54 3 watt led build

mr.badams

New member
Ok, so long time no post... Here is my next project. I'm starting to not like the T5's over my tank. I miss the point of shimmer,brightness and growth of a metal halide however, I'm not ready to tackle the heat issues that come with the halide set up. Yes, I know I could always get a chiller but, for the money spent on that kind of setup, I could have one awesome led setup. These are the plans, I Just happen to have three icecap 430-660 heat sinks, they measure 4 1/2" x 12". These heat sinks are not very thick just over 1/8 inch however I'm not worried about heat buildup with the ideas I plan on implementing. My Aquarium is a standard drilled 6' 125 gallon with two braces. The spacing in between each section of bracing is about 21". My point of using such a tiny heat sink is to mimic the bright point of a metal halide bulb by placing 18 leds as close together as possible with little to no heat. I will be using my favorite 120mm diy fans, they are made by cooler master and push 70cfm's at only 19dba. I already run six of these fans to aid in the cooling of the over driven T5's in use now, and they work flawlessly. I just ordered six more today, this will give me two fans for each heat sink. the leds are rated @ 750ma so I chose a driver slightly under that @ 680ma, this should help me a bit with heat. Stay tuned to see this awesomeness happen :)
 
The leds are 20000k, I also plan on keeping two of my T5's to supplement if I'm not satisfied with the color
 
where to start... where to start... Ok, I'm going to search through photobucket and find all the pics and start listing them.
 
Yes, good ole MS paint! This is my layout I planned to go with

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I just happen to have Three Heat sinks That came with some Icecap ballast I Had laying around the house. I Went ahead and ordered six 120mm cooler master PC fans. The fans are rated at 70CFM's @ 19DBA... not to bad, should be plenty to keep 18 x 3watt leds cool on a solid aluminum icecap 440-660 heat sink. keep in mind, I have 3 heat sinks and ordered six fans that's two 120mm fans per icecap heat sink.
 
My fans came in today! I have modded a 430 watt PC power supply to run 46 of them I know, I know. I will only be running 13-15 at the most, but still, I'll have room to play.

Here Is the PSU I chose.

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On every PC power supply there is a PS/ON wire (99% of the time this wire is green), this is what tells the psu to come on when you press the power button on a computer. All I did was snip that wire and soldered it to a com wire, or in this case, no wire, just straight to the com section on the board of the psu.

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I have the heat sinks mounted to the frame... I have also mounted 2 fans to each heat sink, A 250w metal halide wouldn't stand a chance with these bad boys. I will post pics soon...
 
Since I got a 60" T5 to run off of the 2 x 54 watt ballast, that idea has inspired me to build an all in one ballast/power box. Its turning out awesome, I completed the T5 and the pc psu portion of it today, now I'm just waiting on the 3 led drivers
 
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