what cree bulb for display lights?

[andthe_brain]

Was looking at the XP-G range and the X-RE range as i know there used in the aqua ray tile units. Thers so many different series of em...any advice?

[MorganAtlanta]

XP-G are more efficient per watt, and you can run them at higher current, so you can use fewer of them. For the same lumens, they are probably cheaper than the older XR-Es. I have a 72" display light with 126 XR-Es (cool white/royal blue/blue). They work, but put out a fair amount of heat when running close to full. I need 5 fans along the length to keep the fixture cool. I have the parts for a 30 LED unit for a 40 gallon tank, but haven't assembled it yet. For that, I got 10 each of XP-G/XP-E in cool-white/royal blue/blue.

[kotlec]

You should look in to new XT-E , XT-B line. Claimed to to be even better bang for the buck ones.

look here http://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cree-Inc/XTEARY-00-0000-000000K01/?qs=z4rB1XrNG2gVrG0szdUnLQ%3d%3d

[andthe_brain]

Ah nice one kotlec will have a gander...

[Ace25]

I wouldn't consider the XT-E's or XB-D's myself. I would wait until the next iteration of LEDs because the XT-E/XB-D was more of a "proof of concept" LED. Between the different substrate used, odd internal optics, and using "remote phosphors", I don't think I would jump on what I feel is still a "beta" product when there are already known good LEDs out by the same company. As of Feb 8th, just a couple weeks ago, there still was not a lot of info on the XT-E's. The mouser link above seems to be bare LEDs only, so you would have to mount them to stars yourself (which for me, between the cost of the blank star and time involved to mount them they will end up costing more than the XP series today).

http://reefbuilders.com/2012/02/08/cree-xte-royal-blue-buddy/

http://reefbuilders.com/2012/01/11/cree-xbd-led/

[andthe_brain]

Ace ever thought of changing your name to LED guru?? Thanks for all your help so far. am just compiling a shopping list aswell as drawing up some designs. Would it be ok to run the shopping list past you to see what you think?

[joelespinoza]

From my understanding this is the current best to worst in the CREE lineup: XM-L U2, T6, T5, T3; XP-G; then XP-E.

It seems Royal Blue is only available in the XP-E, so you will probably end up using quite a few for dispaly lighting. I would have ordered XM-Ls for my display light but after messing around with LED patterns, spacing and wiring schematics, cost and trying to balance light quantities, I just went with what Milan over at groupbuyled.com recommended and got these:

http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/cree-xt-e-royal-blue-xp-g-neutral-white-3-up/

They are a single neutral white XP-G and 2 royal blue XT-Es mounted on a single star, visually they give a look around 14k, and apparently the neutral white light is well appreciated by most corals. When I get them in and all built we shall see how I like them =)

[Ace25]

Sounds like a good light, although sounds like no dimming of different colors and if one LED burns out your kind of screwed. Neutral whites don't benefit corals any more than cool whites, both have near equal amounts of 455nm light, but IMO neutral lights do look better than cool whites, the slightly warmer color is more pleasing to me when coupled with royal blues and makes some corals look better. Yes, XM-L's are the best, but like you said, they are much trickier to build around.

[joelespinoza]

They get wired independently, so I will be able to dim the 3 seperate channels (2 blues and a white) as far as LEDs burning out... Yea, that would suck, but if worse comes to worse I can just replace the LED chip on the star.

[Ace25]

ok, that's cool they are wired independently so you can control the color. Ya, you can certainly replace an LED on a star, and something I would do, but that starts to get a little above novice level when it comes to LEDs. Sounds like you could handle it though if it came to that.

[joelespinoza]

Turns out the 3up LED stars are backordered, so I decided to switch things around and do 30 XP-E Royal Blues at 700mA with 40 degree potics, and 12 XM-L T5 warm whites at 2100mA with 60 degree optics. It will cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, and with the wierd numbers I might get some "disco" effect but ehh, I think it will be nicer overall.

[Ace25]

How high are you planning on mounting the LEDs? 40 degree optics make a very tight beam, very noticeable in my tanks. I tried them at 14" above the water line there were still tight cones of colors from the optics. 60 degree was much better for blending the colors on my height. I think you have to be closer to 24" above the water line in order for 40 degree optics to spread out enough to blend good... but that is using XP-E/XP-G combo. I have not tried an XM-L setup myself so it could be different.

[joelespinoza]

How high are you planning on mounting the LEDs? 40 degree optics make a very tight beam, very noticeable in my tanks. I tried them at 14" above the water line there were still tight cones of colors from the optics. 60 degree was much better for blending the colors on my height. I think you have to be closer to 24" above the water line in order for 40 degree optics to spread out enough to blend good... but that is using XP-E/XP-G combo. I have not tried an XM-L setup myself so it could be different.

Some cone shaped light is ok, and honestly I am one of those people who tend to overthink things. At some point I just have to make an educated guess, go with it and work with it when it gets here.

Currently I am planning 3 rows:

Front row: 15 Royal Blue XP-Es with 40 degree optics at 700mA

Middle row: 12 Neutral white XM-L T5s with 60 degree optics at 2100mA

Back row: 15 Royal Blue XP-Es with 40 degree optics at 700mA

But I might do 2 mixed rows, here are pictures of the 2 curent possibilities:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/LED.jpg

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[MorganAtlanta]

I'd do the three row thing.

[MorganAtlanta]

What are the dimensions of your tank?

[joelespinoza]

What are the dimensions of your tank?

~48" left to right x ~13" front to back x ~21" deep standard 55 gallon.

If I did 2 rows 2" apart that would leave ~5" on each side front to back, so if I left 5" on each side left to right the rows would be ~38" long. 38" / 21 LEDs means they would be spaced ~1.8" apart. I think that sounds about right for avoiding the disco/spotlight effect.

Some trig gives me that a 2"x38" LED setup 22" away from a surface will spread light ~ 20" x 54". Considering that the majority of light from a LED is within the inside 50% of the cone, so I think 2 rows is starting to sound pretty close to what I want.

If I did 3 rows the LEDs would be spread almost 3" apart left to right, and I think that is too far apart. Although I guess I could make spotlight groupings... Instead of solid rows I could do 3 groups of LED lights. Each group could have 3 rows, 2 rows of 5 blue LEDs and 1 row of 4 white LEDs....


See what I mean about tending to overthink things...?

[Ace25]

Ummmm.. I think you way over designed for a 55G. I run 24 LEDs, standard 12/12 XP-E/XP-G combo on my 60G and it is ok, although 36 LEDs is what I feel is ideal for a 55/60G tank.

Figure the normal ratio (and I feel works great also) of blue to white LEDs is 2:1. Each XM-L you have = 3 XP-Gs.

So the way I figure, for a standard 55G tank, 4 XM-Ls + 24 XR-E royal blues would probably be equivalent. Whites really get bright quickly and really wash out the royal blues.

[joelespinoza]

Ummmm.. I think you way over designed for a 55G. I run 24 LEDs, standard 12/12 XP-E/XP-G combo on my 60G and it is ok, although 36 LEDs is what I feel is ideal for a 55/60G tank.

Figure the normal ratio (and I feel works great also) of blue to white LEDs is 2:1. Each XM-L you have = 3 XP-Gs.

So the way I figure, for a standard 55G tank, 4 XM-Ls + 24 XR-E royal blues would probably be equivalent. Whites really get bright quickly and really wash out the royal blues.

Hmmmm well since I already had to change my order I dont want to make them refund cash.... I guess I could have them switch the XM-Ls to cool whites... Would you recommend that?


I guess either way I should have nice lighting when I upgrade to a 90 gallon tank.

The rule of thumb given to me was one 3 watt CREE LED per 15-20 square inches of tank surface area, up to 24" deep is the range of acceptable lighting, with 20 being acceptable for basic reefs and 15 being high light capable of growing anything. 615 square inches/20 ~ 31, 615 square inches/15 ~ 41, so a total of 31 LEDs should be acceptable for normal reef lighting, and 41 should be enough for anything, including SPSS and clams. Since I wanted a number divisible by 3 (originally planned 3 up LED discs) and I wanted to have plenty of light even 10 years from now, I went on the high end at 42. I guess I did not consider the fact that the XM-L driven at 2100mA should be 3x the light of the XP-G at 700mA....

EDIT: I guess if you consider XM-L T5s at 2100mA each worth about 3 XP-G at 700mA, the 12 XM-Ls alone are really enough light for a 55 gallon tank... and the 30 Royal Blue LEDs are just bonus light =)

[Ace25]

EDIT: I guess if you consider XM-L T5s at 2100mA each worth about 3 XP-G at 700mA, the 12 XM-Ls alone are really enough light for a 55 gallon tank... and the 30 Royal Blue LEDs are just bonus light =)
True, if you like the freshwater look to the tank. ;) Whites by themselves, even "cool whites" are still way to yellow for my preference. The royal blues really help balance out the whites for a saltwater tank, as well as provide a ton of usable light for the corals, sometimes too much. This is something I had to experience myself, and pretty much anyone who is going to DIY LEDs. I ordered a lot of different LEDs when I built my first light so I could understand how they all looked to me. After a couple weeks on my first light I ended up swapping out most of the warm whites I had for cool whites because it was way to warm. Even today, I only turn my whites up 50% and my blues up 100% on a 50/50 mix light, I think anything higher than 75% on whites with XP-Gs and it starts looking like a freshwater tank, under 10k coloring.

Since you say you are going to upgrade to a 90G down the road though, there is no reason not to build the light for a 90G and just run everything low power on the 55G. I still think you need way more blues to balance out that many neutral white XM-Ls, either more blues or just never run the XM-Ls more than 40% power.

[joelespinoza]

Yea I realize the color on all warm whites would be way off, I was just saying the total amount of light was, by itself, sufficient. However I would never run that on a normal marine tank.

Currently I run a ghetto rigged t8 shoplight overdriven to about 110 watts with a Zoomed actinic bulb and a Zoomed 50/50 bulb, the whole thing (including bulbs) was less than 60 bucks and everything I have currently grows fine under it. The current color is not bad, but it could be a deeper blue and I would be fine with that too, however I dont want it any whiter.

Chances are I will arrange the LEDs in 3 groupings, after some drawing and math I kind of like that arangement. So it will be a center strip of the white lights with 60 degree optics, and strip on each side of Royal Blue lights with 40 degree optics. I will probably run the blues at max and the whites at a very low level.

That gives me room to add another strip of blues on each side in the future, when I upgrade tanks, and at that point I can just crank up the whites a bit more.

[kotlec]

3 lines of different color gives you nice disco effect as leds are very directional compared to tube lights. Especially if you use optic.

[kerry]

I have 2 strips on my 40G, 32 total and I feel i need more. Front strip is 14 LED's, 2@445nm and the other 12 are split into 12,000/19,000K. The Back is 18 LED's 3@445nm and the other 15 are mostly 19,000K. My optics are the short type, 30 degree on the very outside, then 60 degree on the next set in on each side then the rest are 90 degree. My strips are 7" from the water.
I have 20 more LED's coming so I can add one more strip of 14 LED's with 4-5 445nm and the rest 19,000K.
Here is pic using the Droid, I know the tank display glass is a wreck!!! Its spring here in the south, Getting the tractors ready to cut grass, garden, and drag the drive way smooth for the first time this year so the tanks glass cleaning have taken a back seat for a couple weeks.
Those the some quick thrown together DIY fixtures. It works for now though!!

[joelespinoza]

I have 2 strips on my 40G, 32 total and I feel i need more. Front strip is 14 LED's, 2@445nm and the other 12 are split into 12,000/19,000K. The Back is 18 LED's 3@445nm and the other 15 are mostly 19,000K.

What brand of LEDs are they, what wattage are they, and how many mA are the drivers putting out?

It could just be your phone but the color seems wrong. Assuming they all have about the same light output, and assuming you have ~5 445nm, ~11 12,000k and ~16 19,000k, then you should have ~15% indego light (lets pretend this is 25,000k, although that is a wildly innaccurate statement), ~50% 19,000k and ~35% 12000k.... When you plug all those in you get an average of something like ~17,000k, which is a pretty deep blue, but your light looks like neutral white, like maybe 4,500k.

I realize its like comparing apples to baseballs, but here is a pic of my quarantine tank, it has one 26 watt 5,100k spiral CFL bulb and one 42 watt 2,700k spiral CFL bulb so the light is somewhere in the 3,600k range... but it looks nearly the same as your ~17,000k lighting...
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/10Gallon.jpg

[kerry]

I have noticed that the LED's look a lot different then tube florescent type. I have gotten LED's from Ledtoplights on ebay and Satisled on ebay. Both seem the same. I might even have the amount 12,000 and 19,000K mixed up I could have a little more 12 then 19 on the front but I am sure I have more 19 on the back strip so it should be close to a 50/50 mix. The camera makes i look a LOT brighter too. Its just a Droid 8 mega pix camera. It makes the torch corals appear to glow and the tube bulb @ 12,000K did not.
I forgot to mention I am running the front strip of 14 on the meanwell LPC-35-700 and the rear strip one of the same as well. I know its only for 14 of them. I need to get a 1 ohm resistor and and put it in line with all my LED's so I can just measure voltage and see what the amps are. I am sure the front is running at about 700ma

[kotlec]

This is my custom nano 16G . LEDs are all CREE.

12 rb XP-E
10 cw XM-3
2 nw XM-3.

Color is very nice in person. Less blue than you see in picture below. Basically I have 2:1 blue and white, as XP-Es are driven at 2W and XM-3s are 1w leds. It is strong enough light for good SPS growth and may be too much for some softies , especially shrooms.

I used individual LEDs on stars, but placed them in clusters blue and white side by side to avoid disco effect.

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1802&d=1331846341

[kerry]

Very nice, I have a trumpet (candy cane) coral just like yours but it only has 3 heads so far. I also want a cats paw one of these days to.

[Ace25]

Standard 60G tank
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6144/5979957647_3935632677.jpg

24 LED 50/50 blue/white light combo (mix of various LEDs I had laying around, some are XR-Es, some are XP-Es, and some are XP-Gs). This light was made for a 30" 29G but works very well on a 48" 60G, although the ends of the tank do get low PAR (sub 100), which is why I feel 36 LEDs is perfect for a 55/60G, it would eliminate the dimmer ends.
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6143/5980516042_4d6e0e3865.jpg

[kerry]

That's real nice Ace25!! I see you have some trumpet corals as well. That button polyp on the end would pass for mine, real nice tank Sir.

[Ace25]

I have more candycane (trumpet) corals than I know what to do with. My "platinum" one I have has well over 100 heads now. I broke off 3 heads of it 6 months ago and those 3 heads are now 30+.

Here is a neon green one that I measured the PAR at, it is only getting 60 PAR and seems happy as can be.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6957511927_ea51b96898.jpg

[kerry]

VERY NICE!!
That's just what my neon looks like. The middle head is getting ready to split, its now got two mouths.

[joelespinoza]

Ill post some pics of my final result here when it is done, but right now the 40 degree optics look fine, they are about 6" above the tank and no visible spotlight effect.

Total LEDs for my 48x12 55 gallon:

14 XP-G Neutral whites

34 XT-E Royal blues

6 Exotic (I think) True Violet LED - 390-430nm (420nm)

6 Exotic (I think) Turquoise - 495nm

6 Exotic (I think) Deep Red - 660nm

So 66 LEDs total, the Crees are all driven at 700mA and the exotic ones are all driven at around 600mA

[Ace25]

Something about LEDs that I can not stress enough. They are SUPER deceiving to the eye. Having 40 degree optics 6" above the tank sounds very scary to me, as in frying corals. I honestly don't know how you are not getting spotlighting, when I put 40's on mine @ 14" above the water I still got spotlighting, but I have a feeling when it comes to optics, the spread is not accurate (the Cree 40's are very small/tight but other types of 40's from places like LEDgroupbuy seem to look more like 60-80 degree optics). Be very very careful accimating the tank to the new light if you have corals. I say this to everyone, but 90% of the people I tell don't heed my warning and I always hear from those people about a month later how they killed all their corals. It is so hard to get people to understand that even though the LEDs normally "look" (to the human eye) about 1/2 as bright as previous lighting (T5HO or MH) they are actually 2x as strong generally speaking if tested with a PAR meter. Since I am unsure about your tank inhabitants this is more of a general warning to all, not really directed towards you joelespinoza.

[kerry]

I have a couple different brand optics with the same ratings but they are not similar in spot function.

[joelespinoza]

The LEDs are actually closer to 8" off the water.

I took a couple more pics so you can see the tank from different angles. You can tell the dead spot in the middle where I am missing 2 of the 3 led stars and on the outside where there are no LEDs. So its pretty clear that the LEDs angle is pretty tight. Perhaps the cloudy water is just obscuring the spotlighting effect.


http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0215Large.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0217Large.jpg

Low and high light areas
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0212Large-1.jpg

[Poor Zoas.. =(
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0214Large.jpg

[Nathanial]

Hi friends Cree bulbs for display lights are very best and also beautiful in looking i lie these display bulbs and i am display these bulbs in front of my shop.You are sharing nice photos joelespinoza.I like your photos theses are all great and get easy to my problem in make a display for my shop i get more experience from your these sharing pictures.Thanks for sharing this photos.