my new acyrilic led build

[Mrcgibb]

just found the site a few days ago , i have always been an odd ball with ideas for my tank , thats why i built my own tank from plywood with glass front and rockwork made from expanding foam! the tank has been neglected for a long time as i work abroad alot and the care is left to the other half , but she is scared to do anything incase it breaks it ... so i thought algae scrubber , all she has to do is scrape it every 7 days , she is quite happy with that anyway here is a vid of tank as of yesterday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHG_ARUBQf4

i have ordered my lights and acrylic to my spec and will post pics once everything is here

[Floyd R Turbo]

What LED lights did you order and how do you plan on building the acrylic box?

[Mrcgibb]

I have ordered 45 watt hydrophonic led panel lights the scrubber Bon will be built with black 5 mm acrylic apart from the sides ;)
I will be using solvent to weld the acrylic together pics will be posted once my bits arrive ;)

[Floyd R Turbo]

Did you go with this one
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112-LED-45W-G ... 503wt_1005 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112-LED-45W-Grow-Panel-Red-Blue-Hydroponic-Light-Board-/200622910544?pt=UK_HomeGarden_Garden_PlantsSeedsBu lbs_JN&hash=item2eb60eac50#ht_2503wt_1005)

or this one

http://www.ukledsdirect.com/50w-led-gro ... -158-p.asp (http://www.ukledsdirect.com/50w-led-grow-light-ufo---bumper-harvest-edition-nasa-red-and-blue-158-p.asp)

[Mrcgibb]

First one m8 it's easier to put into my design

[Floyd R Turbo]

I hate to tell you this, I think someone mentioned this before, but those are 0.5W LEDs so that's not really a 45W fixture. That's marketing. It probably has the equivalent power of a small CFL. The other one, the 50W at least uses 1W chips.

This is something about LEDs that can get you in trouble. A 3W LED can absorb 3W of power, but that's it's maximum. Most people don't drive them that hard in their DIY builds, and no one manufactures a fixture that even comes close to maximum drive. Same thing for 2W, 1W, and 0.5W chips. Also, the 'watttage' is really a marketing thing anymore too, since a 1W chip now is more like a 0.5W chip, because of increases in efficiency.

The 45W panel fixture is going to be really, really weak. IIRC you are running a 150 gallon system, right? This fixture is going to be way too little light spread out over way too big of an area. It's not going to work.

[Mrcgibb]

Thanks for comments I am still not convinced the light is as weak as you state yes there are .5 watt LEDs and the other unit has 1 watt LEDs but the unit I have ordered has double the LEDs it is quoted as 1900 lumens the 50 watt UFO light is 2000 lumens so as I said in my other thread I will try this light on my mud filter first , I have seen one of these light locally and you can't look at the unit direct it's bright very bright I will post as much pics as possible ;) thanks again as I said all comments are welcome ;)
One of these units were tested and the unit put out same lumens as a 250 watt hps grow lamp

[SantaMonica]

Not going to work.

[Mrcgibb]

Care to elaborate ? As to why ?

[Marksfish]

Sorry to jump in, I was looking at these (http://www.fastlight.co.uk/acatalog/LED_Grow_Boards.html) and emailed the company. I read that the boards were 14w giving 125w equivalent (I think), although their reply did state that the light output was the same as a 125w cfl, so I have emailed them for clarification.

Mark

[Floyd R Turbo]

That is the exact same fixture. Click the "tech specs" link and the words are copy/paste exact.

There are several telling items that mean this fixture it not powerful enough for a scrubber. #1 is that the thing only weighs 0.67 kg. That means no heat sink. They are listed as 'no' = normal output, not high output. high power means nothing and it just marketing. 0.5w LEDs are just the small ones with leads that stand off the board. high power LEDs need to be mounted to a PCB board and a heat sink.

You need one like this one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120W-LED-Grow ... 2c5e45aa78 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120W-LED-Grow-Panel-Hydroponic-Grow-Lamp-Light-Board-/190560184952?pt=UK_HomeGarden_Garden_PlantsSeedsBu lbs_JN&hash=item2c5e45aa78)

to do it right. Not that exact fixture, because it has the wrong spectrum LEDs in it, but you get the idea.

whoever told you that fixture would replace a 250W HPS scammed you. Really. There's just no way.

[Mrcgibb]

one new led unit arrived today , wow its bright ! so for an experement i have put it over half my mud filter and other half lit with 20 w compact flouresent i am shocked at how bright this is

pics of sump

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/fa61d1bb.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/494eaae6.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/ff248634.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/a1fdafdc.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/6ac71c2b.jpg

[rygh]

Lights look pretty good to me.
No surprise that it is a whole lot brighter than a 20W CFL.
And that is seen with human eyes, which means that for the chlorophyll bands,
it is WAY brighter.

Probably not the most efficient with those little 0.5W LEDs.
But still way better than CFL.

A bit low on the blue end. Maybe. Nobody really knows for sure.

They will probably get a bit toasty with no heat sink. And thus not last as long.
But at only 0.5W, not a ton of heat from each one.
So just make sure there is some air flow on the LED side of the fixture.

My only real concern is the energy density (As was voiced above by others).
At only 45W, (which it does seem to be at 112 * 0.5W), for a 12x12 fixture, that
is a bit low on the watts/square inch. But not too bad.
Make sure it is really close to your screen.

[Floyd R Turbo]

The problem is that these are likely these type of LEDs (5mm, normal output, "super bright")

http://www.ledssuperbright.com/5mm-led-c-6

And this recently posted by SM

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1504 (http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1504)

Means that the intensity of these will drop off faster than CFLs will.

[rygh]

I doubt they are the little 5mm. Those are lucky to be 1/10 watt.
I would think they would be the newer 10mm ones. Some of those go to 1/2 watt.
But hard to say, since that ebay add is a little short on real technical data.
And if they are those 5mm, you are totally correct.

Hey Mrcgibb, maybe you can measure them, and give a closeup?

As far as that table - I call BS. (Not on SM, but whoever wrote it)
Sorry, but they have the 80% point at what looks like 2,000 hours. That is a total joke.
While I may not always believe the 100,000 hours they claim now, 2% of that seems rather low. :?
Some grad student is either clueless or has an agenda to sell Cree.

[Ace25]

The study was done in 2003, LEDs have come a long way since then. Also those are 1/4w 5mm LEDs they are referring to. Having used those (in blue) for moonlights I will completely agree with that scale. They do drop off in intensity rather quickly. The "high power" LED listed on the chart could have been referring to 1/2w or 1w LEDs back in 2003, which if that were the case the light panel above would actually last a long time.

[Mrcgibb]

The LEDs are the 10 mm type the other 14 watt panel uses the small LEDs ie 225 5 mm LEDs the light has been on all night and little heat LEDs are still warm to the touch I will task some more pics today of the reach of the light and spread ;)

[Floyd R Turbo]

ace is probably right, they're probably 1/2W. See how it goes I guess. I just know that if you're not putting in enough power to generate some kind of heat that must be sinked away, then you're not putting out enough light. That, and the fact that you're putting these on a large screen for a large system, it will grow some algae, but it will be barely scratching minimum filtration. IMO.

[Mrcgibb]

My screen is 12 x 12 the light unit is 13 x 13 inches

[rygh]

Good to hear they are the newer 10mm ones.
And if it is only warm to the touch, seems like heat is not an issue.
Or I guess, could be lower power than advertised. That would fix heat as well unfortunately.

Assuming roughly 50% efficiency, and that another 10% is radiated away as infrared,
that leaves only about 230 mW of heat to really dissipate through convection.
A pretty small number, even on a tiny LED.
Some of that will even go back through leads, to PCB.

Well, time will tell if it works or not. I hope it does.

[rygh]

The study was done in 2003, LEDs have come a long way since then. Also those are 1/4w 5mm LEDs they are referring to. Having used those (in blue) for moonlights I will completely agree with that scale. They do drop off in intensity rather quickly. The "high power" LED listed on the chart could have been referring to 1/2w or 1w LEDs back in 2003, which if that were the case the light panel above would actually last a long time.

Ahh, that makes a lot more sense. I just assumed it was recent, since it was posted that day.

[Mrcgibb]

Got my plastic sheets today , but acrylic will be about a week or so before. Its here, so I roughened up the screen today. Using 40 grade sandpaper really rough :) and I have placed it in a spare space in my mud filter just now under the led light I figure it's better to let the algae start to grow on the sheet will I wait for the parts to come along

One other question is I will hav a 25 mm bulkhead as a drain feeding back into the main tank will this handle the 2000 lph the pump will fire out ?

[Mrcgibb]

got my pipe work together today and the plastic sheet in , i have decided to hang it over the tank just now to seed the screen , only light by the 400w 20k mh light just now , here is a video of it running ;) there is about 1 inch at the far end of the screen at the top there is no water flow but i can live with that , pump is a 2400lph pump so should be ok ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McMCsDUHEso

[Rumpy Pumpy]

Looks good to me.

Still not sure about those LEDs

[Mrcgibb]

Thanks m8 ref the LEDs I have had it over the sump area for 2 days now and the green algae on the glass has grown about 4 mm it's the really stiff green stuff I will try and put the camera I. Macro mode and get a pic , I really hope this works not having to change lamps every 3 months will be great I have some new corals coming next week , so will need to get down to the sea 2 mins walk for me and collect some nice north sea water ;)

[Mrcgibb]

got bored waiting for the acrylic to arrie so today rigged the led lamp up so it is pointing at scrubber here is pics , just went on 10 mins ago and only one side lit , so who want me to take pics ? of progress , bear in mind i only have the top half of the screen lit over tank

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/e7d7b903.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/572138e8.jpg

[Mrcgibb]

growth after 2 days ;) look ok ?

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/e844d4f8.jpg

[marineguy]

looks like its working to me :D

[Mrcgibb]

yip ;)

[SantaMonica]

Well, diatoms are going to grow on any new surface with light. Even room lighting. The real test of light is how fast it can get to green growth, in relation to how high the nutrients are. The more nutrients, the stronger the lighting needs to be, in order to grow green (although, any growth is still removing nutrients).

[Mrcgibb]

Noticed some of the caulerpa in my mud sump is dying back going White although I had to use a phosphate remover as phosphate in tank was at 2.0 mg/l ! Now less than 0.2 so prob the shock from the phosphate going out so quick that's effected the caulerpa

[anders moon]

Im planning to buy simular led panels... for my ATS project. They are using 14W right? mesureaments 31cmx31cm right?

How does the algae growth look like on your ATS now?

[Mrcgibb]

No my ones are 45 watt panels growth is green now , but only just setting the scrubber up properly today but still waiting for other led unit

[Mrcgibb]

here is my build now , used my old carlsson surge box i made ......http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/150f2dad.jpg

first clean at 5 days , and remember only top 3 inch of screen was light by leds ......and was only installed on top of my main tank temporary

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/70e5751f.jpg


growth now after 3 days set up correctly , and still only lit from one side ...... think the leds are working great and no heat and only 45 watts ;)

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/ca6b9166.jpg

[chrisfraser05]

I love this :)

Looking forward to coming over to see it :)

[anders moon]

I would be very pleased if you posted a couple of pictures, how the whole setup is build and a good picture of the growth, that would be greatly apreciated! The last picture I find a bit diffecult to se... the growth is it green or brown?

how big is your tank?

[marineguy]

I would be very pleased if you posted a couple of pictures, how the whole setup is build and a good picture of the growth, that would be greatly apreciated! The last picture I find a bit diffecult to se... the growth is it green or brown?

how big is your tank?

+1 on this, would like to see some better pictures.

[Mrcgibb]

I don't have any build pics but the box was part of my surge system which I removed it's made of 19 mm plywood and coated with exopy resin , same stuff they use on kyaks :) my main tank is built with same stuff plywood but 36 mm thick. Oh and all my rock work is made from spray on expanding builders foam !(see I do nohing normal :)).
Tank is 4 feet long 4 feet deep and 2 feet wide on the back I have a custom made mud filter filled with cheato and caulerpa , but since adding the scrubber the caulerpa is dieting back .
I will het some pica of growth Tommorow as screen is due a clean only been in place for 4 days in place full lit buy the 45 watt led grow light and only from one side at present till I get another light
Oh and growth is green no brown ;)

[Mrcgibb]

I love this :)

Looking forward to coming over to see it :)
Welcome any time m8

[Mrcgibb]

5 days growth on new scrubber i think my leds are a success guys ;)
and this is only lit from one side !
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/f84be870.jpg



http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/59ab959f.jpg

[marineguy]

Looks great think i might have to get these lights, keep the pictures coming.

[Mrcgibb]

yip leds are working great

[anders moon]

those pics looks of the growth :mrgreen: :lol: next I would be happy if you pointed the camera towards how you have put the whole thing together... How about the humid air from the flow across the ATS, can you see the humidity on the led panel?

[Mrcgibb]

there is no problem with humidity my tank room is very hot and the scrubber is open top so its not enclosed , the lights are perfectley dry ;)

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/7ecf8c1c.jpg

scrubber box above main tank

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/c0aef9de.jpg

40mm return to tank ...... used to be my carlsson surge return pipe so way over sized


http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/cd260379.jpg

finally top view of scrubber


main tank top down view

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/1dbe2384.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/ab610c22.jpg

[Mrcgibb]

full tank shot ...... all rock rock is expanding foam

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h177/marcann/56001061.jpg

[felps]

I wonder if one unit could be butchered into two and light a 12 x 5 screen both sides :!:

[Marksfish]

Looks like the growth is good then :D , so you'd recommend? Never thought of making the scrubber from ply. I have been thinking about making a new one and wondering how to cut the perspex, so this is the easier option!!

Mark

[Marksfish]

Any updates on growth?

[rygh]

Looking great!
Nice to see what looks like another LED success.

[T_om]

What happened to all the guys that that rang in with "it won't work" replies? They kinda disappeared, didn't they?

Tom

[kerry]

This was my inspiration to build an LED unit!!!! AND YES it WORKS!!!

[Ace25]

What happened to all the guys that that rang in with "it won't work" replies? They kinda disappeared, didn't they?

Tom
That is your first post and your trying to instigate something by bumping a thread that hasn't had a post in over 6 months!? Wow. Where are the pictures of this LED fixture WORKING? All I see is a flat green screen, no real growth to speak of. I would say from what I can see that these LED lights are a big fail for using in an ATS unless someone can post pictures showing any real amount of growth, otherwise save your $ and put some CFL bulbs on it because they will grow algae much better than the pictures I see in this thread.

I think Floyd nailed it early on with his comment:

I just know that if you're not putting in enough power to generate some kind of heat that must be sinked away, then you're not putting out enough light. That, and the fact that you're putting these on a large screen for a large system, it will grow some algae, but it will be barely scratching minimum filtration. IMO.

[T_om]

That is your first post and your trying to instigate something by bumping a thread that hasn't had a post in over 6 months!? Wow. Where are the pictures of this LED fixture WORKING? All I see is a flat green screen, no real growth to speak of. I would say from what I can see that these LED lights are a big fail for using in an ATS unless someone can post pictures showing any real amount of growth, otherwise save your $ and put some CFL bulbs on it because they will grow algae much better than the pictures I see in this thread.

I think Floyd nailed it early on with his comment:


First, I should clarify... that was not my first post. Just my first since rejoining. I looked for my old registration info and gave up. I use throw-away email accounts for a LOT of public forums to keep spam and other junk email to a minimum... and I did not recall what email address I used for this one. Not that I have all that many posts back in 2009 either. :) Mostly some references to university studies on the efficacy of these scrubbers (that have been around a LONG, LONG time in commercial applications).

Last, the filter is obviously working. Trying to Monday-Morning quarterback stuff to say it is not is rather disingenuous, don't you think? Claiming it is not the be-all and end-all of algae scrubbers is stretching the point to make up for the hasty rush to claim failure.

Besides, I love sticking pins is some egos that get a bit large... large enough to post one-sentence replies stating flatly, and only, "it won't work". When it did.

Tom

[gmoney243]

I would think if it had really worked properly the thread would be full of pics from the op. But not even mentioning the lights he roughed the screen up with sandpaper and it wasn't rough enough lookinf to hold onto GHA which is what you wana grow. Any surface with nutrients + light + water = grow algae. I'm not trying to put anyone down here its just the way I see it.

[kerry]

Either way, this post got me fired up about the LED builds and caused me to learn a lot about our hobby and not just scrubbers. Thats what this forum has been all about. Taking ideas and information that someone else has started and expand on it. Even being shot down and told it would not work he still went for it and did get some algae to grow. Correct me if I am wrong but SM got a lot of the same when he first started this venture to get scrubbers noticed. I think its great that there are a lot of great thinkers and doers on this forum not to mention the knowledge of many people on here as well. This is the most informative forum I have ever been on. I have learned a wealth of knowledge here and am humbled to be a part of this great forum and the projects that better our hobby here.

[Floyd R Turbo]

What this thread showed me is that LEDs are very good at producing green growth. Every tank is different and ever scrubber is different. So you can't take one example and duplicate it and expect the same result necessarily. With this tank in particular, the screen is very large compared to feeding (I'm assuming he's not feeding 12 cubes of food per day) so the screen is oversized and under lit, which should not grow green, yet it does. That is the tidbit of useful info I grabbed from this thread and yes, it does inspire one to go LED based on that alone, because that says a lot.

As far as filtering capacity, I still think it is bare minimum, but if it works for the system it's on, then it's the perfect scrubber. Haven't seen posts of the screen since the day 5 shot (and an impressive day 5 shot it was) so who knows how it's doing now, but it is definitely not something I would recommend someone build, that's all I'm sayin...

[Ratz]

Santa Monica stated -not going to work- will you enlarge on this statement please. I too have looked at this light and it seems that .5 watt per LED X 112 in the red/blue spectrum and placed within a couple of inches should work a treat. I am hopefully going to build a scrubber with a 12x12 inch screen and really good flow. I am running a small scrubber at the moment and it grows algae like crazy , but far too small. This light panel looks to be just the job unless anyone can tell or show me otherwise. I am also going to build my new scrubber from ply. What a brilliant idea. Well waterproofed and it will be as durable as perspex and a fraction of the price.

[SantaMonica]

Thanks for comments I am still not convinced the light is as weak as you state yes there are .5 watt LEDs and the other unit has 1 watt LEDs but the unit I have ordered has double the LEDs it is quoted as 1900 lumens the 50 watt UFO light is 2000 lumens so as I said in my other thread I will try this light on my mud filter first , I have seen one of these light locally and you can't look at the unit direct it's bright very bright I will post as much pics as possible thanks again as I said all comments are welcome

The light is spread out across too large an area to give enough growth power with high nutrients. 50 of their "watts" is really about 30, and it's spread over 144 square inches. This is equal to about 60 real CFL watts. The display will win.

You want concentrated light, not spread out.

Nevertheless, wait 3 weeks for the new design before building anything.

[Ratz]

Thanks for your reply. Am eagerly awaiting your new scrubber.