Hi everyone. I know that people get pretty excited about LED lighting and I include myself as one of those people. They look amazing and they save a lot of electricity. I have been looking at different options for pre-built LED strips/tops/pendants/etc. and they are not cheap to say the least. I do understand that they will pay for themselves in about two years just from energy savings. However, the upfront cost is not possible for me at the moment (baby on the way). But I did see some cool stuff about building your own LED system. From the videos I've watched it doesn't look very hard (and I'm told it's not hard), it would be MUCH cheaper than buying a pre-built system, I can repair anything that needs repair, I can control the output, and it looks awesome.
I do not need to build a housing or anything like that as this will be in a canopy. At this point I have 3 x 175W MH with 2 x 40W actinic... not a ton of light but the corals do pretty well... but I would like to increase the light obviously.
I know I can get everything I need from rapidled.com. My question is what should I get? Should I use 3 heat sinks or 4? How many 3W CREE LEDs should I shoot for on each heat sink (24?)? And what ratio of white:blue should I use (3:1)? I know the # of drivers will depend on the # of LEDs but I assume I'll probably need 2.
Any suggestions you can give me would be a big help, especially for those that have undertaken this task already. Tips, secrets, and comments are also more than welcome. Thanks in advance!
I do not need to build a housing or anything like that as this will be in a canopy. At this point I have 3 x 175W MH with 2 x 40W actinic... not a ton of light but the corals do pretty well... but I would like to increase the light obviously.
I know I can get everything I need from rapidled.com. My question is what should I get? Should I use 3 heat sinks or 4? How many 3W CREE LEDs should I shoot for on each heat sink (24?)? And what ratio of white:blue should I use (3:1)? I know the # of drivers will depend on the # of LEDs but I assume I'll probably need 2.
Any suggestions you can give me would be a big help, especially for those that have undertaken this task already. Tips, secrets, and comments are also more than welcome. Thanks in advance!