New Custom LED Lighting (Thx Naoki!)

With some much needed help from Naoki, one of the members of this forum. Along with some info from his great Blog: Orchid Borealis, I have just finished the construction of a new custom LED light for my office tank. The light is on top with the box with controls on the side.



I used the following:

· Vero 18 COB (chip on board) LED light cluster, $6.30, BXRC-50E2000-C-24 Bridgelux | Optoelectronics | DigiKey

· EZMate Connector, $1.73, 0688014229 Molex, LLC | Cable Assemblies | DigiKey

· Aavid passive heatsink, $12.53, HSSLS-CALBL-013 Aavid Thermalloy | Optoelectronics | DigiKey

· Meanwell LCM-60U driver, $35.52, LCM-60U Mean Well | Mouser

· 0-10v Dimmer Switch, $36.95, Cooper Controls SF10P-W Slide 0-10V Dimmer - 120/277V, White: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

For the record, I could have gotten much cheaper components, and could have spent half of what I did. Here is why I went with the parts I did.

· Vero 18 – I wanted more light then I needed, so when I run at half power, the “bulb” will last longer and run more efficient. I also liked that it comes with support for the EZMate connector, and I can get pre-drilled heat sinks that fit it.

· Aavid heatsink – I wanted a heatsink that was flat instead of tall. It looks nice, and if I needed to add a fan for active cooling, It supports a heat pump that is super quiet and small. This is nice since it sits on my desk at work.

· Meanwell Driver – I plan on adding a controller in the future that can do things like ramp up the lights to reflect sunrise and sunset, so I needed a driver that supported 0-10v dimming. I also liked the compact nature of the driver, and the variable output may be useful in future projects.

I made a box that fit the Timer, Dimmer, and LED Driver out of an old discarded desktop computer case.



I added the Driver, Dimmer, and Timer to the box (the driver isn’t in this picture, it sat directly on top of the dimmer and timer)



You can see why I wanted a short heat sink when you look at the light fixture on top of the tank.



I made a cowling out of the same Computer case metal so that the LED wouldn’t sit directly on the glass.



Turned all the way to full power I am getting roughly 106500 lux or 10000 footcandles 4 inches from the LED which is about where the high light plants start. I am also getting 22000 lux or 2000 footcandles at the very bottom of the tank which is roughly 10” away from the LED. That is too high, I am going for a medium light at the top of the tank for things like the Gastrochilus retrocallus and Epidendrum porpax and low light at the bottom for things like Lepanthes tsubotae.

Turned all the way down I get 14000 lux or 1300 footcandles 4” away and 3300 lux or 306 footcandles 10” away. That was far too low.

I have set it to be a little brighter then what I had on there already. With 4000 fcs at 4” and 1000 fcs at 10”. If the plants closest to the light respond well, I will bump it up a bit.

It has been an awfully fun project. Now I am going to work on one that is WAY more intense to use on a converted wine cooler. I will keep you posted. Again, thanks to Naoki, I couldn’t have done it without him.

You can find information about the rest of build I did for my office tank here:
My Office Orchids

 

The heat sink is working great without cooling. I am running it only at 50%, and it is just slightly warm. I got it without the sun-jet, but figured I could add it if I wanted in the future. The heatsink was supposed to be predrilled to fit the Vero 18 chip, but it was slightly off. I just had to snip off a piece of plastic and it worked great. I love the low profile of it, looks good on the tank.

Thanks for the info on the circadian rhythm. I will ha ve to read up on it a bit. I will still probably eventually get to the sunrise and sunset. I just think it will be extra cool.

I also have the Vero 29 all wired up and working, but I need to install it into the Wine Cooler. I did find a nice big (32 bottle) Thermoelectric unit slightly used for $75 that i think is going to work great. I set it up with the full 100W light shinning through the front window and it was able to cool down from 73 to 54 degrees farenheit in a little less then an hour and it was able to keep it there without much effort. It is whisper quiet, I am pretty excited.