Before & after replacing T5 light with Maxspect P series

[ivo]

Hi all,

I purchased a three modules Maxspect P series LED this week and set it up on the weekend. I am still trying to figure out the best viewing spectrum for myself and probably will change some more LED bulbs to customise my liking. Each module has 16 bulbs and as a typical LED system there are a lot of blue bulbs. One of the main reason i bought this Maxspect P series is it allows me to change each individual bulbs to create a spectrum that i like. So far i have replaced two blue to two red 660nm. Now each of my module has 4 white, two red, two violet, two warm white (they are actually yellow colour and i don't like them) and 6 blue (royal blue and blue). 3 modules total 48 bulbs and 180W.

I don't think i need that many remaining blue but i am yet to decide what colour to change to, probably more red i think. The LED does penatrate onto the gravel quite well since the distance between top of tank hood to gravel is about 64cm high.

Here are some before and after pictures.

Old lighting - T5 with 4 tubes (2 white, one red and one blue)

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18007.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC17881-1.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC17733.jpg

Now new LED lighting

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18202.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18180.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18166.jpg

My fish are crazy about cucumber

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18139.jpg

[ILLUSN]

love your work mate.

I had great results with 2x660nm red 2x 440-460nm royal blue 1x 525-535nm green and 5x 6500k white on my full spectrum build.

if you can keep a similar ratio with your maxspect you wont regret it.

photos here with and without flash of how it colors up the fish http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24112

[ivo]

Hi Illusn, sorry i only just noticed you have made a comment to my post. May i ask why do you use green LED?

I have changed the maxspect colour arrangement and oh boy, it was a tricky and very expensive process. I have replaced 4 blue to 4 red (660 nm). So many of these red led only lasted a few days and burnt out. Now i figure out the problem and the solution was actually a very simple one, but unfortunately i was receiving wrong advice from the seller so wasted a lot of unnecessary cost. I bought a three units system, each has 4 red, 4 white, 2 violet, 4 royal blue and 2 blue ( i got rid of 2 blue and 2 warm white and put red ones in). I am happy with the result and here are some pictures i took today of my tiger lotus. I bought them between 30 to 45 days ago. A lot of growth have had and the red lotus keep their red nicely. They grow to be very compact group and short stem. When i first bought them they had very long stem but all new growth are short stem. May be it is the effect of the lighting?

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18516.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18524.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18519.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/SNC18528.jpg

Bonus picture taken by iPhone. I have only seen this little bugger twice ever since i bought it. It spends all day hiding in the cave.
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj58/ivo70/photo-2.jpg

[ILLUSN]

Looking great mate, the trick is to get LED's with a higher current (mA) rating then you use (eg i use 1000mA diodes driven at 700mA or 700mA driven at 500mA) by design these chips last longer (usually have higher tolerance to heat which is what kills all LED's), and slightly under driving your LED's makes it easier to mix colours (less spotlighting).

The green has 1 VERY special job, GREEN + Blue + RED = WHITE LIGHT!
Just adding 1 green to each of my clusters changes the colour from a near unbearable harsh purple/pink to a clean crisp 8000k ish white.


Yes changing your spectrum will effect how the plants grow, the 660nm gets denser more compact growth the blue add more height, from memory.

Dont be suprised if you see bright auburn new growth on your ozelot sword and much better spotting with the 660's in your mix.

[ivo]

Hi Illusn, from reading what you said I have a question then. The light system has blue, royal blue and violet. All these didodes are 1000mA and they are driving at factory setting 1000mA. Would you recommend I should change setting and drive them at 700mA instead?

The system uses Meanwell driver which states input current 4.5A @ 110VAC and 2.5 A @ 230 VAC, output current is 14A. What exactly does this mean? What's the difference between input current and output current?

[ILLUSN]

ok your system uses a universal driver, at 110vac it pulls 4.5A (495w us power) at 230vac it pulls 2.5A (575w) this is the max draw the driver will pull from wall (lets call it a 500w draw for simplicity).

your driver converts AC current to DC current. your drivers max output (from the spec sheet of your light) is going to be somewhere from 1000- 1300ma (16x3w leds =48v (3vF for cree XML), 60w/48v = 1.25A acounting for rounding and acurate range is likely to be 1300ma (62w/pannel)

This means that at full power you could overheat and blow up LEDS if the airflow is insufficient the temp of the diode rises above the failure point (i think 70C for the bridgelux epistar chips, depending on type of diode)

Dimming the light causes the mA to drop so running your light at 3/4 power should put you in the 750-850mA range.

this is where I would run your light if you were using 1000mA rated diodes. Id drop it to half power if you were running 700mA diodes.

it might look too dim, to correct this use tighter optics and inrcrease the height of the light. doing this will also help with the eveness of light through the water column as it correct the "Inverse square law" of a point source of light.

make sense?