My LED e27 + GU10 LED BUILD THREAD (premade Ebay lights)

[TinyGiant]

I decided to give some of the cheaper end of the spectrum lights a shot. I wanted to start a thread so i can post the results and everything just in case it ends up looking great. This setup will be solderless and very easy to setup

 

 

I just ordered 3 of these bulbs for $13 shipped

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...e=STRK:MEWNX:IT

 

and 2 of these bulbs for 17 shipped:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...e=STRK:MEWNX:IT

 

I stopped by home depot and picked up a pair of rubber(moisture resistant) e27 screw in light bulb sockets and a plug outlet. I also orderd 5 GU10 sockets..

 

all i need now are some wire caps, and to destroy an old extension cable

 

 

So Price Recap:

3- 3w (3LED Cool White GU10 Bulbs) $13

2- 3w (2LED Blue e27 bulbs) $17

2- Rubber Sockets for e27 screw in bulbs $3.20

1- Plug end to wire into $1.20

5- GU10 sockets $6.18

 

Depending on the heat i get from it I might grab a cheap computer fan to install in my canopy

 

 

Before Shots:

(1 40w Halogen from an old bioorb tank and 4 blue (420nm 3v) LED powered by a sega genesis ac adapter)

 

 

 

 

 

Immediately After Setup:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEXT TO COME: Pictures with the new LED lights!

The 3 white ones i purchased at 270 lumens each and the blues are about 150 each. should look pretty sweet

 

 

(running a Aqua clear 20 on the tank. doing weekly water changes of nearly a gallon. Temp: 78F, Salinity: 1.021-1.024, 15hour light cycle <--lol )

[Ucan]

Looking forward to how this turns out. Good luck.

[Degener8]

I'm not like a lighting guy really and I could be totally wrong but do 1w LED's actually have enough PAR in them to keep anything alive? I mean they will illuminate the area but will there be enough beneficial light to actually grow corals in the tank.

 

not trying to rain on your parade just curious.

[TinyGiant]

I'm not like a lighting guy really and I could be totally wrong but do 1w LED's actually have enough PAR in them to keep anything alive? I mean they will illuminate the area but will there be enough beneficial light to actually grow corals in the tank.

 

not trying to rain on your parade just curious.

 

 

if someone has the meter to check and wants to lend it to me i would be glad to find out

 

 

I will have a total of 15 of the 7000k bulbs and 6 of the blue bulbs..

 

i'm curious too.. hence the project

[TinyGiant]

the 3 7k bulbs showed up yesterday I did a quick test of one of the bulbs and just one bulb almost lit up the whole kitchen. these things are seriously bright. the 3 LEDs in each bulb with the 60" spread make the tank look super bright. I might actually just use two whites and the two blues. I hope the rest of my parts and such will arrive tomorrow!

 

will take pics at somepoint

[evilc66]

1W LEDs can light shallow tanks like this, but it's the optics that make them usefull. Most bare 1W LEDs barely make it out of low light territory.

[TinyGiant]

They have 60 degree optics on every led

[evilc66]

Right. I've used similar lamps like your before, but at 2W per LED, and the output is decent. I'm actually using 3 over my freshwater tank right now.

[TinyGiant]

darn sluggish shipping from china. I've got all my rock now, a green BTA few Zoa frags, gsp, a Green slimer acro, two percs and a couple little random hitchhikers from work (no shell snails)

 

also have some bladed macro algae too..

 

 

starting to look nice. i am not going to add anything else until my lights are all setup

[TinyGiant]

do you have a par meter? i could always send you one of the lights i got and you could test it out

[TinyGiant]

Okay sorry for the huge delay in updating this thread. The wife and I just started or second currently running business and its keeping me busy (lawncare)

 

Everything arrived and i wired everything up. The only changes i made was removing the optics from the blue bulbs to get a more dispersed blue in the tank.. they had 30degree optics on them and it was looking like laser beams.

 

Here are the pics (all i did to them was optimize them for size in PS)

[thesmallerthebetter]

hey, just came across this in a late night energy drink fueled reef surf session...

 

i used bulbs from a similar manufacturer to build my pendant for the 1/4 gallon in my sig.

 

what i did was rather than use blue bulbs and white bulbs, i took a white and a blue, unsoldered a single blue led and a single white, and resoldered the blue into the white bulb, making it 2 Whites and 1 Blue. that made for much better color blending than just using white and blue bulbs.

 

then, rather than unscrewing the faceplates and removing the optics, i cut plexi disks that fit the old optic holes and epoxyed them into place, acting as a splash guard.

 

so far i get pretty intense lighting, and am noticing some encrusting growth and excellent polyp extension from my acropora Bellina, as well as no signs of browning out from any of my frags.

 

my tank is about 4"s deep, so kind of a similar application to yours. interested to see how this turns out tho.

 

PS: cut me a frag of that white and brown acro and that one with the strange growth man!!!!! the ones on the far left! those things are freaking rocking!

[TinyGiant]

nice .. lol .25 gallon. thats sick. basically a betta bowl. yeah i have seen great color on the acros. I might try switching the bulbs around. thats not a bad idea. I was thinking of taking the time tomorrow to make the lights more a permanent situation. right now i have them zip tied to some wood i cut to go across the tank. I want to be able to angle the blues a little better. I was considering picking up another blue so i could do blue white blue white blue white blue which would put me at 18w and give me one more little oomph of blue but maybe i will just try the resolder method and see how that goes

 

PS: cut me a frag of that white and brown acro and that one with the strange growth man!!!!! the ones on the far left! those things are freaking rocking!

 

the far left is actually a baby blue tip with brown polyps and tan body. its pretty sweet. The mother colony at a customers house is pretty impressive. its hard to get the actual color to come out in pictures. the light is pretty bright and no matter what settings i use on my dslr i cant get the color without losing the brightness of the picture.. and i dont want to photoshop to get match the color ..lol i could .. but thats cheating

 

I had some really sick sps in my 90gallon that i had a 6-7 years ago.. had the tank running for about 5 years before i sold it all to get an engagement ring but i had some larry jackson purple tip that was out of this world. i hope to get some more super colorful ones soon. the kid i have been buying from lately has some blue digi and some nice chalice and acans. i might try to get some of those off him soon.. brighten up the tank a bit I was glad to score the RBTA he brightens up the tank. I traded a bigger green bta and 10 bux for him he came on the rock that has the xenia and kenyan tree too. nice hitch hikers

[thesmallerthebetter]

haha, yea, that BTA is rockin. i kinda wanna get a baby one for my tank, but im always stressed about them walking and killing everything in theyre path. i think thats why in almost 10 years or marine keeping ive never owned any nems besides strawberrys and a few other coldwater ones

 

u really should try the resoldering trick, pretty simple really. i just got the tip super hot, tapped the joint with one hand and pulled up with a pair of needlenose with the other. then repeated with the other side. super simple stuff i promise youll be pleased with the color blending that way.

 

but seriously man, that acro is sick. i wanna peice. where are you located? not in cali by any chance i guess?

[TinyGiant]

I'm about as far from cali as possible in the US. lol good old new Hampshire.

 

the green BTA i had before this RBTA walked and sucked into the AC twice.. lol it was the reason i got rid of it. the RBTA hasnt moved since it found its home in that crevice.

 

lol i used to mod xboxes back in the day.. i've got some mean soldering skills had to resolder my wifes power button contact on the ibook the other day.. the solders were so small i had to literally sharpen the iron tip to almost a needle point. needless to say.. it was pretty stressful .. i could barely see the points.

 

i had thought of doing the bulb swap.. but was being lazy.. i have tomorrow off and nothing to do so maybe i will play with that (unless my mower parts come in then i have to fix one of our commercial mowers and maybe go mow a couple lawns lol)

 

 

if you paid for the overnight usps I could get you a frag of it from the kid i got it from. i think i paid 15 bux for it. he has them on plugs and already encrusting. i can see if he has any more..

 

i could easily get a cooler and pack it super professionally for you

 

he has a ton of nice sps.

[TinyGiant]

So i had some time on my hands and was considering the advice of some and desoldering the blues out of the bulbs and swapping around so that i had a more dispersed look. i figured before i tried that I would first try just taking the optics off the bulbs and seeing if I like that look. After taking off the optics and positioning the lights I really did like it and the color was very uniform.. So.. I started building..

 

I dremeled out holes for the bulbs on a piece of acrylic and then took an old rubbermaid file box and dremeled the bottom off after measuring it out. it happened to be the same width that i needed to make my little hood.

 

 

i used the metal file hangers as posts to hold the plexi in place in the hood so i dont have to worry about the bulbs falling into the water or it ever coming loose.

 

I had an extra SMD strand of lights from something i was doing to my car the other day and decided to put that in the hood for the moon light. I took out the big sheet of plexi and the blue LED that i had in there before. the angle of the blue LED that were in the tank when i started was too tight the smd strip is perfect and is 7k so it has a nice coloration to it

 

 

I felt that the plexi was kinda old and scuffed so it was limiting my light and shimmer effect.. its much better now

 

 

here are some pics. *crappy camera phone pics. didnt feel like breaking out the dslr for them

[TinyGiant]

Took a couple more Pictures today

 

 

 

[Degener8]

Tank really came together it looks nice.

I hope those lights keep doing the trick for ya.

[Gazchap]

Hey Tiny Giant - how many gallons or litres is your tank?

 

I have one Arcadia 1w blue LED under the water in my 8 gallon [8UK gallon, 6 US gallon]. I also have the tank's standard 11w white and red PL light.

 

I'm thinking I need to add more, but don't know whether to get more of those Arcadia LEDs [anyone rate them?] or try different lights altogether...

 

Any thoughts?

[TinyGiant]

its a 5gallon tank

[Gazchap]

Cool, cheers. Do you recommend getting any more of those Arcadia LEDs? They're 1w and come in blue and also white...

[ocxtammy]

can i see a pic of what your diy hood looks like from under?

 

nice work.

[Neya]

Very nice. Any step by steps on how you wire up all those sockets? Looks like fun!

 

Nh eh? I'm down in Worcester. Hello fellow new englander!

[TinyGiant]

they are all 110-240v input. i just wired them to a plug i cut one end off of. lol

 

all the negatives to the negative side and all the positives to the positive side.. you can use wire nuts, create a post.. or whatever.. nice and simple

[TinyGiant]

okay .. here is the picture from the underside with the lights off. lol LED are freaking bright.. i was playing with it a little today while they were on and took a while for my eyes to adjust lol

 

 

if i feel up to it later i will get out my dslr and take a better picture.

 

all i did was take a piece of plexi and dremel out holes for the lights to slide through. then i attached the lights to the moguls on the other side. I used a little electrical tape (for now) to keep the lights from moving. the sockets, or moguls, keep the lights from falling through what i dremeled out. the tape just keeps them in the right position.

 

I used the two metal rods from the filing box that i cut the bottom off of and drilled holes to slide the rods through. the plexi then sits on the rods so the possibility of the lights ever falling in the water or slipping is no existent

 

hope that all makes sense