4hummers T5h0, Led, 6ft Custom Hanging Light Build

4Hummer

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Location
Kitchener, Ontario
Sorry for lack of updates. Been slow going lately

Got the First coat of stain on the exterior, and had to wait a few days for the stain to dry (Poly Shades: It's stain and clear coat in one..seems to stay tacky for days)

After which it was gluing the entire assembly together, and waiting for that to dry. (24 hours each side.. Only have 3 bar clamps... not enough to do both ends at the same time )

While the PL was drying I moved onto Setting up the Air Flow Tunnel's(Dunno what else to call it.. Fan Tunnels? Vent's? Exhaust tunnels? Glory Holes?)

The Idea here is I have 4 Ballasts (Each controlling 2 Bulbs) 4 Fans, and 4 (well I have 5 but not using one) Temperature Probes from the fan controller. I want each Fan to cool Individually and keep the section of Ballast and Cold spot at the perfect temperature.

Dry Layout Here:


Gluing.. Center Section is where the Fan Controller will be, The Power Distribution, the Power Bricks for my 21LED ReefBars, and 12Volt supply



Diagram: Hopefully this explains my madness


Mock up with Fans where they would be


 

4Hummer

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Location
Kitchener, Ontario
Final Stages.

Sorry for the Long Delay in updates, I have been waiting for bulbs to arrive. In my old fixture I Ran 2 ATI Blue Plus bulbs, 1 ATI Aqua Blue Special, and 1 ATI Purple Plus, I was planning on running this same color combination in this fixture only with double the amount of bulbs in 36" size, However I couldn't seem to find the ATI Blue Plus anywhere in Canada, After weeks of searching I finally gave up and got the Giesemann actinic blue (Only bulb I could find that was a close match) I'm hoping this bulb color combo is still desirable.


This First picture here I'm mounting the 21LED Actinic LED strips, The wire connectors are hidden underneath the LED strips (As they are quite large) the wires themselves will be hidden under the reflectors,




Here is a blurry picture with the reflectors installed (GoPro wasn't playing nice today for some reason) if you squint your eyes a bit you'll notice you cannot see any of the LED wires anymore. Also the reflectors still need to be cleaned, they are covered in finger prints and dust at this time.



Next up I want to show you some pictures of the Temp probes for the Fan controller. Remember I have 4 Fans, each cooling one ballast and the two bulbs that ballast is running. Here you can see the Temp probes (Red Circle) touching one pair of bulbs. The probe is placed near the hot end. If you look to the right of the probe you see the cooling duct



Here is the top side, I have simply hot glued the probe in place. Glued in such a way that the Probes thermistor tip just touches the Hot end of the T5 bulb




And here is an over view of all the electronics in place. Including the massive power brick for the 21LEDUSA.com LED strips and controller,

Everything is wired up at this point.




One Problem I ran into was the wires for the Fan's themselves, Since the Fans are attached to the lid and sit outside the center section, I originally cut four slots in the barrier that separates the center electronic section from the Fan/ballast section, However when closing the lid the fans wires were next to impossible to keep in there "slots" and I often ended up crushing these wires when securing the lid. I needed a way to keep the wires in place.

What I did was create a kind of J-Hook in the slots, (Did this with a round file) now as I'm closing the lid I slip each of the wires coming from the fan to the controller in this J-Hook and close the lid. So far I haven't kinked the wires





Up next, Hanging the Fixture.
 

4Hummer

Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Location
Kitchener, Ontario
Is there any ventilation for the power bricks?

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

Very Minor. some blow by from the 4 other fans. (it's not air tight,) I've been keeping my eye on the Temps of the power bricks, and so far so good, I may add a small fan to the center section (The fan controller can control 5 fans in total)
 

TORX

Administrator
Staff member
Website Admin
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Location
Blenheim, Ontario
Website
www.thefragtank.ca
That would be my only concern so far. This build is amazing. Enclosing those bricks while running 8+ hours a day with the heat transfer from the bulbs could be a major issue.

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