My new DIY LED lightbar with 40 E26 swivelable rotating sockets

spiff44

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Dec 20, 2007
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I'll be using mostly 5w Miraclegrow LED grow bulbs with some mixed in Red and Blue grow spots. These Miraclegrow bulbs have the perfect natural lighting to them. I'll have more pictures tomorrow with it lit up. I'm hoping this will be my last light issue. I had just finished setting up 30 5050 LED light strips but then all the power supplies got fried in a lightning strike. Just my luck. I got about 6 months out of them.

So my new rule, nothing that takes integrated power supplies if I can avoid it.

I used 12 guage wire to do this and its split among three power leads.. so I can run 6 bulbs as main lighting and then 2 separate circuits of 17 lights each to turn on when the tank is being actively watched.

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spiff44

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Dec 20, 2007
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1700 Gallons.

Yeah, I erred on the high side on the count. Its easier to simply not use some sockets or use more less wattage bulbs than rewire everything if I ended up wanting more light. I'm thinking that the 40 bulbs is going to be just about right though.
 

Psylant

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I would love to see a video of this after, if you could! Are these dimmable, or programmable at all? If you don't mind sharing approx what was the cost of these lights?
 

rmkblades

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Nothing goes hand in hand with hard work like a bottle of whiskey...lol

Can't wait to see those bad boys in action...nice work!
 

spiff44

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Dec 20, 2007
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Thanks guys. I'll get some video tonight if I can.

The sockets were the hardest thing to find that were fairly cheap and adjustable... I went with these:
https://www.grainger.com/product/TAYMAC-Lampholder-21A130 $3.44 a piece.

The bulbs were around $12.00 a piece... so times everything times 40 and it wasn't cheap. I like how this setup is all solid state though.. the previous light system was about twice as expensive. So no more fancy stuff.. its just all hard wired.. no dimmers. And no separate power supplies.

I do like my vices.. but I was actually just using that bottle as a weight to keep the soldering iron from sliding off the table.
 

West1

Peacock Bass
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Sep 27, 2007
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Cool, look forward to the update
 
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