Grizz's DIY Heat sink & LED build / showing all colors

[Hustler]

Well hurry up already..... Im getting itchy trigger fingers with the ebay and more LEDs..... I gotta see this in action

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by Hustler

Well hurry up already..... Im getting itchy trigger fingers with the ebay and more LEDs..... I gotta see this in action

Patience grasshopper, patience just got my last 2 drivers tonight & hope to work on them some more this weekend in between work and finishing a buddies stand skirts.

I am going to get at least one done & test drive it beside my 2 - 250w MH & 2 - T5's fixture for some comparison.

[Nano]

Originally Posted by The Grizz

Patience grasshopper, patience just got my last 2 drivers tonight & hope to work on them some more this weekend in between work and finishing a buddies stand skirts.

I am going to get at least one done & test drive it beside my 2 - 250w MH & 2 - T5's fixture for some comparison.

I'm so STOKED!

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by nanomano

I'm so STOKED!

That makes 2 of us, wish I could take a week off work and just work on my tank & LED's but it will not pay the bill o I have to settle for what time I have. Also working on a 2800 sq ft dog run to top it all off.

[sphelps]

In terms of acrylic don't dig too far into it. Use standard clear 1/8" cast acrylic sheet, it will not warp and will not remove any visible light worth mentioning (0.5% of visible light is removed per inch of thickness). There are difference classes of acrylic for removing UV light but LEDs don't emit UV and you can avoid it to be safe by not purchasing a special type of acrylic. Also optics are acrylic....

http://www.sdplastics.com/acryliteli...FUVtransTB.pdf

And most Rona's carry the 1/8" cast clear for a good price.

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by Seth81

Just out of curiousity, but why are you using red and green LED's? Red shouldn't only be used if you are growing plants. Not too sure why you would want green either...

I built my own DIY LED fixtures, I should probably make a thread too. I wish I knew how to weld, and made my own heat sinks.... I am jealose of your heatsink! The cheapest I could find was still expensive and not custom to my tank (heatsinksusa.com just in case anyone was curious.

I was in Ocean Creations in Calgary a while back and they have a tank that has some LED T5 bulb over it, including a green and red. The guy working showed me the difference with them on vs. off and the colors where out of this world. Mine will be both on separate channels so I can dim them right down to 5 - 10% if I need to.

Originally Posted by sphelps

In terms of acrylic don't dig too far into it. Use standard clear 1/8" cast acrylic sheet, it will not warp and will not remove any visible light worth mentioning (0.5% of visible light is removed per inch of thickness). There are difference classes of acrylic for removing UV light but LEDs don't emit UV and you can avoid it to be safe by not purchasing a special type of acrylic. Also optics are acrylic....

http://www.sdplastics.com/acryliteli...FUVtransTB.pdf

And most Rona's carry the 1/8" cast clear for a good price.

That what I was thinking as well to use the cast acrylic vs. the extruded. I can get it at Totem as well but will check our local Rona to see if there price is better.

[Seth81]

So I read through I think like 40 pages of the RC LED aesthetics thread and it seems to me that if you just where to go with a mix of Natural white, Cool White and Royal blues you would get much better color out of your fixtures. Lots of people warned against just adding a few spread out red and greens as you wouldn't get good colour mixing and would get kind of a disco effect.

Looking at your design I would be a bit worried about the "disco" light effect from the red and greens.

I would love to see what the end result of your build is. Personally I may swape out 50% of my cool whites for natural whites if I'm not happy with my Cool white and Royal blue mix.