A guy in our local reef club has made a nano hood/reflector/LED system. We're going to have a workshop and make our own soon. It's more straight forward than I'd have expected, so here's a link if anyone is interested: Asheville Marine Aquarium Society :: View topic - The DIY Solaris Project
very cool idea, and i think the LED lighting is great for efficiency, i think one of the main reasons i would want the Solaris system is the computer control, since it gives you endless granularity in spectrum, intensity and photocycles...
still, it looks like a cool DIY, thanks for sharing
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I thought his point about Solaris' fixtures was interesting. It's quite true that materials cost for a large tank can add up. Plus, you need to have the patience to wire all those LED's together correctly.
Daunting task, but interesting. Assuming someone comes out with an appropriate fixture for my 60g cube, I'd rather pay the extra $$$ for the controls as Rob pointed out. However for odd size tanks, I can see delving into the DIY realm.
Does anyone know when their 400w equivalent fixtures are due?
__________________ George
Smyrna, GA
25g reef
Coming Soon: 60g Ocea Cube (24"^3)
Sometimes I wonder about the background that people have...
I mean what kind of education/life experience do you have to slap something like this together? I know we all can self educate and learn to do something like this, but it would probably take me months of reading and ciphering to figure out how to do something like this...
Russy, is this dude an electrical engineer or something?
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I think with a basic knowledge of electricity and the most important tool of all - Google - most people could figure out a simple LED hood. I don't know first hand (I have yet to do it), but I started doing some research and I found quite a bit of information on LEDs, driver circuits, etc.
I think the challenges would be to get the LEDs to produce the right color temperature, to develop a controller that is comparable to the Solaris controller (timing, season, dusk/dawn, etc.); And to put it into a form factor that does not short out the first time a little SW splashed on it.
Over all, I think I would buy a Solaris.
George – I have a half circle 145 gallon (normal fixtures do not fit well) and I was thinking of buying 2 or three small 14” Solaris fixture to cover the odd shape. It would be a bit more then on long fixture, but it would have some nice advantages – Better coverage, more watts in the space, I could stagger then (time wise) so that the light would move across the tank., and if one fails, I still have light.
I thought his point about Solaris' fixtures was interesting. It's quite true that materials cost for a large tank can add up. Plus, you need to have the patience to wire all those LED's together correctly.
Daunting task, but interesting. Assuming someone comes out with an appropriate fixture for my 60g cube, I'd rather pay the extra $$$ for the controls as Rob pointed out. However for odd size tanks, I can see delving into the DIY realm.
Does anyone know when their 400w equivalent fixtures are due?
George,
Waht are the dimensions of your 60 cube? Solaris comes in 14, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72" lengths. One of those wouldn't suffice?
The latest word on the 400w version is toward the end of April.
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Now the thing to really make this cool, would be to attach LED drivers to different colors with intensity controls (~20$ for a driver). Buy one orange and red LED's to simulate sunrise, sunset. you can also have the intensity increase during the course of the day to eliminate the harsh on and off of the lights, also to control the sunrise/set effect.
Now the thing to really make this cool, would be to attach LED drivers to different colors with intensity controls (~20$ for a driver). Buy one orange and red LED's to simulate sunrise, sunset. you can also have the intensity increase during the course of the day to eliminate the harsh on and off of the lights, also to control the sunrise/set effect.
-Mitch
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The orange and red we see at sunrise doesn't penetrate the water's surface because it's parallel to the water and comes straight to our eyes. That why we see the colors. The fish, corals would only see a dim lightening to there surroundings and by the time the sun is high enough to penetrate the water's surface it would appear the normal white light with the many colors being filtered out as the depth increases.
There is no harsh on off with the Solaris. They come on very dim and slowly ramp up just like the sun rising and ramping down as a sun setting. This unit is already controllable the way you suggest. It has lots more flexability such as the number and length of cloud cover periods and degree of dimming during the cloud cover. And so much more.
Dick
__________________ Amphibious
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
True about the sunrise/set colors not penetrating the water surface. However if it does not cause any damage to the corals, it might be nice effect to us, the viewer. But, you could replicate a nano version of the solaris with a simple PIC and led driver, including the cloud cover for a low price. Its actually quite simple to make. PIC + about 30 lines of code + led driver + LED's. Howeverr i will say, it is nice having it all in one package and a nice hood. Also, the company could easily create a sub 100$ version for nano's, which i think they should do.
It's more straight forward than I'd have expected, so here's a link if anyone is interested: 
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ryan 
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