Rapid LED 75G/90G LED Kit Build

[Matt LeBaron]

So I bought the Rapid LED 90G Kit since I wanted a lighting solution for my tank that I could control with my Reef Angel controller. Rapid LED offers MeanWell drivers that are PWM controlled, which works well for me. I finished the build and got them on my tank in about 2 days and I thought I would document it here for anyone that may be interested in trying it.

 

RapidLED has an excellent kit on their hands, I think they could really sell more if they just provided better instructions.

 

So everything out of the box:

 

The heat sinks top and bottom. The top has two groves with a lip that allow for the hanging kit to attach and for attachment of a fan if you want one. I'm still seeing if I think they get to warm or not.

 

The kit comes with the heat sink pre-drilled, saves time and mess ups as far as I'm concerned.

 

Close up of two of the LEDs on the heat sink. The kit comes with plenty of screws and little plastic washers to prevent you from over tightening the screws and damaging the heat sink that each LED has built into it. I also opted for the solderless kit, it's $20 more and in my opinion is a no brainer. If you ever want to change your LEDs, whether for a different color temperature or after 4-5 years when the LEDs will need to be replaced spending $20 more will save hours of time and possible damage to the LEDs if you're careless with a soldering iron.

 

The wires for the solderless connectors are also made so that you can't put one in upside down and mess up the circuit.

 

Here I've completed one circuit, the Royal blues on this heatsink.

 

And here is the heatsink with all of the LEDs wired up.

 

Now I needed to open up the drivers and adjust the amps on them. Getting the tops off requires removing 4 screws and then prying the tops off, I used a flat heat screw driver to do that. You then turn the adjustment screw all the way counter clockwise to lower the amps, hook a volt meter up to the LED circuit, and then plug the driver in. The royal blue circuit can run at 1300ma per RapidLEDs suggestion, the Cool White circuit needs to run at 700ma since the red, green, and UV LED's should only be run at that level. I also got a piece of tap and labelled what each driver was set to, just in case I ever needed to know, which was which in the future.

 

They give you plenty of thermal compound also, even after putting on all of the LEDs I still had this much left:

 

And I got good at putting on enough so that just the tiniest bit would squish out the side once attached so I knew I had put enough on.

 

So then for the lenses. They provide a non-conductive two part adhesive for attaching the lenses. It sets in about 5 minutes though so you have to work in small batches. The mixture is 1:1 though so mixing is easy. And again once I was done I had a lot left over. I used the now empty packaging from the LEDs to mix it and it comes with a little mixer/applicator.

 

 

You don't need much to get them to attach, here is a picture with the adhesive on already.

 

They fit snugly over the LED itself on the heat sink of each one.

 

So then over the tank, I have them about 7.5 inches above my tank.

 

And a slight bottom picture with the LEDs at 100%

 

And a tank picture, my camera makes it look more blue than it actually is but the RapidLED site is fairly spot on about the color temperature, it's about a 15-16K. I may add more white LED's to get it close to the 10-14K I prefer but it's fine for right now.

 

Right now I'm running the LEDs at 70% since I was using LEDs over most of the corals prior to this I'm not to concerned about burning corals.

 

Hope this is helpful and if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

[Origami]

Nice instructional post. Thanks for taking the time to take all of the pictures and writing it up.

[Matt LeBaron]

Couple other things that I thought about after posting.

• For calibrating the drivers, I hooked up one string of the Royal Blue LEDs and then calibrated all four drivers using that string. This saved me time and effort because you have to wire in the voltmeter to calibrate them so just having to do it once and then adjusting each driver saved some time. Just make sure you label each one like I did and do it with the Blue LEDs as the Amps required to run those at the recommended level (1300mA) will burn out a number of the other LEDs (UV, Red, Green) while there is no harm in running the Royal Blues at the 700mA recommended for the other LEDs.
  
• Be careful with the adhesive, the Lenses are a very snug fit and if you apply to much adhesive it would be very easy to cover the actual LED with it. A tiny bit like I have in my picture above is all you need. Also when placing the lenses you have to align them with the LED because of how they fit. It can help to look at the side of the lenses there are little clear spots that allow you to align it correctly. I highly recommend dry fitting a couple of time to get use putting them on.
  
• You'll need a couple of extra wire nuts for the kit, they give you enough for the electrical wiring but not for the wiring to hook it up to a controller, not a big deal but I had to make a trip to HomeDepot because I didn't have wire nuts small enough.
  
• You'll likely also need more wire than they provide. I have my drivers near the ground and running the power all the way up to above my tank only left me with a bit of extra wire after hooking one up. You can get some 16 gauge wire from HomeDepot for about $5.50 in the electrical section.
  

[matt]

Matt, have you remained happy with the Rapid LED kit? I was thinking about using their actinic supplementation kit. Any issues with the solderless led connections coming undone? Believe I've heard that happens occasionally in a few other threads on RC. Thanks!

[Matt LeBaron]

No issues at all and never with the connections coming undone. I don't know if they have changed them but the connectors that came with my kit are very snug, I've had to use needle nose pliers to pull them out on occasion when I had to move wiring. I can't imagine them just falling out.

 

Very happy with the kit, best aquarium investment I've ever made honestly.