Whitten Posted December 20, 2004 Share Posted December 20, 2004 I had been thinking of doing this in my own cube for a while. My thoughts were that it would get way too hot in the tank from the bubl bein so close so I was thinking of making a hood spacer. My thought is that you will run into the same problem so here is my thought. Why not make about a 3 inch spacer that goes between the hood and the tank that is the same color...hell if you had the ability make it out of the same material as the hood and plastic on the tank. Either way that would allow the extra room between the hood and the water to blow air across the the water to keep it cool, and would allow you to keep from having any issue of haveing fans blowing on the bulb. Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Thanks for the input. I have already gotten the aluminum enclosure from mouser.com.. Originally this was for the CFB 72 ballast that I was planning on building, but now its going to be used for the MH.. I will snap some pics tonight.. Thanks guys Chris Link to comment
Joe Mac Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 It has always been my understanding that regular, clear glass has remarkable UV filtering abilities. Hence, big-rig "truckers' elbow"... some trucker's are only darkly tanned on their left elbow, because that's the part of their body that often times isn't behind glass. Also, UV protection values on window coatings/treatments are usually based against the a UV rating of 1/8" clear glass standard of 1. Therefore a UV rating of .49 of treated glass would block twice as much UV light as the 1/8" clear glass standard. It's my understanding that 1/8" clear glass blocks between 40 to 50% of UV radiation on average. My Custom Sea Life 400w MH pendents came with 3/16" of tempered glass, but I think that was mainly for it's shattering properties (kind of like safety glass if broke) and heat resistance rather than a far superior UV blocking ability. But maybe it was for all these reasons. I would also surmise that since your little sheet of glass came out of a consumer high-heat output light fixture (what, probably a 300 - 500w halogen?), that it IS tempered glass! Good on you Chris, keep keeping it up! BTW- Wouldn't it be worth swinging by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and asking a janitor for a scrap of the stuff they use to insulate the underside of the Space Shuttles? You know, those ceramic tiles? You'd only need a very small piece, and hey, we're all tax-payers... no since in throwing it out, right? Just a thought. Where are those pics you promised? It's almost 6:00!!!! Joe Mac Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Joe Mac wont let me sleep.. Hes literally on the phone with me till 1 - 2 am some times.. Anyways.. Here are the pics of the enclosure I plan to use to house the bulb/fixture.. It JUST FITS... Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Second shot, showing sliding cover. I plan to machine away the center and place the UV glass in there.. Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 View compared to hood. It fits!!! Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Profile View.. I may need to cut it down a bit.. We'll see. Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Well those are the prelim pics.. You guys will see it later with the MH mounted.. Chris Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Front on view.. Look how it lines up nicely with the vent.. jmt.. Almost as if you have been reading my mind.. Convergent or divergent evolution??? Link to comment
Joe Mac Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Chris- Sweet, sweet, sweet! Do you think you can purchase just the aluminum case from the manufacturer? That would be awesome. I figure it would be perfect if those aluminum fins where on the outside of the case rather that the inside... but then again, they'd radiate more heat towards the tank water. Totally too cool. Why couldn't I have friends like you to play with when I was growing up?!?!? For that matter, why can't I have friends with toys like you have now! :*( Joe Mac Link to comment
bobbi_dooley Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 i would be rockin if the sinks of the heat sink were on the outside of the enclosure instead of the inside. however I would use metal spacers with plastic surrounds (to shield the hood from heat) and bolt another heatsink the the exterior of the hood. I know im not being that clear but I'm thinking that you could couple the reflector to an exterior heatsink and then blow air across it. This would bring alot of the heat oustide of the hood where it could be better managed. Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Part II.. Cooling I bought these vantec 50mm HDD coolers to cool the GEN I DX. The Second Edition DX cools so well that I dont have any use for them now... Heres a pic of the fans. I had some heatshields made by emachineshop.. They will be in the 27th.. Her are the HDD coolers.. Link to comment
Naturalreef Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Referencing JMT's drawing above, what if you put an exhaust fan on one side of the aluminum enclosure and connected some sort of ducting(aluminum) to it and then connected the other end of it to the heat shield holes on the left side of the shield? That way the MH enclosure is directly exhausted and then leave the other holes on the right side of the heat shield to vent the outside of the enclosure?<---hope that all made sense....Just throwing some ideas out there.. I tested my 70 watt and a 24 watt lamp in the nanocube hood with two fans, one blowing in and one blowing out with a sheet of lexan and the temps stayed fine, but was not happy because of the spectral output and shortened life of the bulb by blowing air on it. I like where chris is going with this..Keep it up Chris! Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 I got 20 of these laser cut and machine manufactured coming in on the 27th.. I originally was going to deploy it in the 3.24 series, but with Second Edition coming out, they are unneccessary.. Looks like its going to find a good place... Chris Link to comment
ccjung Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 the master plan.... Put 2 50mms on the outside sucking IN. Then the HDD cooler in the center blowing IN Rear fans blowing OUT.. Remember the Bulb will be in its own enclosure, so we can try to minimize the amount of air "blowing" on the bulb.. Let me know thoughts on fan direction, considering the rear fans as well. Note.. I usually tape up the side vents on teh cubes to get more uniform, predictable flow.. Link to comment
jmt Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 The max results are going to be from all fans blowing in or out. Not a mix of the two. You need to create and air gap between the reflector and the plastic with some heat dissipating material (ceramic...). Drill some holes in the existing reflector to allow light to come down and circulate around the MH box and in the gap created by said spacers. Tempered glass will HAVE to be used. I have used SST, Acrylic, Lexan, and Tempered all in different sizes and thicknesses. Tempered is the only way to go to insure safety. No air should directly cool the bulb. The bulb should be fully incased in that aluminum box. The air will circulate around the box and between the gap to provide cooling. You also need to order a reflector for that box. You should be able to bend it so that it stays in there on its own by sliding in. The reflector is the most crucial part. Link to comment
ccjung Posted January 2, 2005 Author Share Posted January 2, 2005 I got the Laser cut heat shield in.. Reformed the Aluminum to be "trapezoidal" and slid the glass into place. Theres about 1/4" gap between the tempered glass and the plastic. Currently its naturaly aspirated, with exhaust fans sucking air out. I plan to induce air into the chamber by adding some 50mm fans to cool things down.. So far ive been happy, with temps on the water side of the splashguard at 134F. High , but not beyond my own threshold of 140.. Also note, this is a 2004 hood. the 2005 should inherently cool better.. Link to comment
jmt Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Nice, but your aluminum box need to be fully inclosed. And the tempered glass need to be a larger. Any light that come through the fixture should be filtered through tempered glass. Othwerise it should not be allowed to escape at all. This can have ill-effects on a peron's body. My suggestion for closing it in? Use the glass you have and make a metal peice that covers the side and wraps arond to cover the gap at the top. It'd require two peices, one for each side, but they should be identical and pretty easy to make. Go buy some aluminum in a thin sheet. You could probabaly get it as scrap. Make a for out of a 4x4 block of wood (scrap too) for the bend. Measure the gap from the tempered glass to the edge of the box and try and get a 1/4" overhang. Make the 90* bend using a hammer and the 4x4 wood block. Then take tin snips and cut them to that trapezoidal shape that your aluminum enclosure has. By the looks of the grooves on the enclosure, you should be able to use screws to hold them in place. If not, well, I'm sure you can come up with something. Link to comment
jmt Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Here's a pic I whipped up. I think it explains what I'm talking about a lot better than my description did. -jmt Link to comment
Withers Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 man you two ought to be working for JBJ, they could really use someone who knew what they were doing, then we wouldn't have to make all these crazy mods! Link to comment
Styxnpicks Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 this is starting to look good. even tho I don't have a nanocube and have gone with a regular 10 gallon. this is starting to look promising. I'd love to see this thing done Link to comment
adinsxq Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 on the 2005, try an ahsupply reflector i just got one and o m g Link to comment
ccjung Posted January 2, 2005 Author Share Posted January 2, 2005 hey whats up adin I love that uv shield you got on your MH sick, where/what is it? Chris Link to comment
adinsxq Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 it's from a 300w halogen floor lamp your extruded aluminum housing... does it have end caps? - would make a great ballast box hammer tone vs miro 4 Link to comment
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