So, I upgraded me Spec V light yesterday

[Wattman]

LED RETROFIT UPGRADE - In my opinion this setup provides the best bang for the buck when it comes to customability (retrofit). The nano driver is dimmable and powers up to 10 LEDs, perfect for what I was looking to do. The driver, plus 6 LED's, and sales tax set me back $61.01

 

Here's my imgur link for this build as well as the low power mod before it http://imgur.com/a/F82Z1

 

OK, Here we go.

 

getting ready to start the retrofit! I am about to start hacking this light up into pieces!

 

I used the dremel to cut out the sheet metal that will be used to house the new LEDs.. The metal also acts a heatsink (sort of). I also used the dremel to cut out the plastic that housed the old LEDs. I wanted to keep the original plastic splash guard so I painstakingly cut through the back of the plastic. This took forever and I was super careful to scratch the plastic as little as possible. Its inevitable that some of the plastic will scratch, but it will not be noticed once installed onto the tank. This also saved me the mess of hacking up the splash guard and installing a new one.

 

I used arctic silver 5 from radioshack to adhere the new LED's to the metal plate. It's more like grease though, so you'll need to attach the LED's permanently. The right way to do it would be to screw through the aluminum sheet metal and then use nylon screws to prevent grounding. I did it the lazy way and used quik weld. I'll let everyone know when I have to re-do it the right way. I have six LED's in total on this fixture. 3-RB 2-NW 1-UV spacing is: RB NW RB UV NW RB

 

I used two 40mm 12v PC fans to help cool the LED's (I have no idea how hot they get). I used a dremel to notch out the squares on the top of the light bar, wired the fans in parallel, and used an adjustable voltage AC adapter to control speed. At 9 volts and less the fans are super quiet. At full 12 volts they can create a nice hum. I run it at 9. Please excuse my crappy wiring/soldering job. I'm surprised I didn't ruin any of the LED's. I caught myself half way through wiring and realized that i had started it backwards.

 

 

Lights are somewhere in the low range. I'm trying to give perspective to how the fans add/subtract to the style of the light bar.

 

Again trying to show the fans; lights are VERY bright!!!!!! My crappy cell phone cam cannot handle the color/intensity of these new lights. I'd say when they're dimmed they're a light shade of almost purpley-blue When maxed out I would say they are intense bright shades of white with a cool mixture of deep blues and slight hews of purple.

 

This picture if from the living room looking into the kitchen, the second view you get of the tank unless you come through the backyard. It's the side that also shows the cable. I just used a plastic cable organizer to get the cleanest look I could. I'm sure if I fiddled with it I could run it along the wall or through the stand for an even cleaner look.

[Gilligan]

Nice!

[bdevillier19]

that light retrofit is awesome. now i'm going to have to get my spec v out of the garage and dust it off.

[BigAl18]

Nice job, I have been thinking to add or switch to having a violet light in my setup. I do wish that my stock fluval light came with a splash guard. I am struggling to find something that will work.

[Wattman]

Nice job, I have been thinking to add or switch to having a violet light in my setup. I do wish that my stock fluval light came with a splash guard. I am struggling to find something that will work.

 

I'm surprised to hear your stock light did not come with a splash guard. I have no experience with plexiglas, but I imagine a thin one could be cut out with a dremel. Lowe's has small acrylic sheets for just a couple bucks.

 

I'm not sure how much the UV will affect anything, but I figured having more spectrum couldn't hurt. I can say the microalgae in my tank has started to come in really nice since upgrading.

[jestep]

Can't believe how well this turned out. Looks really good.