Idea

[Corvette Reefer]

okay so i was think about making my dad a led strip of 10K cuz we really need better light, and i got this idea istead of using like 15 lights in a row to spread the tank what if u used like 3 or 4 of these bad boys in a row with some wide optics and placed those far apart...http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-...l-White/Detail....tank is a 65g btw 36 in. wide...But i think that would really work pretty good and be about as strong if not stronger then 2 T5 bulbs

[evilc66]

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut1027

WAY more efficient, and a lot cheaper. These can be driven up to 3A (lots and lots of lumens in a teeny LED). Neither LED is 10K though, so they will look somewhat yellow without adding additional blue LEDs.

[Corvette Reefer]

oh yeah that ones way cheaper only like 10 bucks compared to 20, But the lumens of the mc-e strong how is it more efficent... Would that idea work tho to spreate along 36" with like 4 of those and like a 80 dregree optic

[evilc66]

Lets keep the comparison to 700mA.

With the MC-E, you have the option of running all 4 dies in series or parallel. So that makes the electrical requirement either 13.6v @ 700mA (series, prefered), or 3.4v @ 2800mA (parallel). Of course, you can mix and match the series/parallel wiring of the LED too. Either way, that's 9.52W, and about 750lm (78.8lm/W).

The XM-L at 700mA runs at 2.9v. That's 2.03W. Now, because the XM-L can handle some serious current, lets scale it up so it's closer to the MC-E. 3.35v and 3000mA gets you 10.05W, which is close to what we calculated for the MC-E. At that level, you are now talking about 910lm (90.5lm/W), at over half the cost. You can almost triple the output for the same amount of money invested.

I still don't think either of these LEDs are particularly practical. XR-E's and XP-E's are cheaper still, and easier to drive at lower currents. As a supplimental light, I'd rather have many LEDs spread over an area rather than a few spaced farther apart, creating spotlights.

[Mr. Microscope]

With only four LED's spread out over 36 inches you're going to have some severe spotlighting. Also, as Evil said, you'll need to supplement them with some blues to avoid too much yellow. If you look at most people's LED builds, they space the LEDs no more than 2 inches away from each other to avoid spotlighting and color shadowing.