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Looking for heatsinks
Does anyone know of a place in Calgary or even online within Canada that sells heatsinks large enough to make LED lights, I know there is a couple in the US like heatsink USA, but shipping is pretty expensive, trying to look for local to save and to support our own industries at home!!!!
Thanks.
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Hardest thing about keeping a reef tank is you gotta learn to give up certain things every so often, you just can't keep them all, unless your tank was the ocean!!! 125 gallon fish and reef tank. 2 x 250watt MH 14000k with 2x54w actinic blues, 50 gallon sump. |
#2
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You could investigate other alternatives to the standard fin and fan heat sink. A tube style heat sink can be more effective at cooling and cost less. Square aluminum tubing is available locally from many sources.
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#3
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+1 - if you can weld the square tubing into a continuous loop or back and forth pattern you can use a "side-venting" fan (possibly called a scroll fan??) to push air through the entire structure and keep it cool. You can effectively cool the entire unit with one fan (unless you have a 6 foot tank )
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#4
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#5
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Just wondering, I have look at a few of the DIY LED setups, and everyone has huge heatsinks.
I personally am not using LED, but if LED uses less energy and has less heat creation, why such a big heatsink? Just wondering, as my MH, just have fans with no heatsinks.
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Setup: 180G DT, 105G Refuge (approx. 300lbs LR, 150lbs Aragonite) Hardware: Super Reef Octopus SSS-3000, Tunze ATO, Mag 18 return, 2x MP40W, 2X Koralia 4's Wavemaker Lighting: 5ft Hamilton Belize Sun (2x250W MH, 2X80W T5HO) Type of Aquarium: mixed reef (SPS & LPS) with fish Dosing: Mg, Ca, Alk |
#6
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The heatsink is to dissipate massive heat from the LEDs, which will theoretically extend their lifespan. Each of these little suckers generates a LOT of heat @_@
Just like any electronic component, the hotter it runs, the shorter its lifespan. A good example are CPU's and their honkin' heatsink/watercooling setups. Sure it will still run at the higher temperatures, but are you willing to risk burning it out? I think that's the fear. Having said that, I do believe these big Amp style heatsinks are overkill for these LED setups. I just finished my 8LED build with a 6"x7" heatsinkusa heatsink, it's about 5lbs. It gets warm to the touch pretty quickly, but I have a 80mm fan sitting on top of it, running at about 5V (it's a 12V fan), and that's enough to cool the heatsink down to slightly cool to the touch. When I do my next build, I'm using aluminum channels (not u-channel). I think the main thing is to slap on a decent fan to blow away the heat from the heatsinks, so they can continue to suck the heat away from the LEDs. I read that some guys would rather have a big ass heatsink, so that they can avoid adding a fan (due to noise) and just let it air cool. I cant even hear my fan when it's on. Quote:
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Gary Tank was up for 7yrs and 10months. Thanks Everyone! 2016/2017 180Gallon Build Coming Soon... |
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I'm also interested in the idea of using heat pipes to push the heat from individual LEDs to a number of processor coolers, each handling the heat form a number of emitters - mainly because I'm a bit of a nerd and think that heat pipes are cool. Quote:
I personally suspect that these heatsinks are a little overkill, but they provide a handy broad flat surface on which to mount the emitters, and after spending hundreds on those emitters a large heatsink seems like a small price to pay for protecting the investment. Bear in mind also that most of these large, flat, finned heatsinks are by necessity mounted in the most inefficient way possible (i.e. flat, fins pointing up) with regard to convective cooling, hence the fans to offset this.. Besides, those big heatsinks just look so cool - especially if you can anodize it a funky colour!
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SmallFry's 75 Gallon (Reef Eventually) Build |
#8
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i went to home depot today and saw some 1"x48" aluminum square tubes that might work, making them like a t5 bar, add enough fans it will work i think, i will try one to see how the heat is, but i suspect it will work really nicely.
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Hardest thing about keeping a reef tank is you gotta learn to give up certain things every so often, you just can't keep them all, unless your tank was the ocean!!! 125 gallon fish and reef tank. 2 x 250watt MH 14000k with 2x54w actinic blues, 50 gallon sump. |
#9
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I recall reading somewhere that 1.25" x 1.25" x 0.125" 6063 aluminum works best for this application.
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#10
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You could look around for a place that recycles electronic components, shouldn't be that difficult in a large city. They'll have plenty of heatsinks out of old computers etc. Trick will be convincing them to sell you the stuff rather than ship it off for 'recycling'. I recall when I lived in Ottawa, there was a place in the south end where you could get all kinds of surplus electronics dirt cheap.
Only downside I guess is that your lighting set up might end up looking like something out of a '60s horror movie.
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Mike 77g sumpless SW DIY 10 watt multi-chip LED build http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=82206 |