Ordering my LEDs soon, need some opinions! - pg3

It'd be well balanced. Me likeee.

So it's gonna be like this:
-channel 1 (1.0A)
8 x Royal Blue
4 x Blue

-channel 2 (1.4A~)
6 x Cool White

-channel 3 (500mA?)
6 x Violet
2 x Red (660 nm) Thinking about doing Cree Red instead (620-630nm)
2 x Cyan (490-520 nm)

I cant really comment on the red's spectrum tho, no personal experience. Cree red is more orange? I wonder why EcoTech chose 660nm... And you should run the last channel 3 driver at 700mA since it's dimmable.

Man, I wish I could show you mine in person, Mike!

 

Haha, if I ever end up in montana for something, I'll have to stop by.

I need to find out what a MH bulb peaks at in the red range, I probably wanna match that.

Looks like I have it all figured out, thanks Shin. The ups of DIY is that I can switch out different colors whenever I want.

 

I Googled and found this:


The thick blue line is the 14K MH spectrum. Red is warm white, green is neutral white, and the last blue is cool white, I assume.

Im glad you came up with something more concrete. 8)

 

Well thank you Shin. Looks like 660 would be my best bet. The intensity on the warm whites are insane!

 

One comment on the proposed layout:
You need to "mix" those up better. Don't think in rows, think of how you can separate things apart the best.
They way you've sketched it, you're going to have rows of blue and a white streak down the center of your tank. If you spread them apart better, you'll get more of a continuous light blend in the tank.

 

+1 to evolved, especially if you're using optics.

Congrats on getting it narrowed down!

 

That's what I was worried about. I originally had my violets where the whites are and then switched them around. I'll put the violets back in that center row and mix everything else up.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Here's my thoughts.
Put wider optics on more visible LEDs like red and cyan. Other than that, go 55~60 degrees on the rest. Id "cluster" up the LEDs consist of different colors: CW NW Cyan Red RB. Dont worry about mixing 420 with others, since it's not that visible.

Have you mentioned the size of the heatsink? Still no canopy, correct?

 

Def a good idea, although, I don't have experience clustering them, I do have 110 degree optics on my violets, and thats what I'll put on my reds and cyans soon, just enough to shove a little more towards the bottom. And 60's on the rest.

 

The violets now have an 80 degree optic option, don't know if I should use them or not. I'm not going to put any optics on the reds and cyans since the reds don't have optics made for them.

And the heatsink is 12'' x 6.5''. No canopy, it's going to hang from the ceiling or rest on the tank, havent decided yet.