Anyone doing anything with LED Lighting?

[Veng68]

So is anyone experimenting with LED's (light emitting diodes)?

Pros: Low power usage, low heat and long bulb life (100K hours)

Cons: Expensive & lots of LED's required to make sufficient light.

Seems like an interesting idea if it works.

I was going to attempt to make a small lighting array but I can't find the instructions to make them anymore. I remember reading a thread about using LED's to light a tank but I can't seem to find the thread and the website that was on it seem to be down for the last week.

I was thinking of buying a 144 LED array (with super bright white LEDs) that the manufacturer says is equal to 150 watts of light but it costs $200 (it may pay off really quick though because it will last 22 years of 12hr usage and the lower power consumption).

Cheers,
Victor

 

[tetra]

Whew!!..for a minute there I thought you were going to put an alarm system with an LED on your tank....hehehehe...j/k.

 

[Big R]

I guess it depends if it is equal to the light from a 150W inc bulb or a 150W HQI halide.

R

 

[Chucker]

It's all a moot point if the LEDs do not provide the proper wavelengths for photosynthesis.......

 

[rotorh60]

I remember reading posts well over a year ago where someone had provided detailed instuctions on how to setup and wire red LED's for a night light on thier reef. It's been so long ago, and there is nothing in the archives that I can find. The author of the post got the stuff to make it from Radio Shack. I don't know if this is what you had in mind from your original post, but it has been done before. Sorry that I couldn't help you more.

 

[clutchcargo]

Where'd you find them so cheap?
I found some stats, but I'm not a lighting expert or a reef expert for that matter. It appears they are 8000K and have a CRI of 85.

 

[Veng68]

I actually found some stats for a new LED from Lumilid called the Luxstar 'white' LED. It's range is 9000-12000K (the company sorts them) and it has a ~65000 mcd rating (the diy webpage was using 6500K ~3500mcd)

Cheers,
Victor

 

[Veng68]

^^^

 

[Grandczar]

I see where your going with this and would be curious too. My concern would be the nightmare of wire'n this up. It would be like christmas tree lights. When one bulb went out all of them would go out. How do you then find the one that needs to be replaced?

 

[Veng68]

Hi,

Here is an e-mail that I received from Dana Riddle:

----------
Victor,
Yes, I've done some work with LEDs. Delta Lite provided two hand-built prototypes a few months ago and I used a sctroradiometer and PAR meter to evaluate them. They produce a workable spectrum, good intensity (350 µMols) and, as you noted, are very efficient (light production actually drops as the lamps warm up and get about 77-78° F). Too bad they're so
expensive...
Dana
-----------

Cheers,
Victor

 

[Reefstud]

This is an interesting topic. I would like to see it continue. Here is a link that I found http://www.netdisty.net/ds/DB640/#2
I'd like to get some feedback.

[ August 26, 2001: Message edited by: Reefstud ]

 

[RichMacys]

We use LED lights at work all the time to wash walls with color or add different types of lights with a better CRI. Thats been the problem with these lights up until recently. The companies that maunfacture these lights are pouring money into these types of ideas. We use Color Kinetics lights all the time on everything from cruise ships to casinos. The only problem I see is getting enough of them to create enough light at a cost you dont need a loan for!!! The 1 foot/1 color ColorKinetics light bars go for $99 bucks and thats not even including the Power Supply. I dont think its a viable option YET....

 

[Reefstud]

I sent the following email to LEDtronics:
I currently use metal halide lamps to light my reef aquarium. Some on
recently brought up the use of LED's as a possible replacement. Here is a
link to the bulbs that I am currently using http://www.eyelighting.com/mhconversioncleanace.html. Heat is something
that
is a problem with MH lighting for reef aquariums. LED's seem to address
that
in addition to running with less energy. Is it possible to replace my MH's

with a LED system? Cost isn't necessarily a consideration, I am just
trying
to find out if it is possible. FYI, most hobbyists spend $300 a year
replacing their bulbs in addition to the energy consumption. The preferred

temperature is 6,500K to 20,000K. Any feedback would be appreciated. Here

is the link to the messageboard regarding this issue http://www.reefs.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=028295

and received the following response:

You can use many of our clusters, LED strip lights in 8000K temperature.
For 20 degree illumination angle coming form the LED, the LED gives out 6
candela, 6 foot candle or 6 directional lumens. If you are using 1000
lumens out put lamp and you are only using a certain portion of the energy,
you will need a cluster or multiple clusters totaling 166 White LEDs. This
is only to give you an idea. Some suggested web data sheets: http://www.datasheets.led.net/medbase_index/medbase_index.htm http://www.netdisty.net/ds/stp527/
Pervaiz Lodhie

 

[jsteinman]

I a curious if anyone was able to identify what would be needed to accurately match ideal lighting conditions for the reef environment?

Also with this setup could you provide phased increases in lighting to simulate dawn/dusk/full daylight?

My thoughts are this. If you can get this unit to last even 10 years without replacement then paying for the long term investment would seem to make sense. I know that I have spent over 10k for my various setups and from reading another post on how much others have spent, I an in the halfway mark,eing said, how much more would I spend to have lighting that provides accurate reef lighting with a truly phased lighting spectrum for dawn/dusk/full daylight that could last anywhere from 10 to 20 years? Quite a bit I would think, considering what I've spent already and what I will spend, have spent on replacement bulbs. Also since I have spent so much already, I do not see myself giving up on this hobby, EVER. Even if I have no job and have to run on a treadmill to power my tank.

So does anyone have any updates on this research or have anyone experimented?

 

[chris_h]

The blue ones have great potential for supplementing metal halide. I recieved a blue LED key chain as a gift, and the color is amazing. It puts VHO atinics to shame. Any thing with even a hint of green glows bright green and my clownfish appeared black with the blue LED keychain and the halides off.

If you are looking for something to view your tank at night, get a blue LED keychain. They are so cool.

Do you think in the future they will be able to make large LEDs?

 

[HARRISON]

Will be interesting to see what you come up with. I use several smaller LED flashlights for rescue work. I wear one around my neck that uses a small watch looking battery and is a lot brighter than a mini mag. The good thing is your not supposed to have to change batteries for like 100 thousand hours of usage. We have had some problems with the "head lamps" burning out. I wouldn't want to pay a lot of money for these guys unless the have a good waranty cause I have seen to many of the smaller ones go bad. I do however use the small blue light to view my tank and like it. Would make a good type of moon light I think. Pelican is the brand that I use for work, in case anyone wants to get a little LED light to check out...

HARRISON

 

[Old Guy]

For the question about phasing dawn / dusk, Yes..
Led's brightness can be easily controlled.

The best way I would think would be with PWM.
Pulse Width Modulation. hummm, amounts to turning
the Led's off and on real quick with varying duty cycles. The control for this would be fairly cheap to build. This type of control is used on motors for speed control or a high voltage version is a dimmer for lighting.

HTH

Old Guy

 

[pez]

I know humans are not sensitive to the frequencies that PWM use, but what about corals? Anyone know if they can sense the flickering? Whatever the case, I suppose you can just jack up the frequency to some absurd level.

-Tom

 

[esmithiii]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr> Do you think in the future they will be able to make large LEDs?
<hr></blockquote>

I am not up on this technology, but I think the way it will go is more in arrays of LEDs as opposed to larger LEDs. One problem (disadvantage) I see is that many aquarists go for MH because of the ripple effect provided by point illumination, which would be lost using a large array of LEDs.

Check this out:

Indoor LED Floodlight
Descriptions of Light Measurement Units
400W MH 6500K Iwasaki data
Sanjay Yoshi & Dave Morgan: Spectral Analysis of MH Lamps - Do ballasts make a difference?
Bulb Color analysis

I tried to compare intensity of the LEDs in an array to the intensity of a 400W MH 6500K Iwasaki bulb, but one is measured in end-lumens, the other in lumens. Look at the cost, though. Wow!

I would think that someone with some dough could buy a couple of their cool blue 8000K LED Array bulbs and a light meter and measure the PAR. If it is even 4 times the initial cost of MH I might be interested. The energy savings and replacement cost of bulbs alone is something to look at. Another thing is that MH bulb intensity is measured in initial lumens (which drops by 20% when the bulb breaks in.) LEDs do not suffer this degredation.

E

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: esmithiii ]</p>

 

[morepunkthanewe]

My friend has one of the new Aqua Medic moon lights (I'm not sure the real name). It is a small square that produces a real deep blue. I believe that is a LED type light. Maybe Aqua Medic has been doing research into the viability of LED lights for primary lighting as well, perhaps an e-mail to the company would yield some more information...