BigKev23
Active member
So I have been running a 6 bulb ATI Powermodule over my 60g cube tank since I setup the tank in March of 2011 and have loved it. The growth and coloration from the T5's has been excellent. With the LED craze going on lately, I have been doing lots of reading to find out what works the best and and it seems like the hybrid T5/LED fixtures are amazing. The new ATI LED Powermodule's truly seem like they are one of the best fixtures out there right now, as they offer the best of both worlds. I am not willing to drop $1,200 on some new lights though, so I figured I would try my best to make my own using the fixture I already have.
After much searching, I was not able to find anyone who has done this modification on a Powermodule, but did find a few people who have used a Sunpower to make a hybrid fixture, which game me some ideas of how to tackle this project. I consulted local LED experts Mai and Ted and ordered up the 24 LED solderless kit from Rapid LED, along with the dimmer setup so I could manually control the intensity. Originally, I was going to use a piece of 3/4" aluminum c-channel as the heatsink for the LEDs, but using such a thick piece of aluminum would not allow me to still use the stock acrylic shield on the Powermodule. I ended up buying a 4' length of 1" wide x 1/8" thick aluminum to use as the heatsink. This alone is probably not the best heatsink, but I have it mounted directly to the aluminum chassis of the Powermodule, which should allow for added cooling. The Powermodule has a very good cooling setup which blows air along the backside of the light channel and then also across the front of the lights, which should help the LEDs stay cool.
I cut the aluminum into two 22" pieces and layed out the LEDs in the order that I wanted. I used 12 Royal Blue, 8 Blue, 2 Cool White and 2 Lime LEDs, which meant each strip got 6 Royal Blue, 4 Blue, 1 Cool White and 1 Lime. After getting the LEDs mounted with the thermal adhesive, I temporarily wired up everything to make sure everything worked and to tune the drivers. I ended up setting the SVR2 for the drivers at 800 mA.
After confirming everything worked, I disassembled the Powermodule so I could complete the retrofit. I pulled out the middle ballast that controls bulbs 2 and 5, along with the endcaps and reflectors from 3 and 4. Then I moved the endcaps from bulbs 3 and 4 over to the 2 and 5 slots. The aluminum bar with the LEDs fit nicely onto the chassis and is held in place with a screw on each end into the mounting holes for the endcaps. The nice part is that I could easily put this fixture back to stock if I ever needed to. After I got the wiring all tucked back into placed, I put the end plates back on the Powermodule and got it hung back in place over my tank. All that was left now was to permanently wire up the drivers and the dimmer and get everything plugged into my Apex. I mounted the drivers on the back of my stand and am controlling the intensity with a manual dimmer setup from Rapid.
At the moment, I am running the LEDs without optics, as I didn't finish until almost 9 pm last night and didn't feel like messing with it anymore. I will try out the 80 degree optics over the next few days, along with try different T5 bulb combos. Here is a quick phone pic from last night with the LEDs at about 25% intensity and running 3 Blue Plus and 1 Coral Plus:
So far, it is really nice to have noticable shimmer, as I have never experience it with this tank. I also like the color balance, as it feels very natural and not overly blue or white. I am going to swap out a Blue Plus with an Actinic bulb today and I will continue to update here as I tweak the bulb and optic situation.
After much searching, I was not able to find anyone who has done this modification on a Powermodule, but did find a few people who have used a Sunpower to make a hybrid fixture, which game me some ideas of how to tackle this project. I consulted local LED experts Mai and Ted and ordered up the 24 LED solderless kit from Rapid LED, along with the dimmer setup so I could manually control the intensity. Originally, I was going to use a piece of 3/4" aluminum c-channel as the heatsink for the LEDs, but using such a thick piece of aluminum would not allow me to still use the stock acrylic shield on the Powermodule. I ended up buying a 4' length of 1" wide x 1/8" thick aluminum to use as the heatsink. This alone is probably not the best heatsink, but I have it mounted directly to the aluminum chassis of the Powermodule, which should allow for added cooling. The Powermodule has a very good cooling setup which blows air along the backside of the light channel and then also across the front of the lights, which should help the LEDs stay cool.
I cut the aluminum into two 22" pieces and layed out the LEDs in the order that I wanted. I used 12 Royal Blue, 8 Blue, 2 Cool White and 2 Lime LEDs, which meant each strip got 6 Royal Blue, 4 Blue, 1 Cool White and 1 Lime. After getting the LEDs mounted with the thermal adhesive, I temporarily wired up everything to make sure everything worked and to tune the drivers. I ended up setting the SVR2 for the drivers at 800 mA.
After confirming everything worked, I disassembled the Powermodule so I could complete the retrofit. I pulled out the middle ballast that controls bulbs 2 and 5, along with the endcaps and reflectors from 3 and 4. Then I moved the endcaps from bulbs 3 and 4 over to the 2 and 5 slots. The aluminum bar with the LEDs fit nicely onto the chassis and is held in place with a screw on each end into the mounting holes for the endcaps. The nice part is that I could easily put this fixture back to stock if I ever needed to. After I got the wiring all tucked back into placed, I put the end plates back on the Powermodule and got it hung back in place over my tank. All that was left now was to permanently wire up the drivers and the dimmer and get everything plugged into my Apex. I mounted the drivers on the back of my stand and am controlling the intensity with a manual dimmer setup from Rapid.
At the moment, I am running the LEDs without optics, as I didn't finish until almost 9 pm last night and didn't feel like messing with it anymore. I will try out the 80 degree optics over the next few days, along with try different T5 bulb combos. Here is a quick phone pic from last night with the LEDs at about 25% intensity and running 3 Blue Plus and 1 Coral Plus:
So far, it is really nice to have noticable shimmer, as I have never experience it with this tank. I also like the color balance, as it feels very natural and not overly blue or white. I am going to swap out a Blue Plus with an Actinic bulb today and I will continue to update here as I tweak the bulb and optic situation.
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