Small DIY White/Blue LED build

Firstly I would like to say that I cant be held responsible for anything that may happen if you decide to follow and build your own LED array. The information below can be followed and worked for me but please do your own research if you are unsure.

Anyway, onto my LED build. This LED array was designed for one of my frag tanks. I have shown you how to build the array itself but have still to attach some fans on it. I have built x3 different arrays using different methods just to show you the options you can choose and will show you how the fans, attach and work on one of the other arrays built. This one is very simple to follow. Hope you enjoy the read

PARTS USED
x1 Meanwell non dimmable driver £15
x2 different coloured wires (this helps alot if you choose to use blue and led leds separately) In this case its not important. £8
x12 Q4 White LED's (tank is only 12" deep £20
x2 heat sinks 200x125x25mm £12 each
x3 flexible LED's with own power adapter (bought pre wired) £16
Thermal adhesive tape (cut to size) £5
(costs are approximate as i cant remember exactly of hand)

ALSO USED
soldering iron
solder
wire cutters
electrical tape
wood for framework
aluminuim L shaped strip

THE BUILD

1: Pictured below is wire, heatsink, LED's, thermal tape cut to size and the driver. The heatsink will take x6 led's in this instance.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/01.jpg

2: The first thing i did was to cut out the shapes of the led's on the thermal tape. This is basically a sheet of double sided sticky tape made for this purpose. I drew round the heatsink with a pencil and then simply cut out the shape with some scissors. You then peel one side of the tape off and stick it to the back of the led making sure its clean when fixing it. Repeat with the six led's
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/02.jpg

3: Place onto the heatsink where you want them. If you use lenses they need to be about 2.5" apart but Im not using any so placed them a little further away. Then peel off the backing and stick down once happy with placement.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/03.jpg

4: In this picture it shows which on the led are + (pos) and which are - (neg). Because these are 'star' mounted it makes it alot easier to solder. Picture A shows that the 2 +'s are at the top and the 2 -'s are at the bottom. Picture B shows where + and - are if you dont buy the led's mounted on the starboard. For this project its picture A. Its worth mentioning at this point, depending on how you position your led's you can use either of the +'s and either of the -'s
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/05.jpg

5: Ok I will try to make this part simple. Basically the way the wiring works is that you need to make string going from + to - on each led. So the first led you start with + and then the same led take the - to the + of the next led. (see pic). The easiest way is to look at the picture and follow through what Ive done. You can go anyway you want, you dont have to go up and down like mine.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/06.jpg

6: Here is an advanced picture with more wires soldered on. The reason for using 2 different coloured wires is to make it easier at the end which will be explained later but you dont have to.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/07.jpg

7: Here you can see the string of x6 led's are now joined together.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/08.jpg

If you were only making a string of x6 led's, you will then take one wire off of the top right led and one wire off of the bottom right led which will go to the driver but I am making x2 of these as i needed x12 leds for this project.

8: Here are the x2 heatsinks completed with x12 led's. This is the reason mentioned earlier why i wanted to use 2 colours. You can see much better where each wire is going rather than having a blur of just one looking like spaghetti. The heatsink on the right is the one youve been following. The one on the left is the extra one I made.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/09.jpg

If you were to start with the blue wire on the bottom left picture and follow it through, it makes its way around the 1st heatsink, over to the top of the 2nd heatsink, then makes its way down that one. I then changed the colour to yellow and you can follow it all the way round where it finishes where the blue started. If you have wired it correctly, the blue starts as negative (remembering led1 - to +, led2 - to +) and this should continue where the end yellow wire will be positive. So the end result is you will now have a blue negative wire and a yellow positive wire.

9:Now wiring it to the driver. The driver has 4 wires coming from it. x2 for wiring it to a plug and x2 go to the led's. In this case the 2 wire you need for the led's are red and black. The Red will connect to the + wire that comes off the led which is the yellow and the Black wire will connect to the blue which is the - .
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/10.jpg

10: This is the other end of the driver which is simple. blue wire goes to neutral and the brown goes to live on a plug. There is no earth.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/11.jpg

11: Once all checked you can now plug it in!
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/12.jpg

12:Next thing to do are the blue led strings. These were bought pre wired from a popular auction site. They are x3 strings wired together and wired to its own power adapter so they work independantly from the whites. the pic below shows how i wanted to set them out trying to distribute the blues amongst the whites as much as i can. I went for one at the top, one at the bottom and on curled in the centre.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/13.jpg

13:This is the blue switched on.....hmmmm blue.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/14.jpg

At this point I made a wooden square frame and painted it black. Then cut some aluminium strip for the heatsink to sit on, but I also attached the led strips to with some wire.

14: Here you can see one of the blue led strips wired to the L shaped aluminuim and where the heatsink will sit.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/15.jpg

15: Here is the finished article. I couldnt attach the central blue led to anything other than the heatsink so strung some wire around it to keep it in place. For me, this unit will not be seen so 'how it looks' isnt too important.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/16.jpg

16: This is the light complete and working.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ld%2001/17.jpg

Thats it!

As mentioned before, I am no expert in this type of thing but just wanted to show that it is possible with little knowledge and having something to follow makes it alot easier, the main reason for doing this write up. If it helps just one person than its been worth it so give it a shot, and i can do it............. I hope it all makes sense.

Karen