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GU10 LED Build Thread (Chinese Ebay Lights)


TinyGiant

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wow. yours too huh? hmm.... yeah, at this point i've accepted that I lost that $60. Going to post on the product review on them so other people don't get ripped off.

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Yeah, I mean its a great light and I love the colors but that remote and dimming need to be fixed!

 

Its for my 5.5g pico so i, not losing out too much just $70 haha

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After reading the reviews on that LED Wholesalers light, I'm glad I didn't buy those! I was waffling between these gu10's and that one, and decided that I got a lot more bang for my buck out of these gu10's, and they fit my design better, so I went with them. Can't wait to post up how they look over the 33, all recessed into the "floating" shelf above the tank! I'm stoked for the clean crisp color they should have.

Edited by Erics5.5
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I finally finished mine last night.

 

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single moon light

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all blue

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blue and white

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Edited by fote03
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raise that sucker and you wont get the laser beams :)

 

maybe get some 4" trim board and make a ring that fits around the top of the tank then set the light on that :)

 

 

the corals will love it though.

 

if the water is cloudy it will look like that too. if its crystal clear the beams will go away :) also helps to move one of the koralia to the top to make the water move on the surface... you'll get crazy shimmer :)

 

btw with nearly 9000 views.. this sucker should get stickied :)

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Im planning on hanging the fixture so i can move it up and down. Time to buy a container of GU10 sockets and build fixtures...soon the price will jack up to $30 a bulb!

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Hey fote, I can't seem to get those pics to work, did they get moved already? Im aching to see what you got goin!

 

Edit: Scratch that, they work ok if I reload the page 500 times. :) Oh man, I can't wait for mine to get here... These things are so bright!

Edited by Erics5.5
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So I know we're supposed to go for the "natural" look, but... I don't think beams are the worst thing I've seen. Like a little reef rave! MMtssMMtssMMtssMMtss (<- supposed to be rave music). Mine will be about 10" off the surface, so I won't probably have them, but, to each their own. I wouldn't hate it if I did end up with them a little, but that's just me.

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To everyone. I just wanted to toss my opinion after purchasing both the GU10s and just the ebay LEDs. I think the ease of use of the GU10s is nice but personally building the setup was just as cost efficient if not more and about as complex to install. The hardest process I found was figuring out the driver. But then you can have dimming ability and more color blending as well as being able to retro it into just about anything. Where the larger length of the GU10s make them not easily adaptable to fixtures. Just my .02$

 

 

Fote, just wanted to say nice work.

 

watching

Winning

Edited by Coastie
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Dolphins18

could i just get these and the sockets and mount them to a heatsink? how would i mount them? also how i would plug them in.. i dont quite understand how to set them up to plug them in?

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Mark, look on Page 1... or Fote's pictures above... can't be anymore clear...

 

My sockets came in today! =) Now it's time to wire everything up and wait for the ship from Hong Kong to dock!

 

Coastie, I agree with ya. I considered using just LEDs but then I would have to get a heat sink, drill/tap.. wire the LEDs.. figure out what drivers and power supply to use not to mention all the different types of LEDs..

 

The GU10s just seem very simple the way Tiny laid it all out. More importantly were the growth pics showing that these work even for SPS corals. I was sold!

 

Maybe I'll play with LEDs in the future and come up with a sleek system.. for now, I think these GU10s should work great. =)

Edited by Philip271
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i just did some rearranging in the tank again and for the first time is 17 years i used reef epoxy.. lol i ended up putting my pink birds nest at the top of the right column and didnt want to take the chance of it falling down and getting crushed.. but once the tank settles i will take some more pics and show the recent growth :)

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9 blue and 4 cool white When i raise them up they blend great!

Nice fixture Fote! Did you go with 9 blues and 4 warm whites? The whites look a bit yellow.

 

Corals seem to be good. They definitely looks really sweet! cant seem to get a good pic but they really pop!

Fixture look great, how are the coral liking it so far?

 

yes you could hook them to a heatsink there are holes in the bottom of the sockets. tiny mounting them using screws. I used jb weld to mount to the reflector scrape i had! I created two parallel series one for the white and one for the blue. Than the center blue is on its own plug!

could i just get these and the sockets and mount them to a heatsink? how would i mount them? also how i would plug them in.. i dont quite understand how to set them up to plug them in?

 

I used a scrape reflector and tiny used wood! Its really whatever you want to do. You can get a small solar tube which is super nice aluminum at most hardware stores cheap. You could also use some acrylic! Its DIY so anything you got will work!

Can someone just please link me to something that I could put these in? Like aluminum I can't find anything to mount them in

 

 

Tiny pictures look great! Thanks so much for sharing your info! We all owe you big time!

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Wow tiny! Awesome! I'm less than 4 days away now. Got my sockets, but I was gone and they require a signature on my bulbs, so they'll be here tomorrow now. I will link to a build thread for my entire tank as soon as this is all up and running, so it'll give everyone another idea of what these are capable of. I'm also going to be ordering a bunch more bulbs, too, so I can play with mixing the blues and whites in each bulb.

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i hope to at somepoint get back on track with my bills (self employed) and get my custom tank built and do the whole take with theses. it will be an awesome 8ft shallow tank :)

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OK, I should have my bulbs today, but here is my setup. I ended up with 21 total over my 33 long. They are about 9 or 10" above the surface of the water. 2 banks, as you can see, with the blues towards the front of the tank, the whites behind, towards the wall.

 

Pic 1: The hood/shelf being built.

Pic 2: Installing the sockets.

Pic 3: Sockets in, hood mounted (tested with basic gu10 bulbs that you buy at HD for the track lights)

Pic 4: The setup as it will be.

 

I'll update with pics with the bulbs in hopefully later tonight or tomrrow!

 

Total cost of everything involved in this is right about $150, including all the hardware/supplies.

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