# diy LED light hood?



## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

if LED lights seem so efficient then why can't we build our own? any ideas on how to build a fixture?


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## freydo (Jan 7, 2006)

it's mainly cost and practicality. a long time member was looking into it, and made some for testing purposes. i think it was gomer... not positive though.


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## SAplantNerd (Aug 9, 2009)

also the problem is getting rid of the heat. the high power LEDs emit alot of heat as well as the driver(well that also depends on brand and if you go diy or not). im also looking at building my own hood for a nano tank. but look on the marine forums as a lot of those guys are going LED and some of them have built some nice hoods.


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## mfgann (Nov 10, 2010)

Actually, they should put out less heat for the amount of light you are getting out. Wattage is a measurement of the power consumed by a device. The reason we've used fluorescents instead of incandescent lights for so long is that the light output/watt is a lot higher (remember the spiral CFLs a 13W is about as bright as a 60W incandescent). LEDs are even more efficient than florescent lights, so you should have less heat to deal with. Not saying they won't get hot, just that it shouldn't be much different than florescent lights. I think the biggest issue is actually getting some sort of standard way to hook them up. Florescent fixtures are pretty commonplace. LEDs don't go in any standard socket, and have to have something driving them (they are DC, and need some form of current limiting, or they'll pop). I think as technology catches up and LED lights become more commonplace it will be easier to retrofit something.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

like recently i've been seeing those LED light bulbs... in the shape of incandescent light but instead of using a filament its filled with LED's. LED's don't produce much heat... i have a water wonders tank with an 9 LED fixture. i'm going to gut it and experiment .
using DC would be too expensive to power LED's for 8 hours + a day. If a hood was to be built some kind of transformer would need to be made to turn down the watts and convert from AC to DC...
Pity is that marineland has those double bright LED hoods and are not about to share any secrets or materials...


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## Thorald (Aug 8, 2009)

Hi,

I was also thinking about this. Because I have an electronics background (only from school), so the first thing that popped up in my mind was to use something I know. I wanted to try it with high efficiency LEDs like these: 14000mcd 100Packs White 5Mm Led. My 11W CFL that I use for my nano is rated at 900cd, so I would need 64 of these to get a similar amount of light :-O This makes about 3.8Watts, so that not too shabby.

Also take into account that the spectrum probably isn't that great, so you'll also have to replace some of the white LED's with red and blue ones. There are also yellow LEDs, but I don't know if plants need yellow (it's probably a combination of 2 colours anyway). You won't be needing green LEDs. Do plants benefit from ultra violet and infra red?

You will also need to make a current supply and the entire things is going to need a DC power supply. It's not going to be expensive (maybe 20$ for the entire thing, if you have some parts laying around even less), but it's going to be a big job to solder the entire thing.

I was thinking of making this for a 3gallon tank (this will compare to 3W/gallon, so I will have to use less LEDs) to breed daphnia. If you're going to be needing more than 100LEDs you would probably be better of buying high power LEDs. The site I've linked to also sells 2W LEDs and LED drivers. They also sell the screw in replacement LED bulbs, but I'm not convinced by the colour temperature.


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## bamboosharkbark (Dec 27, 2010)

hey there, I will be building mine soon, it's very simple and for me ended up being a very cheap lighting solution considering both how long the finished product will last and also how versatile the end up working. More importantly the cost of the parts and shipping the parts to me was less than I'd have payed for a 2 bulb t5 fixture to be sent. Where I live its hard to get planted aquarium supplies so one must usually oder internationally... 
Basically I got the idea from the nano-reefer forums:
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=186982
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=200335

I found this video series on youtube very helpful too:





you can buy them and pretty much everything you'll need here: 
http://www.rapidled.com

I chose to use 3w Cree leds for my project, some have already arrived. 9 cool white (~6500k), 9 warm white (~2800K) and one blue and one red. The leds will use Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable driver to power them and for the beginning ill be using a potentiometer to adjust the light intensity. Later probably try an arduino... SO by adjusting light intensity with the dimmer the color temp even changes a bit too and in practice gives me a huge amount of versatility. Also lenses/optics are very important with leds and play big role in the amount of light that reaches the bottom of the tank. Lenses for the LEDS will usually also be offered together with them. I'm using mostly 65 degree lenses. They are like the led equivalent of reflectors.
Concerning heat, you can use an aluminum heat sink and sometimes also a fan to get the heat away from the high power LEDS, since heat would shorten their lifespan and decrease light output. It sounds hard but its definitely manageable and worth the effort for the quality. 
Theres alot to learn and I wish you success!

Lastly I will soon post pics of the setup of the tank and document my DIY light in a thread. I can link here later.


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## ecotanker (Jun 12, 2009)

checkout this DIY led light thread on plantedtank.net


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

so basically my problem was how to how up the mutiple LED's together and how to caculate the amount of voltage needed. i suspect you can probably use a wall charger that converts the voltage and gut the thing its connected to, to form a circut with a power source you can plug into the wall...
i won't get started on this project until i scrape up enough funds, determine which appliance to gut, and when i have more time.


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## sendthis (Dec 15, 2010)

neilshieh said:


> so basically my problem was how to how up the mutiple LED's together and how to caculate the amount of voltage needed. i suspect you can probably use a wall charger that converts the voltage and gut the thing its connected to, to form a circut with a power source you can plug into the wall...
> i won't get started on this project until i scrape up enough funds, determine which appliance to gut, and when i have more time.


You really don't need to gut any appliance. Just get a compatible plug from radioshack or your favorite electronics store (online or brick-and-mortar). Bring the adapter with you... heck, Radioshack sells adapters too... be careful about your V and A ratings though.

LEDs work on the same principle (pretty much, hence the light-emitting diode) as standard diodes. So get a basic circuits analysis books and understand how to operate diodes and how they work.

I've been thinking about starting a project too... but most websites recommend using the Crees or Luxeon LEDs (1W-3W) because they're more efficient. Also, just because an eBay seller in China claims something is true doesn't mean we should believe it, so be weary of 5mm LEDs that cost $10 for 1,000,000 (yes, I'm exaggerating).


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## wmsvn (Oct 22, 2008)

Thanks for the links. I am going to replace my manor cube with led soon.


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## Gomer (Feb 2, 2004)

freydo said:


> it's mainly cost and practicality. a long time member was looking into it, and made some for testing purposes. i think it was gomer... not positive though.


yes and yes (and yes to replying to an oldish post )

LEDs now are efficient enough for the $ and they certainly work well 
It isn't too hard to build your own setup if you put a little reading into it. However, there are nice fixtures out there at competitive prices unless you have ZERO value to your time.


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