AJ_Tsin Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 This DIY is taken from my tank build thread. You can see the entire thread here, and a video of the system Today I decided to add some DIY LED accent lights. Because of the open concept and suspended pendant it is very difficult to add actinic bulbs without legs on the aquarium or hanging two separate fixtures which would clutter the space. I decided to look for some blue LEDs that could somewhat replicate the function of Actinic fluorescents. I almost bought Current USA's LED strip light but decided to visit the Auto Accent aisle of Canadian Tire before doing do. This is what I found and came up with: These car accent LEDs add-ons have two one watt LEDs per unit and are meant to connect directly to the 12V battery lines in any car. (Why anyone would want these lights anywhere near their car is beyond me) With a little basic electrical wiring the 8 LEDS could be connected to a 12v DC adaptor from The Source I gathered some tools took down my existing pendant and went to work. The LEDs come with strong two sided adhesive meant to stick the lights to the underside of a car or in the glove compartment etc. I stuck these directly on the metal of the Pendant but as this pendant gets quite hot when on I may have to reglue the lights with contact cement. We will see. Once attached, the wires were run under the reflector in the pendant in the same manner the existing wires for the halide bulb were attached. Each led unit has its own +/- wire so I ran all four lines through the light out the back vent and connected them all together with their respective lines at the end. In this case four + lines from each light were twisted together and four - lines from each light twisted together. Once all four positives and all four negatives were bunched together they were all connected to a single +/- wire which ran to the adaptor. Again only time will tell if these wires withstand the heat inside the pendant. They should be fine as they are only touching the backside of the reflective aluminum and are several inches away from the actual bulb. The adaptor is a AC-DC Converter that has a switch to choose the Voltage output. The transformer was switched to 12v / 300mA output which is perfect to run all four units a total of 8 LEDs . Once each electrical splice was secured and sealed with electrical tape I plugged it in and was pleased to see all four corners of the pendant now glowing blue. As long as you know a tiny bit about wiring and transformers this upgrade is easy to do and is worth it. It definitely isn't as bright as a fluorescent bulb but it looks like it is factory built and adds a bit more color to the tank. I have these LEDS come one one hour before the Halide bulb kicks in and turn off 1 hour after it turns off. You could also use these as moonlights. The entire upgrade (lights and transformer) cost me $55 CAN as opposed to the $99+tax I would have spent on a clunky LED strip light. A light I would have had to hang somehow polluting the aesthetics of my rimless setup. I think the Current USA ones are definitely brighter than these so it isn't a 100 percent replacement, but for something like a moonlight or dim actinics for those of you who just have pendants this is a perfect fix You could also add several more bulbs as they have tubes, strips, squares etc of leds. Cant say I would ever put something like this on my car but they work great in this case. Link to comment
porksoda Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Cool idea! Looks really good! Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 14, 2010 Author Share Posted March 14, 2010 Nice! Cool idea! Looks really good! Thanks guys. Link to comment
PIPS Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Nice DIY man.... Aint no satisfaction than creating your own tank mods.... Link to comment
lovecoldair Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 That looks awesome, Good Job Link to comment
bluefunelement Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 Can you post the mfg of the led's? +1 on the great video- I thought it was Canon 5d footage which is saying alot of your EX1 work. Link to comment
NANOYED Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 great video. Do you have any fts pics with just the light on and the light and leds on? Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 15, 2010 Author Share Posted March 15, 2010 Nice DIY man....Aint no satisfaction than creating your own tank mods.... That looks awesome, Good Job Sick video !!! Thanks guys... check out the build thread to see the rest of the system. Can you post the mfg of the led's?+1 on the great video- I thought it was Canon 5d footage which is saying alot of your EX1 work. Manufacturing company is "Touring Items Type S" I think thats what you're asking for great video. Do you have any fts pics with just the light on and the light and leds on? I will get those. However my bulb is Megachrome blue and quite bright so as far as I can tell the LED light is lost. Link to comment
dpcamp Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 very very cool.. i wonder if 2 of those would be too much for a 12 gal.. p.s. do you have a link to where you purchased these lights? i've been searching for the last hour for them online and can't find anything. Link to comment
jdmlude831 Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 Here you go i found them don't know if this is where he got them but their the same ones. http://www.fortune3.com/Winplusna/Lights-T...GHT_LEDs_2.html Link to comment
Japsican Posted March 15, 2010 Share Posted March 15, 2010 very very cool.. i wonder if 2 of those would be too much for a 12 gal.. p.s. do you have a link to where you purchased these lights? i've been searching for the last hour for them online and can't find anything. http://www.amazon.com/Type-LM30682-60-Unde...g/dp/B001PRV812 Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 15, 2010 Author Share Posted March 15, 2010 very very cool.. i wonder if 2 of those would be too much for a 12 gal.. p.s. do you have a link to where you purchased these lights? i've been searching for the last hour for them online and can't find anything. Two of em would not be too bright I don't even think four of them would be. All four of them came as a package. Here you go i found them don't know if this is where he got them but their the same ones. http://www.fortune3.com/Winplusna/Lights-T...GHT_LEDs_2.html http://www.amazon.com/Type-LM30682-60-Unde...g/dp/B001PRV812 Awesome good job. I got mine from the car department in a Canadian store. It's also notable that every car led kit is meant to use the same 12v power source, which is the car battery. I reccomend you go to the Auto tuneup department of some local store and browse for items like this. They have tons of selection including neon and fluorescent lights led strips and these. This particular solution worked for me but I bed theres something for everyone in that aisle. Link to comment
gregzbobo Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 I used a blue CCFL tube intended for lighting computer cases, got some crazy actinics with it for the fairly short time I had it running, before I got full LEDs, those PC CCFL lights also operate off 12V. Link to comment
dpcamp Posted March 19, 2010 Share Posted March 19, 2010 bought parts to do this project this weekend. i'll post pics when i'm done Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 19, 2010 Author Share Posted March 19, 2010 bought parts to do this project this weekend. i'll post pics when i'm done Amazing! Let us know how you do and maybe you can 1Up mine. Link to comment
Japsican Posted March 19, 2010 Share Posted March 19, 2010 You guys think these leds are bright/blue enough to make any difference on the 12DX stock 48W PC lighting? Link to comment
dpcamp Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 You guys think these leds are bright/blue enough to make any difference on the 12DX stock 48W PC lighting? doubt it. I threw these on my nova extreme 36w today and didn't see any difference with the lights on.. looks really nice when the lights are off though: I put up a video with the lights on with the moonlights and off as well and you can't see any difference: i wonder if the 12v 300ma adapter i bought could handle another set? Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 20, 2010 Author Share Posted March 20, 2010 doubt it. I threw these on my nova extreme 36w today and didn't see any difference with the lights on.. looks really nice when the lights are off though: I put up a video with the lights on with the moonlights and off as well and you can't see any difference: i wonder if the 12v 300ma adapter i bought could handle another set? Great work. Good job. I am not sure how many you can connect but I assume each Led is most likely 20mA each so in theory you could connect 15 units. How much did this cost you in the states? Link to comment
demaria36 Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Great work. Good job. I am not sure how many you can connect but I assume each Led is most likely 20mA each so in theory you could connect 15 units. How much did this cost you in the states? Hey AJ, way to represent Canada! Neat DIY! I can't seem to find the typeS lights that you found at Canadian tire, but online they have LED Gloz that will probably work. Apparently these things aren't street legal and are slowly being taken off the shelf. The LED Gloz sell for about 16.99 Link to comment
AJ_Tsin Posted March 20, 2010 Author Share Posted March 20, 2010 Hey AJ, way to represent Canada! Neat DIY! I can't seem to find the typeS lights that you found at Canadian tire, but online they have LED Gloz that will probably work. Apparently these things aren't street legal and are slowly being taken off the shelf. The LED Gloz sell for about 16.99 They have a whole array of these lights available all which use the same power source and would all serve in different functions. Glad they aren't street legal they would look awful. Link to comment
demaria36 Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 Alright, I got 2 sets of 8 led gloz @ 15.87 each and a 12v AC/DC converter 21.98 at walmart! I'm ready to go! Thanks AJ Link to comment
dpcamp Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 How much did this cost you in the states? I got them for $16 off amazon.com and got them shipped 2day for free for signing up for amazon prime. not really sure what that is but it got me free shipping so whatever! haha Link to comment
gimme Posted March 25, 2010 Share Posted March 25, 2010 video + music + tank = awesomeness Link to comment
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