Leds moonlights and white lights on the cheap.

[jsbaker]

This is a continuation from Jozle's Vietnam lighting thread. I decided I had taken over his thread enough so I should start a new one with my progress. This is my first time posting pics on here so hopefully it works right.

I finally got around to getting it all put together and taking pics. The white leds are not as bright as the two fluorescent tubes but they are bright enough and have to be saving energy. I have decided to not do the white leds on my long 125 after doing them on the 110. I'm sure they would look better since the tank is long and not high. I also had about 18" of white left over so I made a light last night for a 29g tank we are using for some pregnant guppies that doesn't have a hood or light and it came out ok with just the one strip but I didn't take any pics of it.

The pic with the leds attached to the strip lights are the blue leds I added to my 125 and all the other pics are of the 110. The white leds are mounted in c-channel that was wide enough for two strips of white and the blues are mounted in c-channel that was wide enough for one strip. There are two total strips of blue and 4 total strips of white and all are about 45" long give or take a few inches. The c-channel came from the hardware section at lowes. There is a definite difference in the color of the blues between the high tank and the long tank. The rolls start out with wires already soldered to them but when you cut them you have to add wires or a connector. For the blues I was soldering connectors and got tired of that so I ordered the connectors and used those to connect the whites together and also cut one in half to use to connect a set to the driver. Both blues on the 125 are connected to 1 led driver. The blues on the 110 are on spare 12 volt adapter i had laying around and whites are on an led driver. The 12 volt adapter causes some issues with the timer so it's going to get changed to a driver soon. All lights on both tanks are controlled by digital timers and all of them run pretty cool so far. I checked a set of white earlier and with two strips of white one set is still cooler than 36" fluorescent strip light. I've got maybe $100 invested in everything and so far everyone is satisfied with the results. I'll try to get some decent pics tonight of the blue lights on in the tanks.

Here the links to what I used.

White leds - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00
Blue Leds - http://www.ebay.com/itm/110890069775...84.m1497.l2649
connectors - http://www.ebay.com/itm/120886047202...84.m1497.l2649

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[aesl1982]

Did these come with a plug to plug into wall?

[Kiko]

where'd you get the aluminum bars from?

[jsbaker]

No a plug is not included that's the purpose of the LED driver and even some of those don't include plugs. You can also use a 12 volt power adapter but the led drivers are made for this and don't have the issues that adapter do. The blues on the 125 are ran using a driver as are all 4 strips of white on the 110. The blues on the 110 are ran using a 12 volt adapter which screws with one of the digital timers when it switches them. Happens with one brand of timer but not another. The link below is what I used for the LED drivers. The 4 strips of white are supposedly 24watt and this driver is rated at 30 watts.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034GUEY4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01

[jsbaker]

where'd you get the aluminum bars from?

The bars are called c channel. They came from lowes in the hadrware section. Home depot sells them too but only the narrow version for one strip of lights. Lowes is the the only place I could find the wider ones. They have a display where they sell pieces of sheetmetal and flat metal bars and that's where it is.

These are the wider version.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_215871-37672-11384_0__?productId=3053597&Ntt=aluminum+channel&pl=1&currentURL=&facetInfo=

[Darth Coqui]

Very nice.
I will incorporate something like this in the near future along with my 6-0 vhos.
Thanks for the pics and info.

Frankie

[Jozle]

Very nice, not bright enough to grow stuff in but it was the results I was hoping to see.