same quality as some I got from maplin previously ,
I will post pictures
, I used scrap aluminium from work , I have tons if any body wants some 🙂
I don't think I will use any other kind of light again ,

LEDs are definitely the way forward. , so versatile and good fun to build 🙂
 
Great to hear!

What about if you have absolutely no experience with making things that use electricity? Will you be doing a guide?
 
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