$100 DIY Cree LED XR-E - Actinic Supplement 48" Light Strip

oops, i meant 12 leds total spaced every 5"... but yeah 115 leds would be great! thanks for pointing it out, i'll edit it now..

 

A early congrats to dingo, he's just took the plunge today and ordered 12 leds kit with a dimmable driver!!! looking forward to seeing that in action soon..

 

Thanks man! After I get the program all set up I'm going to try and do a 24 hr time lapse... The LEDs will be moonlights at night, then slowly increase in power to simulate the morning until they get to almost full actinics. At this time my halide will kick in and my LEDs will adjust throughout the day to simulate the sun getting brighter at noon and dimmer at afternoon, then I'll have it gradually go to actinics on and slowly down to moonlight level again... Then repeat the next day!

This will be sooo sweet and I am beyond excited to have this thing up and running

 

what a nice effect that will be! I included a link on how to wire that model of meanwell dimmable driver for everyone, i think its a couple pages back.

 

Now that makes WAY more sense.

 

ok dingo, here's the wiring diagrams you'll probly need..

Reef Led Lights » Wiring Diagrams

 

thats what i wanted to do but how do you put the dimmer on a timmer

 

I have a reef angel controller and am using the arduino to control the pwm output to the drivers which will make them dim to a percentage that I specify. Then the arduino tells them when to increase their % throughout the day so it's completely automated! If you don't wanna go the reef angel and arduino route you can just get a digital dimmer and connect it to a dial. By turning the dial up, the driver will increase the mA traveling to the LEDs, thus a simpler and alternate way to adjust how strong they are (in the absence of a pwm controller). This second way requires you to control their intensity all the time

 

Yeah...what he said. I'm gonna order some tomorrow. Just 4 or 5 for my measly tank.

 

I asked this elsewhere, but it is more relevant here, would it be possible to use like 6 blues and 6 whites as the only tank lighting for a 29 gal? I was thinking 2 strips of 6?

Very nice write up BTW. It gives me confidence that I could handle something like this with very little prior knowledge. Thanks!