PRReef Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 Well after getting tired and frustrated trying to find black acrylic without having to sell my house to pay for a few pieces of acrylic I ended up doing the housing with wood since wood is cheap, durable and easy to work with. 24 LED ULTRA PREMIUM KIT from Rapidled.com LEDS: 14 RB 2 CB 8 NW Drivers: Mean Well ELN-60-48P dimmable driver Controller DDC-01 PWM Controller Heatsink Drilled and Tapped 4.25" x 16" Heat Sink Updates are going to be posted later during the week. Link to comment
porksoda Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 Awesome man! I just go my 12 ultra premium kit from rapid too. I cant wait to put mine all together. Ill keep an eye on yours for ideas. Link to comment
krug1313 Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 Make sure to seal up the wood with some paint or stain. Would hate to see it rott. Looks good. Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 8, 2011 Author Share Posted May 8, 2011 Make sure to seal up the wood with some paint or stain. Would hate to see it rott. Looks good. Yeah thats the plan I would hate to see the heatsink sinking in my tank like the titanic LOL Thanks, I Hope I can get all this together without burning anything I Can't wait to finally see some SPS in my tank!!! Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Leds installed!!! Still figuring out how to attach the heatsink to the housing I made. Should I drill the heatsink?? what do you guys recommend?? Honestly there's no way to take a photo of the actual brightness of this little things turned on, they are way brighter than I ever imagined!!! I'm so happy!!!!!! By the way, they almost got me blind, d@mn BLUES BLUES + WHITES DRIVERS/CONTROLLER DARK SHOT FULL BLAST Updates will be posted in a few days when I finally decide how to attach this thing to the housing. Link to comment
bensanders Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Lol where are you in that last pic? A grow room? Link to comment
Zoafreak Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 wow great looking lighting system. i never do homemade electrical stuff beacuse a bad childhood experience, but yours looks well made! if your tank is large enough can't you put ur LEDS in the front and your HS in the back, or vice versa? Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Lol where are you in that last pic? A grow room? LOL yeah I use it to grow some weed hehehehehe I was right next to the door to get in to the laundry room, is the only room that is not finished yet( that's another project for me, and one that is not fun hahahahaha) the shining thing its the insulation for the walls because I live in Maryland and the cold weather here is not a joke :| Cant imagine how people in Alaska can live in such a cold place Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 wow great looking lighting system. i never do homemade electrical stuff beacuse a bad childhood experience, but yours looks well made! if your tank is large enough can't you put ur LEDS in the front and your HS in the back, or vice versa? Thank you very much I'm really happy with the investment I made with this LEDS. I think you can put the leds anywhere you want but they have to be looking to the tank otherwise they are not going to do anything for your coral Link to comment
ednangel Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 hi, i was just wondering how much it cost you to build the set up? without the canopy just the led, the heat sink and driers. also are these dimable or not and can they be used with a timer, just curious... Link to comment
swayd Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Did you have to buy that heatsink seperately? or did it copme with the kit? Link to comment
ajmckay Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 Read guys... he said he got all the stuff at rapidled. They will sell you a kit w/ all the leds and drivers. they sell the controller/dimmer separatel and the heatsink too... price it out. Nice looking setup by the way... I like the wooden enclosure, it's simple yet functional. I assume you're planning on hanging it with some eye hooks or something? Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Did you have to buy that heatsink seperately? or did it copme with the kit? I had to buy it separately from the kit, I think only the small kits comes with a small heatsink as part of the kit or something. Read guys... he said he got all the stuff at rapidled. They will sell you a kit w/ all the leds and drivers. they sell the controller/dimmer separatel and the heatsink too... price it out. Nice looking setup by the way... I like the wooden enclosure, it's simple yet functional. I assume you're planning on hanging it with some eye hooks or something? Thank you!!! Yeah its very simple, took me like 20 minutes to make hehehehe. Yes, Im planning on hanging it exactly that way, looking how to bend tubes at this point so I can make the arms for it, I guess it should not be hard. Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 hi, i was just wondering how much it cost you to build the set up? without the canopy just the led, the heat sink and driers. also are these dimable or not and can they be used with a timer, just curious... Yes, they can be connected to timers and yes, they are dimmable. I got everything from rapidled.com, the prices depend on how many leds you are going to buy, what kind of heatsink and dimmer etc.... you can save a few bucks if you do the dimmer by yourself. I bought it just because I dont have enough time to spend doing things (I blame my wife hehehehe) The cheapest thing was the housing, it was like $6 for a 1''x4''x12' stud that I still have a lot laying around + a fan laying around my closet(you can get a fan almost free on ebay, they are so cheap is not even funny) + $1 for walmart black spray paint I would not say LEDS are expensive even when is costly at the beginning just because I had spend more money in T5's and HQI bulbs than doing this LED fixture plus I dont have to worry about replacing bulbs or anything like that. I guess my baby is going to have his own car before I need to replace this thing hehehehehe The best thing about all this, is that I dont have to read ODYSSEA over my fixture anymore hahahaha and the customer service I give to myself is excellent compare to the asian lady who answer the phone in Aquatraders I have not tried the fixture over my tank yet since is not finished but at this point I could say I LOVE LEDS!!! Link to comment
ednangel Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 it's funny that you mentioned Aquatrader's Asian lady they are a mile down my work and the very few times I drop by it's like did you baggage or cabbage? Good luck with that. ajmckay; thanks for your contribution very helpful, a simple $100 or whatever would have answered my question. jckss Link to comment
gabe3eb Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 ajmckay; thanks for your contribution very helpful, a simple $100 or whatever would have answered my question. jckss Eh, it is pretty easy to figure this out on your own with rapidled.com... PR - as for mounting it, you can probably just get some L brackets from home depot and let this thing set inside the wood being support by just them. That why you don't have to screw this in or drill and tap it in any way. Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Eh, it is pretty easy to figure this out on your own with rapidled.com... PR - as for mounting it, you can probably just get some L brackets from home depot and let this thing set inside the wood being support by just them. That why you don't have to screw this in or drill and tap it in any way. yeah I would like to avoid the task of having to drill and tap the heatsink, plus Im kind of scare of breaking this thing after I put everything together lol. I really want the heatsink to be as steady as posible to the housing so I would not be worried about the heatsink moving and messing with the leds,cables, etc... I will give it a try since I have some L brackets somewhere in my house that I can use. Thank you Link to comment
ajmckay Posted May 13, 2011 Share Posted May 13, 2011 ajmckay; thanks for your contribution very helpful, a simple $100 or whatever would have answered my question. jckss Sorry I just don't see why I have to goto their site and price it out for you... I could ballpark it around $100, but I just pulled that number out my butt, so I don't see how that would help anyone. PR, making a hanging fixture can look really cool. There are some really good ones I've seen and some pretty bad ones. I originally wanted to use steel conduit to make a big arm to hang my MH on. Well it turns out that the steel conduit is cheap, but the bending tool isn't!! So I looked into using couplings, but those are actually sort of expensive, and they're ugly too. Oddly enough the cheapest option for me was to use 3/4" copper pipe. I bought 3/4" wooden dowels and shoved them inside the copper pipe (since copper is a softer metal I didn't want to worry about it bending over time - the wood stiffens it up plenty). I used couplings to hold it together with screws hidden out of view, rather than sweat the pipes so that I could take it down if I ever needed to. The pictures are in my tank thread. Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 13, 2011 Author Share Posted May 13, 2011 Sorry I just don't see why I have to goto their site and price it out for you... I could ballpark it around $100, but I just pulled that number out my butt, so I don't see how that would help anyone. PR, making a hanging fixture can look really cool. There are some really good ones I've seen and some pretty bad ones. I originally wanted to use steel conduit to make a big arm to hang my MH on. Well it turns out that the steel conduit is cheap, but the bending tool isn't!! So I looked into using couplings, but those are actually sort of expensive, and they're ugly too. Oddly enough the cheapest option for me was to use 3/4" copper pipe. I bought 3/4" wooden dowels and shoved them inside the copper pipe (since copper is a softer metal I didn't want to worry about it bending over time - the wood stiffens it up plenty). I used couplings to hold it together with screws hidden out of view, rather than sweat the pipes so that I could take it down if I ever needed to. The pictures are in my tank thread. cool I will take a look to your thread to see your hanging arms, thank you Link to comment
Cheetos Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 How do you like the controller so far? I just built a fixture using the same kit with that controller. Link to comment
osprey77 Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 cool I will take a look to your thread to see your hanging arms, thank you I take it you were pretty happy with rapidled? Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 14, 2011 Author Share Posted May 14, 2011 Updates L brackets holding the heatsink in place Testing over my 15G (I hope those 2x4 don't play me a joke lol) Cant catch the real color but I set them up with a nice purple color, I'm so glad I dont have to buy those purple leds to get the gamma I like. I really like the Neutral whites now sorry for the bad quality, I will take good photos as soon I hang this thing. the shimmering effect with LEDS is insane!!!!!!!! Link to comment
PRReef Posted May 14, 2011 Author Share Posted May 14, 2011 I take it you were pretty happy with rapidled? yes, I'm very happy with rapidled, I was not happy with the way things came up in the package, all the leds in ziplocs? WTF but I guess they get all this stuff in massive quantities (probably from china for 5 cents lol) BUT the customer service is really good. Link to comment
sammy113 Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 How come you didn't told me about this build! turned out great! So now, how do you like LEDs? Did you got what you were expecting? Link to comment
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