LED lighting project

[Neogenesis]

Ya....I've read on those, I'm just not totally decided that I want the commitment that salt brings. My sister has 180G salt tank that I absolutely love. I'm thinking of going a much simpler route though. I've got a 46G Bow, doing a 75G sump on the other side of the wall for a larger water volume, I want a simple setup, GBTA, a pair of clowns, and a few other inhabitants. No coral, LPS or SPS, just keep it nice and simple.

Scott

 

[Sparkyreed123]

Heres a pic of my tank just now and you'll see the problems the Luminarie is causing me.

 

[Bizarroterl]

Its causing your water level to be low?

 

[Sparkyreed123]

No thats me, there is a 5mm lean to the front and i,m worried that if i fill right up it could fall. But i know it probaly won't, we live in flat and thats alot of water to be going through the floor.

So i need to empty it half way and lift it, then as soon as i get rid of that light i'm going to attach LED spots to ply wood and build a hood!

 

[Neogenesis]

Looks to me as if you need to actually hit the studs in the wall with your hardware, drywall alone can't hold the weight. Other than that, I like the look and aquascape of the tank.

Scott

 

[Sparkyreed123]

Problem is Scott these walls are do old you never know whats behind them, you can see where i had three shots at trying to find a good fix.

Seeing as you seem to be very wise on lighting, i think i'm going to borrow your idea, sorry! With your idea i can build a very simple hood and place very few lights. I've seen 24 led lights incorparated into blubs, they are about £30.00 each. But some deals on Ebay you can get 5x of them for that price.

 

[Neogenesis]

Problem is Scott these walls are do old you never know whats behind them, you can see where i had three shots at trying to find a good fix.

Seeing as you seem to be very wise on lighting, i think i'm going to borrow your idea, sorry! With your idea i can build a very simple hood and place very few lights. I've seen 24 led lights incorparated into blubs, they are about £30.00 each. But some deals on Ebay you can get 5x of them for that price.

LOL....your preaching to the choir there. I used to own a 100 year old house...I feel your pain. You just have to be sure to hit wood when your mounting things.....and it doesn't help when the studs are not evenly spaced "my old house". Glad I own a newer place now. Good luck on the new lighting.

Scott

 

[Accident]

LOL....your preaching to the choir there. I used to own a 100 year old house...I feel your pain. You just have to be sure to hit wood when your mounting things.....and it doesn't help when the studs are not evenly spaced "my old house". Glad I own a newer place now. Good luck on the new lighting.

Scott

Studs are on different length center lines in older homes. Not always 16". I have worked on them and my 1st house was built in 1957. The wood was like concrete. Had to predrill everything. Nails would bend. No way to just hammer them in. Had to drill a pilot hole for the dang nails. PIA.

!A

BTW, my LED project is done. I'll post the pix tomorrow. Too late now.

 

[Sparkyreed123]

See these old flats, my living hell. Were talking lime plaster that falls off when you look at it, horizontal slat's about 10mm apart and stud work as I know it today should have between 400 and 600mm centres, back in the day it looks like it was 5 metres. Arrrrggghhh!

Can't wait to see the pics and i'l post pics of the system i'm going to use.

 

[Accident]

I ordered the 12 LED kit as previously posted.
http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-36/12-Premium-LED-DIY/Detail

Customer service was really good. Emails answered fast, like within an hour or less. Package came in 3 days down to this end of the earth, priority mail.

Didn't get a pic of the contents. LED parts are tinier than expected and the driver was bigger. No problem.

Here's the Current 96w CP that gives off lots of light w/2 96watt bulbs in it for less than a year before both ballasts gave out. Fan was also noisy as hell. Glad I keep everything because it turned into a great heatsink for this project.





Gutting it was easy......Left one power cord and disconnected everything.




I cut off the strip that hid the ballasts with a scroll saw. Easy. Forgot to show that step, so the LED's are already glued down. I'm holding the piece where it was attached. It was in the way.



These things easily adhere with the heat sink epoxy that comes with the kit. It's permanent, so don't go this route if you want to move them later.

Here it is gutted and LED's glued down. I put them 6 inches apart with one little bastard step child left over, which I put in the middle. DOH! haha.


A word on soldering them.....the solder points have a thin crust of something on them that you have to scrape off. I used a screw driver to rough each point up before soldering. Since they are already attached to a giant heat sink, there's not much worry about over heating, altho you have to get the soldering iron really hot to make it melt. No pics of all that boring crap. Put them in SERIES, not Parallel. +-+-+-+-, etc. in a loop.



Here it is all wired up, ready for the smoke test. I couldn't get the potentiometer to work from RS, so, I just wired up the old cell phone wall wort directly into the dim circuit. 8.2 volts.



OMG, that sucker is bright shining up into your eyes!.

Here it is on the 125. You can see the 'beams' coming down. It reminded me of snorkling in the San Marcos river. Nice white sunbeams coming down. 40 degree lens's.


Completed view with all the wires held in place. I bypassed all the switches and the fan. Will be on a timer.





The Current shell has channels that run the length of it you can put screws in that were salvaged from the original parts.

I will not be buying any more CF's in the future as they burn out. I have all Current CF's on the other tanks. The shimmering effect is really cool. Now if I can only figure out how to have it change angles all day long like the real Sun I will be golden! Hope this was helpful....

!A-man.