MY DIY christmas LED lighting, project

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ITHURTZ

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 11, 2007
1,846
38
81
Antioch IL
Right now I got 400 LEDS, 200 white, 100 blue and 100 red. Got bored and decided to see how much 1 string of lights would light up. Iv got a feeling Im gonna need 2 more whites, another blue and red and see how it goes from there but I dont plan on ordering it for a few more weeks, dang holidays. So its gonna take some time to finish. ( I havent even finished the cosmetics on my tank yet and already starting another project to do on it :irked:)

SO anyway for right now I just taped the lights all pointing in one direction on a peice of 2x2. The lights have multi features as in flash, twinkle etc so that will be interesting to see how they all work on a timer.

So this is what my tank looks like as of now with 2 4" shop lights/twin bulbs
tank1.jpg


Here it is with 100 cool white leds stuck on a 2x2
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The LED's on a stick :headbang2
tank2.jpg



I honestly didnt expect one string to light it up that much. 1 line can pass the tank 4 times, so I am willing to expect that the entire canopy is going to end up LED's. As long as I draw less wattage I dont care :D

To be continued.........
 
Hopefully soon I can mount half the tank and see how it goes. Still pondering on what to mount the led's to, I wanna drill holes in something but still have the space inside to stuff the wires while being able to screw it to the top of the canopy......
 
Cut a 2x3' peice of wood and drilled a bajillion holes today, Popped the lights in and put it above the water to test how well they would all light up the one side of the tank.

Template
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Bajillion holes
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Red and blue Installed
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Full LED panel 2'x3'
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Wires galore
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Left side tank 4' shop light with 2 t8 bulbs, right side 400leds
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Shop light off, just leds on
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LED on
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LEd lights reflecting off of floating plastic plants, its a red plant, but looks very cool
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IMO I expected 400leds to be alot brighter, I guess it doesnt help that the tank is 3" wide. So I dunno what I am going to do. It looks great, the colors are pretty dam sweet. But I dont know if I should get 200 more cool white leds and throw em in that panel or what. Whatever I do to this side I am gonna have to do it again to the other half of the tank once I get this done.

Right now the panel isnt installed its just sitting 4-5" above the water surface, when installed it will be about 10" from the surface, which might make matters worse?

The lights strobe to, I got 2 vids I need to upload so u guys can see real time of the lights, give me a few min for that.
 
lol the stobe is like simulated metal halide shimmer. I like the way the light board looks in the video. I use one string of blue as moonlights on my 125 and looks great. I have 2 strings of white for my 180 but haven't mounted them yet.
 
So what do you guys think will make a difference? ditch the red and add another cool white? or ditch the red and add 2 more coolwhites? Or just add 2 more cool lights.
 
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