My DIY LED Dilema

So I'll try to make this as short as I can! I made a DIY LED fixture a couple weeks ago and now that I've got it made, there are a few things I'd change. The fixture is 19" x 9.5" with (24) 3 Watt LED's, 12 white, 12 blue. It comes with two constant drivers, one for blues, one for whites. At about 12" below the fixture(above water), it has a par reading of over 500.
The fixture is composed of:
24 Premium LED DIY kit (60 degree optics) $205
Y-Shaped Hanging Kit $18
60 mm fan with 12 V AC adapter and the DC Jack converter $26.50
19" x 9.5" heat sink off Ebay $54
Total cost(not including solder, labor, wire, etc...)  $303.50
What I would change:
--Instead of the 19" x 9.5" heat sink, I would put (2) 4.25" x 23" heat sinks. They cost about $20 more than the other heat sink, but I plan on upgrading my entire system to 6 of these 4.25" x 23" heat sinks over my 125 gallon tank, in time.
--More LEDs. I would put 18 LEDs per heatsink, so 36 in each opening of my tank, instead of 24.
--Higher blue:white ratio. They look pretty awesome now, but I really like the blue look to tanks, so I'd want a 2:1 ratio instead of 1:1. This is a preference thing, the corals look pretty darn good now.
--Dimmable drivers. I picked up the constant drivers for simplicity, but I think I will want an Aqua Controller in the future, so I would want to go through the extra work to "unlock" the dimming capability of the drivers.
If you were at Fall Fest, you would have seen this LED fixture without the optics on. The optics make a world of a difference! I was having troubles keeping the optics on their LEDs because I kept messing with the fixture, so I just took them off for the time being. I have since put a drop of super glue on each optic to keep it on its LED. They are very secure now!
The fixture is great for a 24-36" tank, I had it over a 40 gallon tank and it worked out great. The LED's last for 10+ years before they start to lose their intensity. They stay ice cold with the small fan I have on them, so they don't transfer any heat to the tank!
So, what everyone's read the post for, the price. The lowest I'm willing to go on the entire fixture is $280. It hasn't really depreciated, and I'm not factoring in the 4-5 hours I slaved over this thing to get it wired up. I don't HAVE to sell this, I would just like to see if someone would want this so that I can build a bigger fixture for my tank! I've also probably got a couple corals to sweeten the deal...
Please let me know if anyone wants this right away. If no one buys this soon, I'll probably just figure out a new way to cram 12 more led's in this fixture!
-Adam

 

Also, if anyone's interested in my halides, I've got two 400 Watt DE Hamilton halides with DIY Lumenarc reflectors with 4" fans installed on the top. $200 each or $300/pair, or make an offer. I'll need to sell these to make room for more LEDs!

 

I'll try! LEDs are a little tricky to take pics with my phone.

 

50% uploaded!

 

Start:

Laid them all out and secured them with the provided thermal epoxy:

Got the whites going! I didn't actually get a pic with both blue and whites on until I hung it up, I must have been too excited to get it over the tank!

Here is the fixture hung up:

Zoomed out pic of all 24 LEDs on(no other lights in tank on). It makes it look crazy bright...

Closer, lights were off so everything was somewhat closed up:

Little bit closer:

Here's what pics on my phone look like with just the blue LEDs on. These blues are POWERFUL!

Some of the corals I got at FF, I just cleaned the glass, so don't mind the dust storm:

Random blue LED pic of when it was over the 40. It shows the spread of the light over a 36" wide tank.

 

Also, I would just like to add, the blue LEDs put out as much PAR as the white LEDs. I could get into it, but the basic idea is that it's a diode that's lighting up, not gas like more traditional lights. Blue "gas" doesn't get as bright as white "gas," so that's why lower K halides put out more par than higher Ks. Not the case in LEDs...

 

Bill, it would make a nice frag tank light! It would fit perfectly over your 40! haha

 

It would be $32 per driver, this fixture has two drivers. The dimmable kit was $30 more than that constant kit was. I didn't buy the dimmables because they seemed a little bit tricky for me. With the dimmable kit, you would also need a power source(wall wart) and a potentiometer or a controller. For hanging over a frag/swap tank I don't think it would be worth it, but that's up to you. I wanted the dimmable feature so that I could have slow starts(ex- increase 5% intensity every 2 minutes), simulate thunderstorms/clouds, and acclimate new corals.

http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-41/Mean-Well-ELN-dsh-60-dsh-48D-dimmable/Detail

 

Just a heads up, I will be posting this on Nebraska's web site(nebraskamarinesociety.com) and Minnesota's website(TCMAS.org) some time tonight. If you want it, speak up quickly...

 

19" x 9.5". From the bottom of the lenses to where the hanging kit reaches the Y shape is 7". So it could be hung from as little as 8" with this hanging kit. The fan is all inside of the dimensions of the hanging kit. The wires have many options for what side to have them poking out. If you didn't want the hanging kit, I could knock off $20, I'll need to order a new hanging kit with my upgrade anyways.

Also, just want to add, I can deliver this to Cedar Rapids sometime. I had planned to make the trip down there to check out a tank or two, so I can coordinate this to deliver the fixture while I'm down there.

 

Yup. I've got the ballasts super glued to the top of the heat sink. They don't get warm, but it's nice to have them up there out of the way and the fan will keep them nice and cold. If you look at pic of the fixture laying on the table, you'll see there are 4 holes on each side of the heat sink. These would work great for mounting to the inside of a canopy using some long screws. The fixture is pretty light, so it would be easy to install in a canopy.

 

Well since no one wanted to buy it, I'm going to keep it and go with what size I've got. I just ordered the other two heat sinks off Ebay. I offered $10 less per heat sink and my offer was accepted! So I saved $20 in cost and about $15 in shipping. I'll just buy a couple more blue LEDs and chisel off a couple white's on the fixture I've already made to get the blue look I'm going for.

Kgehrke- I was planning on making a build thread when I get it completed. If you have ANY questions, just send me a PM!