L.E.D. light build - ongoing
 

Here are a few shots of the heat sink I'm putting together. Being in the steel industry I just can't justify spending hundreds of dollars on decent sized heat sinks from some of the online suppliers. So I decided to make my own, 1/4" x 1/2" flat bar and 1/8" x 1" flat bar - will be held together with both Stainless Steel threaded rod, and a adhesive agent.

I've had the LED's ordered for awhile, got them from LED group buy - will be running of a 300 watt power supply.

don't expect progress for while :)

Looks good. Most run aluminum or copper for heatsinks, with copper working a bit better than aluminum but not as good in salt water environments. Is that all steel? Should work as well as long as it's large enough.

no this is aluminum - sorry by being in the steel industry, one typically has access to all metals :biggrin:

will your adhesive transfer heat?

what epoxy I will use is unknown - there are "metal welding adhesives"

were you trying to bring up the point of thermal transfer paranoia?
just like insulation, one wouldn't have to become paranoid that the adhesive prevents thermal transfer - I'm sure it would for the first 2 seconds. Look at commonly used high rating per inch Rigid insulation - 1" gets you 3.2R If these adhesive offered an R2000 insulation rating and could stop heat transfer in a space of 0.0001" you would probably see a revolution in insulation products. I know I've read a lot of people concerned about some minuscule topics like this, myself as well - but when I've put it into a perspective like I have - I'm far from worried

its my opinion that this would become nill, and I only have to ensure the adhesive will maintain its properties at high temperatures.

Thought I'd share my DIY LED build. I caved in and bought the LED Group Buy heatsink. I love DIY but I have no resources to build a 6 foot long aluminum heatsink so I had to buy one. I have no regrets though because it is designed soooo well that it was totally worth the money. Anyways, I loaded the heatsink with a full spectrum of leds, UV, Violet, Deep Blue, Blue, Cyan, Red, Warm White and Neutral White. All of the LED's are driven by meanwell PWM drivers, running at a max of 3 watts per LED. I have two 500 watt power supplies supplying the meanwells. I have them all controlled by a Coralux Storm-X controller which is a thing of beauty. The output on this setup is crazy, and being fully customizable I can add more drivers and LED's if I ever get a deeper tank!

http://i.imgur.com/BcOpPhv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/o71WSmy.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uKoM1Mj.jpg

As long as you use a thermal adhesive that can survive under the temps you're going to have I don't see an issue
But I wouldn't use just any old epoxy

Keep the pics coming :smile:

I f you are placing some lenses on your setup,I hope you have a clean solder as not much room for play with the lenses.
Looking really good.if taken good care of it should last you a long time as mine still going roughly 4 years later.

Nice build!!!

I considered the LED Group Buy heatsink for my build but decided it was just easier to buy the Kessil for my 45gal Oceans by Design cube.

Keep the photos coming.


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Of course buying a premade light is easier :wink: For me though, I can't justify spending thousands of dollars on lighting a 6 foot long tank, when I can build something for under a thousand which is fully customizable, fully rebuildable and fully upgradable. I'm really interested to see what the OP will be doing with his DIY heatsink!