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GU10 LED Build Thread (Chinese Ebay Lights)


TinyGiant

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i wonder if the 60deg has something to do with it?

 

 

i have awesome color in my tank and growth with the 30deg.

 

today i swapped out all my original blue lights for ones from that luckydlz seller. I was very impressed with them on the 33L tank and decided to swap them out . only needed 10 bulbs so $45 to swap out all the blues on the 55 straight run was short change. Tank looks pretty awesome and it gave me a afew extras to put in some other spots around the columns. Originally i was going to sell my extra 8 bulbs but today i decided I am going to make a 30" light to go over my custom 30x6.5x6.5 glass tank i made a few months ago. I'm going to use the tank for the Ct FRag Swap and figured it would be nice to have lighting over it :)

 

 

 

Hey tiny, u ever get those blues? if so, would you be interested in trading for whites at all? like 5 whites for 3 blues?

 

 

I would but i'm going to use the extras for my mobile frag station tank

 

im not sure where the good ones are coming from these days. i bought mine a few years ago and used them for about a month and tore down the tank. only a few months ago did i take them back out and give them another shot.

 

 

anytime you switch lighting the sps can brown out and then color back up as they adjust.. its nice that alot of them members of my local club are switching to LED so there is less and less light shock when making trades :P

 

 

the link in the OP right now is where the best bulbs come from. way better color than the ones i found a year ago

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Alright :) thanks very much! I was thinking like 15 bulbs for just the actenic supp? And Have you found just a straight line to be the best config? or would something staggered be better?

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another small build:

 

 

Finished my Frag display tank tonight .

 

 

its a custom built 30"x6.5x6.5 tank on a small stand with a 4 bulb blue GU10 hood.

 

Built 99% from recylced stuff. the only thing i had to buy was the 4 pencil holder cups to use as lampshades and two pvc elbows :) Everything else I already had at the house, even the bulbs were ones i just switched out :)

 

fragsystem.jpg

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another small build:

 

 

Finished my Frag display tank tonight .

 

 

its a custom built 30"x6.5x6.5 tank on a small stand with a 4 bulb blue GU10 hood.

 

Built 99% from recylced stuff. the only thing i had to buy was the 4 pencil holder cups to use as lampshades and two pvc elbows :) Everything else I already had at the house, even the bulbs were ones i just switched out :)

 

fragsystem.jpg

 

outta curiosity, what it the purpose of the "lampshades"

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I have a pile of disassembled Gu10s that need a home..

 

anyone looking to build their own cree versions might be interested in these.

 

some of the drivers might be bad and some of the LEDs.. not sure . Some are 3x1w and some are 1x3w.

 

paypal me $12 shipped and they are all yours :)

 

IMG_20120227_163124.jpg

Edited by TinyGiant
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I have a pile of disassembled Gu10s that need a home..

 

anyone looking to build their own cree versions might be interested in these.

 

some of the drivers might be bad and some of the LEDs.. not sure . Some are 3x1w and some are 1x3w.

 

paypal me $12 shipped and they are all yours :)

 

IMG_20120227_163124.jpg

 

how many blues or non-whites happen to be in that pile? Very tempting...

also, do the driversfor the 1x3 and 3x1 appear to be different?

Edited by C.I._Reefer
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they should be the same. some of the bulbs were taken off the tank because of bad leds and some for drivers. so i'm not exactly sure what is good and bad there.

 

i bet most of them were blues

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If you take the lenses off to increase spread, I understand that you have to thermal epoxy the LEDs to the board. Could you please explain this or show a picture? I would think that there would be electrical contacts that need to be made/maintained. How do you keep those from getting messed up in a glob of epoxy. I am just having a hard time picturing it.

 

If the LEDs do just pop out like it seems that you are saying, would it be easy to mix blues and whites into the same bulb to improve color mixing?

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t6he leds are mounted to a star. the star is a thin piece of aluminum. the backside is bare and it sits on the heatsink keeping it cool. wires run from the driver up to the face of the star. the lens is screwed to the heatsink. it places pressure on the led board making it contact the heatsink. without it on the board can slip away from the heatsink. you can use superglue mixed with thermal compund as well. that what we used to use back in the old days when mounting ram sinks on memory and on northbridges.

 

i also agree that there pretty useless without the optics on them.

 

ill go snap a picture

 

*edit added pictures*

led1.jpg

led2.jpg

led3.jpg

Edited by mrbigshot
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If you take the lenses off to increase spread, I understand that you have to thermal epoxy the LEDs to the board. Could you please explain this or show a picture? I would think that there would be electrical contacts that need to be made/maintained. How do you keep those from getting messed up in a glob of epoxy. I am just having a hard time picturing it.

 

If the LEDs do just pop out like it seems that you are saying, would it be easy to mix blues and whites into the same bulb to improve color mixing?

 

 

Personally, unless you have a really shallow pico, i would advise against going without optics..

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Thanks a lot for the photos. The 2nd one really helps and makes it much clearer. Before your pics, I thought it was the individual LEDs you were gluing down, not the star they are soldered to.

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I emailed the seller of the Epistar GU10 that TinyGiant linked to. This is my question and his answer.

 

Hello,

I have 2 questions. Do you offer other angles of lenses for these GU-10 bulbs (like 45-60 degrees)? Also, do you offer any other colors (cool white, neutral white)?

Thank you,

Scott

 

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for your time.

We are led factory , we can produce the different colour led bulbs for you .

This led bulbs is about 30-45 degrees, we also have 60 degree lens . If you need pls feel free to contact.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us anytime.

Have a nice day!

Luckzdl

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C.I._Reefer
Great thread :), this has inspired me to set up a frag tank in my garage using the 3x1w Leds, using 10 at the mo but have just ordered 10 more :)

 

Awesome! what size is the tank? I'm running 24 over my 30g shallow frag tank, and i think it is just about perfect for everything from SPS on my high frag racks to shrooms on the bottom. I'm thinking about adding just a couple more blues, tho i probably dont really need em.

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Awesome! what size is the tank? I'm running 24 over my 30g shallow frag tank, and i think it is just about perfect for everything from SPS on my high frag racks to shrooms on the bottom. I'm thinking about adding just a couple more blues, tho i probably dont really need em.

 

The frag tank is around 40litres if my math is correct, 24Lx12Wx9H, just working out best mixture and spread, was planning 2 rows of 10, 5 white 5 blue, might swap two 3 rows of 7 though :)

 

Pic shows temp lighting solution untill i work out whats best

WP_000214.jpg

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I emailed the seller of the Epistar GU10 that TinyGiant linked to. This is my question and his answer.

 

Hello,

I have 2 questions. Do you offer other angles of lenses for these GU-10 bulbs (like 45-60 degrees)? Also, do you offer any other colors (cool white, neutral white)?

Thank you,

Scott

 

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for your time.

We are led factory , we can produce the different colour led bulbs for you .

This led bulbs is about 30-45 degrees, we also have 60 degree lens . If you need pls feel free to contact.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us anytime.

Have a nice day!

Luckzdl

 

I just got 60 degrees bulbs from them and I'd probably just stick with their standard.

 

Most likely you will use enough bulbs anyway to more than overlap so using a narrow beam will have more focused and intense light.

 

I have 2 3x1W 60 degree over the fuge, was hoping it cast a wider beam but it's not noticable vs the 30 that I had already from another vendor.

Edited by bizzarro
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+1 i bought a couple of the 9w e27 versions for fuge lighting, and they only lasted about a month... i wouldnt recommend them personally...

 

I have the 3x3W with the longer heatsinks.

 

They physically feel to the touch that run cooler than the 3x1W Epistars. After awhile the Epistars are hot to the touch, where as the 3x3W one was very warm-hot but doesn't burn.

 

if you have the 3x3W on the same sized heatsinks as these 3x1W that would explain it. I even feel the 3x1W heatsinks are inadequate. The bulbs I have don't seem to be offered by any seller anymore, but their heatsinks should be the tallest ones.

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Look what the ebay seller with the epistars set up: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270926547853?ssPag...#ht_2118wt_1110 Looks like I wasn't the only one asking for this. About to order 8 of them for experimenting. I think I'm going to go with standard 30-45 degree optics. I was going to go for the 60 degree for better blending, but it looks like that might not be optimal from some people's experience. I'm thinking of using them on a 10g AIO I've been wanting to build from a spare standard 10g I have, so hoping they will work out.

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