DIY LED upgrade in an old PFO MH/VHO fixture led driver suggestions.

[geekengineer]

Yeah good point I forgot about that 140 dollar thing they had on e-bay. It was just a quick project to try. lol

 

[geekengineer]

I am sort of also interested in the spectrometer for measuring water parameters? I will look around but I wonder if there are some good threads out there about that. It might require something more like a raman spectrometer tho or a mass spectrometer etc. That is if you want to do it without chemical tests. Which would be nice but I'm sure it probably would have been done if it was easy already. lol

 

[geekengineer]

Well, I zapped one of the Bridgelux didn't think about that trying on the constant current driver would over voltage it. I ended up saying F** it and got the 215V driver partially because I was tired of waiting for the other one. I'm hoping maybe I can sell the other one and make some of the money back maybe or keep it as a spare. So, at the moment I have 3 BLs and all I had was two blue 10W COBs. It's probably going to take another week to get the Steves LEDs 3ups in is my guess. Here are some of what they look like. I also figured out I could add a 140mm 12V fan on the fin side pretty easily my 4mm screws would fit in-between the fins. I think I am going to get a few more and put three of them on the back just to make it fairly cool hopefully. Right now I just have one on the hot end and that seems to help a lot.

This is with just the 3 BLs and the two blue.

This one I believe is the spectrum for this light. Using the better one I made got some better grating for cheap. (I might have gotten them mixed up. Getting tired I may need to retake these later.)

This one is with both the center white and actinic lights on.

I think this is the spectrum for this one.

 

[oreo54]

Sooo you hot swapped it?. You shouldn't have over volted it unless you had the driver on B4 you attached the Bridgelux.
Then again you need to honor the low end of 107 volts.
Hmmm my bad here... That driver may even ( will @ 100.5v @ 700mA) have a hard time w/ 3 Bridgelux in series if it is the only diodes used.

A bit whiter then expected w/ 3 BL and 12 royal blues.
Still easily in the 10000k + range.
You added 2 blue or royal blue to the bl string?

Btw my limited understanding that normally in an under voltage situation the driver should go into limp mode.
Briefly flash on then off. Then repeat
Suppose the behavior is driver dependent.

 

[geekengineer]

I did have the driver on and tried to hook it up so that is probably what did it. dumb dumb.. I'm not use to constant current power supplies apparently. I didn't think about the under voltage, but I was worried about blowing out all of them. lol I added 2 blues (all the ones I had) to the BL string. So that would be roughly running at 120V and the low spec is 107V so I was OK there. I should have checked the voltage and I didn't yet. I Then of course the 12 RBs on the other driver I showed them separately tho. So one picture with the RBs off and the other with the RBs on. Not sure which one you were looking at. I should say tho that I can't tell the difference between the royal blues and the blue LEDs I had when I look at the light. Is that not expected? Maybe they gave me all blues. lol I did order a few more BLs so I have a spare and its probalby going to take some time for them to build those 3ups. They said 3-6 days lead time on custom items.

 

[geekengineer]

So a bit more spectrum wise.

Just white/2blues

Just the RBs

Both RBs/Bs and White

 

[geekengineer]

So I was wondering would there be any advantage to jump the LEDs around the different heat sinks I have? I did ended up putting them all together with thermal grease and epoxy. I three fans on the back side. (This picture below doesn't show they are together like as if they were one heat sink now.) The fans are probably overkill these have PWM so I want to make a little controller for it to ajust the speed dependent on temperature etc and also monitor the fan speed.

This was sort of the layout I was thinking? at least roughly if it makes sense or just leave them all in the center as we talked about before.

 

[oreo54]

So I was wondering would there be any advantage to jump the LEDs around the different heat sinks I have? I did ended up putting them all together with thermal grease and epoxy. I three fans on the back side. (This picture below doesn't show they are together like as if they were one heat sink now.) The fans are probably overkill these have PWM so I want to make a little controller for it to ajust the speed dependent on temperature etc and also monitor the fan speed.

This was sort of the layout I was thinking? at least roughly if it makes sense or just leave them all in the center as we talked about before.

I'd stick w/ the plan, you are already pushing light out past the tank.
This was scaled to what you drew. Your square was 5.75 x 2.5 approx
40b is 36x18
3 sinks @ 6" is wide enough.

I'm starting to think you need a bigger tank.

 

[geekengineer]

Lol doesn't that always happen eventually it turns into 1000 gal tank.

 

[oreo54]

Lol doesn't that always happen eventually it turns into 1000 gal tank.

Better pic, used 18" spread, 2" sinks , cut "short"

 

[geekengineer]

So are you implying something like this instead using the core heat sinks? Not sure if I follow what that last pick was suppose to tell me. lol

I'm not sure if those 3ups are ever going to come in and I left a message about it an they haven't replyied. So I don't know if I could get individual cheap stars maybe as a placeholder for now,

 

[oreo54]

Last pic was estimated light spread from the cobs or stars with a native beam angle of 120 degrees. 6" from tank to light face.
Didn't feel like adding 12 circles for the 12 rb cobs ect.
I just used one cob per 2" heat sink.

Just saw this at Steve's..Not sure what is driving demand for them though.

 

[geekengineer]

Yeah it's been about 6 days if not longer. I will see if they get back with me.

 

[geekengineer]

I hope I didn't mess up but I ordered the series connected 3up LEDs. I thought that was what you intended?

 

[oreo54]

I hope I didn't mess up but I ordered the series connected 3up LEDs. I thought that was what you intended?

Yes series. If Indiviual they can be soldered in series anyways.
In series they are just like the cobs .
3 3w diodes (9watts). 9- ish volts

Just a custom " color"..

 

[geekengineer]

OK I just got to thinking if I was wrong on that. Some of those LEDs were stating 350mA operating current but that could be typical value cause I think it said 1000mA was max.

So I didn't get anything from Steve's LEDs and when I called them I didn't realize it was too late. I decided to buy some cheap 3W China onest that might work instead or at least temporarily that didn't cost too much. It will be a race to see which ones I get first. lol

I'm going to try to start to get serious about selling some of my junk that I have around that people might be interested in. I'm thinking e-bay maybe some here too if it makes sense.

 

[oreo54]

OK I just got to thinking if I was wrong on that. Some of those LEDs were stating 350mA operating current but that could be typical value cause I think it said 1000mA was max.

So I didn't get anything from Steve's LEDs and when I called them I didn't realize it was too late. I decided to buy some cheap 3W China onest that might work instead or at least temporarily that didn't cost too much. It will be a race to see which ones I get first. lol

I'm going to try to start to get serious about selling some of my junk that I have around that people might be interested in. I'm thinking e-bay maybe some here too if it makes sense.

Cool blue:

- Forward Voltage is 3.27V @ 700ma

- Max current - 1000ma

-Luminous Intensity - 110 Lumens @ 1000ma

- Wavelength -470-480nm Excellent for enhancing true coral colors!

- Lens Beam Angle - 90°- 120° max

Cyan:

Forward Voltage is 3.27V @ 700ma

- Max current - 1000ma

-Luminous Intensity - 60-70 Lumens @ 350ma

- Wavelength -495nm Excellent for enhancing true coral colors! This is the optimal cyan wavelenth, very rare and hard to obtain for us.

- Lens Beam Angle - 90°- 120° max

 

[geekengineer]

OK I missed that part I was looking at the lumens number.

 

[geekengineer]

Steve's LEDs doesn't seem to be answering its phone They wouldn't have gone out of business would they? Anyone buy from them recently? I just get sent to voice mail.

 

[geekengineer]

Just FYI.. I going to try updating this more on my Build thread instead of here.