Cultural Learnings of Borat Continue To LED Light

Borat · Nov 3, 2023

Btw I have fish - it's just that the tank has a large DIY rock that's suspended above bottom. Perfect refuge for fish - but unfortunately they might sometimes not be in a mood to show up.

Current fish are:
- 2x black clowns
- convict tang
- tomini tang
- pinkface wrasse
- coral beauty

Amphibious Wallet · Nov 6, 2023

Borat said:
I built new brackets that are made of 2020 V-slot aluminium extrusion these are screwed into wall, and have a pivot connector allowing the LED fixture to be lifted up for maintenance. The existing brackets held 2x ReefLED 90's and my prior DIY fixture. Those will soon be sold with my ReefLED 90s.

I now have 2 LED fixtures, both same in length and height, but new one is about double the width of existing (existing one was DIY'd 2.5 years ago and have 56x 3w Bridgelux/Epiled LEDs with total wattage of ~120w). I will mount the existing LED fixture tonight and post updated pictuures.

Look at that hotness.

Borat · Nov 6, 2023

If anyone is interested - I can upload the PCB's Gerber files and code.

Borat · Jan 26, 2024

I decided to replace glass covers with proper LED lens. Polymer Optics produce lens for the the MCPCB that I used in this project, however they are difficult to source (despite the manufacturer being within a 1 hour drive distance from where I live). Those lens are not cheap either, about £10 a piece (Polymer Optics 262).

So I looked around and found a seemingly similar sized lens: ANNA-40-7-WW (https://www.ledil.com/data/prod/Anna/Anna-40-sfds.pdf). Obviously there was a risk they it would not fit or that the mount legs are not where they should be - but I still risked it and ordered 22 lens for about £70.

I was lucky and these lens were exactly designed for MCPCB I had - the only small thing I had to do is to widen the 3 mount holes to from 1.6mm to 2mm using a drill (super-easy). The beam is 65 degrees - given that I have so many clusters the light spread should be pretty good.

I don't have a par meter - but I just measured the old (no-lens) light intensity using iphone and once the lens glue has sets in I will check it with the lens and then adjust the base level of lighting accordingly (at least as a starting level). I anticipate at least 30% increase in light intensity - which means I would be running the new fixture at about 50% of its capacity.