Reef Discussion
Hahaha, practice makes perfect.
My first nano build's soldering was average, but held well (ok, so I started playing with electronics over 20 years ago). I resoldered the nano's LED a while ago after I stripped half its LEDs out for my 4 footer. Man, talk about crap joints. Reckon I've redone 4 so far. Must have been an off day. Usually though, if you suck when you start, by the time you've done 40 or 50 joints you start getting better :D
As long as you remember to make sure that you don't strip too much insulation off the wires (creates a shorting hazard), don't apply too much heat to the LED (cooked), and always remember to tin everything in advance so don't need to hold the iron on things for too long :p
Let me just clarify a couple of points.
The red led's from aquastyle are Epileds with a maximum current of 700ma (please note that the forward voltage is only 2.5v @ 700ma, a bit less than whites). So, you will not burn that out by driving them at 680ma BUT the red is a very overpowering colour and, to balance the colour, you would really want to drive them less than your other leds - that is why I suggested somewhere around 300ma. It is hard with small builds as you don't have large numbers of drivers to get the right drive currents across the different led colours but I would not have the red with you royal blue.
The red, along with others like violet and turquoise are not meant to be providing the core light requirements for your corals - it is pretty well established that blue/royal blue/neutral white provide this. These 'exotic' colours are to provide the extra 'pop' seen with some of the T5 tubes i.e. Fiji purple etc.
Also red does not provide much light - your Epiled only puts out around 70 lumens - so your tank will look dark. Some people are mixing a deep red, royal blue and turquoise - these 3 produce a 'white' light so your tank looks nice and bright but the 3 colours provide some 'pop' for your corals. This is what I will be trialling shortly.
The red led's from aquastyle are Epileds with a maximum current of 700ma (please note that the forward voltage is only 2.5v @ 700ma, a bit less than whites). So, you will not burn that out by driving them at 680ma BUT the red is a very overpowering colour and, to balance the colour, you would really want to drive them less than your other leds - that is why I suggested somewhere around 300ma. It is hard with small builds as you don't have large numbers of drivers to get the right drive currents across the different led colours but I would not have the red with you royal blue.
The red, along with others like violet and turquoise are not meant to be providing the core light requirements for your corals - it is pretty well established that blue/royal blue/neutral white provide this. These 'exotic' colours are to provide the extra 'pop' seen with some of the T5 tubes i.e. Fiji purple etc.
Also red does not provide much light - your Epiled only puts out around 70 lumens - so your tank will look dark. Some people are mixing a deep red, royal blue and turquoise - these 3 produce a 'white' light so your tank looks nice and bright but the 3 colours provide some 'pop' for your corals. This is what I will be trialling shortly.
I think the Radeons have some green LED's ?? - no mention of using these on any of the DIY LED forums.
Just for interest sake - what do you think of these
[Broken External Image]:http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7009/6738433607_a176f1ba3a_b.jpg
Thirteen LED board - One deep red, three cool white and two neutral white Rebel ES on one series. Five royal blue rebel ES and two blue rebels on the second series. Hook up 2 drivers and away you go. You can see on this board that the red is added in with the whites with the blues on a seperate driver. Perfect for a small tank. It is also worth noting that this guy does not drive any of the led's at more than 700ma as he doesn't feel that it is required.
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