Uhuru Posted June 13, 2009 Share Posted June 13, 2009 Everything looks great! Dig the new rockscape too. Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 14, 2009 Author Share Posted June 14, 2009 Thanks et. Working with the laminate is very easy. I did this for the first time and it turned very well. Basically is like putting a sticker. You need to apply contact cement to both the laminate and the wood, then just with a rubber roller or a soft cloth (like i did) press it evenly and remove any air bubbles. Then just trim excess with router and a bearing bit. Unfortunately I don't have more pictures than the ones I posted but I will be more than happy to help you with any tips. You don't really need lots of tools for this. Once you have your design done you can get the wood cut at Home depot or lowes and you just need to glue and screw Note that for a stand like this, you don;t really need a strong structure made with 2x4 or something. Just with 3/4" plywood is more than enough. Send me a PM with measurements and how would you like it. I can draw it for you in sketchup and give you al the exact dimension to get them cut. Link to comment
et_0h Posted June 14, 2009 Share Posted June 14, 2009 Hi sammy. Thanks for the encouragement and offering to help me out! Hopefully I won't let you or myself down. If my project comes out looking 1/2 as nice as any of your work, I'd be a very proud man. Sending PM. Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 15, 2009 Author Share Posted June 15, 2009 My skimmer was making splashes sound and everything in my sump was salty because of the cascade... so I made this little slide to control the waterfall Now its even quieter and no more splash. Good thing is I can still adjust the water level with the mod. The slide is glued to the "tuning gate" Link to comment
et_0h Posted June 16, 2009 Share Posted June 16, 2009 Haha. That slide looks fun. What's up next for your tank? Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 Well right now next thing happening here is the LED lamp build. I'm waiting for the LEDs that should be here anytime and hopefully get rid of those 2 extra grades in my temp. Otherwise I'll have to deal with a chiller or move the tank to my room where the temp will cool down with the a/c at night and hopefully stay cool during day. Actually I prefer not to move the tank. After i solve my temp issues then I'm getting some nice SPS frags. New fish is comming by next week that I'll be placing a big order with a group of friends Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 16, 2009 Author Share Posted June 16, 2009 And this made my day! I wanted to share the happiness!!! Look Whos hereeeee Link to comment
got2envy Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Dayumm! nice work Sammy Tank looks crystal clear Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 17, 2009 Author Share Posted June 17, 2009 Dayumm! nice work Sammy Tank looks crystal clear heh thanks! I have some bad new (at least for me) that have been impatiently waiting for my LEDs to arrive. I just fried them because apparently I bough defective drivers. Fortunately they offered me sending new ones right away but still trying to get also new LEDs from them since their driver was the killer... So yeah... I wanna cry! Link to comment
nate82 Posted June 20, 2009 Share Posted June 20, 2009 ouch... sorry to hear that man Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 While my new LEDs and drivers arrive I finished drilling and taping the threads. I had a really bad experience with the Tap thingy. Don't know if it was too old and rusted but the bit broke inside a hole 3 times. I had to do 3 new holes for 3 different LEDs. End up using a bigger drill bit and having a weaker thread but this is not to apply tons of pressure though. Also did some modification on the heat sink. I want the lamp to be as low profile as possible so the fan over the heat sink is going to add me one more inch and I don;t want it that bulky. So did this: Hope this doesn't affect the overall heat transfer process and still works for me Link to comment
davidncbrown Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 It will affect it a bit, as you got rid of about 75% of the fins. But I think it still should work. The idea of the fins is to increase the surface area for heat to dissipate from... you just got rid of a lot of surface area I'm afraid. Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 26, 2009 Author Share Posted June 26, 2009 Well Light is almost finished. Still need to work with the hanger, splash guard and covering the fixture housing with thin aluminum. Ran the lights for about 7 hours and surprisingly the Heatsink ran at very nice temperature. The fan is a 24V so it has some good power. Heres a shot of it. Notice that there is one lens missing in the rear right corner. It was a little off and when I push it to the LED it came off with the LED plastic dome. And a very crappy picture of the tank. Still making adjustments on my camera to get a nice picture. looks like it can't handle the light. I love the dimming to adjust the desired color! I can go like 10K,12K,14K,16K,20K and so on... this is just amazing. Special thanks to evil, without his help this couldn't be done. Also thanks to Waterproof, Minadin, Crs2k, C Jerome for posting the step by step and diagrams that helped me a lot Link to comment
erickrm Posted June 27, 2009 Share Posted June 27, 2009 great job on this setup man!! i really like the LED setup this is what i want to do for my setup but i believe i might need more led's lol... my current build consist of 28X21X16. But i think im going to end up with T5 for the time being until i can afford the LED's lol. Great job! Link to comment
sammy113 Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 Thanks erick. LEDs are not cheap but definitely cheaper than buying one of those solaris or galileos. Also I really enjoy building stuff. Here's a cooked pic of the tank with the lamp in its place. Still need to cut down about 1" of the lamp housing height and then the lamp aluminum laminate. Still trying to get nice pics with my cam but no luck. By next week I'll be picking up a new Nikon D60 with a 18-105mm lens so yeah, lots of pics Link to comment
JDigital Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 That looks awesome! Nice work on the LED Link to comment
erickrm Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 nice bro.... ubber bright! lol... i just picked up a bank of LEDs from one of the Solaris fixtures that my buddy had to take apart since some of the lights went out, he was retroing the leds into a 24" fixture, and just had some extras..... So i am going to make a tiny canopy out of black acrylic and i have to find a small heatsink and a buck puck to drive the 5 LEDs. Its going to be one bring pico!! lmao. 12X12X9 with a bank of Solaris led! lmao.... Good times Link to comment
sammy113 Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 I just snapped a few pics to show the whole setup with lamp and dimming feature. This are not the best. They were not even photoshoped or anything. Everything raw from camera. Just resized. Camera set at manual with same exposure and aperture. Just dimming lights Here are the first round of pics. Dimming the Whites to end up with higher Kelvin 12k,14k,16k,20k, actinics... All of them at 100% Full actinics. It doesn't really show the color as they should be... Now Dimming Royal Blues to acquire whiter kelvin And now some random Lamp pics and top down pics Link to comment
racechase Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 That is one sick fixture man. Link to comment
caelcynndarr Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 That is an awesome tank the light fixture looks amazing with the tank too i will await more photos Link to comment
Jacobnano Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 That fixture is amazing! So small and sleek but sooo bright! Nice job, that fixture and the rimless tank make that set-up look really sleek and...well...awesome! Link to comment
got2envy Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Nice work on the LED's Sammy!! the tank is looking awesome Link to comment
agileTuan Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Sweet light fixture. You have a very clean setup. I like. Link to comment
36and2 Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Good Job! I really like what you have done Link to comment
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