DIY Lumenarc Kits

winland, when do you think you'll fire up your hammered lumenarc?

I bet its going to perform very well. the hammered aluminum should help average out any minor imperfections in the overall shape of the reflector - from say, dropping and warping the physical form, or from the lamp's arc tube not being perfectly centered in the reflector.


I wonder if its any harder to clean out salt creep or dust from hammered aluminum? anybody with experience on that?
 
I finally found a supplier of the Alanod Miro IV Extra Bright. They're out of Canada (Larry Bloch). They ship 24"x48" sheets as their standard size, and only $40 each. The kicker is the shipping however. They ONLY ship via FedEx Priority Overnight, which for 1-5 sheets is $122. HOLY SCHNIKES!!!! For 5 sheets shipped, that comes to $64.40 per sheet.
 
Just out wondering how you guys are bending these? Are you using a sheet metal brake? I know Harbor Freight makes a small 24 or 36" brake for a a fair price. I am not sure if any of you have have picked up one?

I guess I am lucky, since I have a full sheet metal fab shop to use. I am just waiting to find a good source for 90%+ reflective hammerered alum.
 
forgive me if i am wrong here but doesn't a white surface reflect more light then a polish surface. you could use any material then paint with high temp white. This leads to the next question of why you don't see any commercial light fixtures what are white...
jeff
 
Because polished is much more reflective then white. Sanjay did a study on reflectors, but I cant seem to find it. Lumenarcs smoked the competion.
 
According to the link above, all the miro-silver mirror finish have higher reflectivity ratings than white. I am not sure what you are getting at.

By all means, if you think it will work, try it. But white reflectors are not being commonly sold in aquarium lighting for a reason.

I think it would be neat if you built one of each, one white, one 94% reflectivity miro-silver, then installed each and took par values with the same bulb and ballast. Would definately be a neat study.
 
i am trying to find a par meter but i have my ideas on why they use mirrored aluminium instead of high gloss white but i will see if i can find one this will tell if i'm right or wrong but like most things in this world copy protection is important and its alot harder to find mirrored aluminium versus white...you can even buy white aluminium at home depot..hopefully someone will have a par or lux meter
 
Check with your local club. Sometimes they have things such as par meters and fish traps and such.

I would like to see the experiement, it is definately warrented.
 
white painted reflectors will diffuse the light MUCH more, while reflective metal will reflect the light like a mirror, in a specific bounce direction.

big difference. the white will be way less intense but spread out more.
 
I am not getting at anything. I posted the link in reference to "hammertone" reflectors. The link says that the white surface is more reflective than hammertone. That's all. IMO they are all pretty darn good if you ask me. 90% is great if you really think about it. I mean, after all you are only trying to reflect the light that comes from the back side of the bulb. The side of the bulb that is facing the water is a 100% direct hit. So you're getting 100% of one side and 90% of the other from nothing more than white paint. I like.
 
I question the validity of the page you linked.

It does claim that white is more reflective than just about every kind of aluminum.

I've seen tests before showing that TINFOIL is more reflective than white paint.
 
trying to find a better source, but you may be right. but it highly depends on the type of white paint used. somebody on another forum said that white enamel paint is 97% reflective because of the high glossy finish?

so maybe certain kinds of white paint get the specular and diffuse going?

wonder if those high glossy paints can stand the heat of being right next to an MH bulb....
 
Somehow I doubt a company that sells shiny metal for reflecting light would let the cat out of the bag like that. I mean, if they were going to put false info on there I would think it would be falsified in their favor right? In other words, they have no reason to say the white painted aluminum is so effective. It actually is a bad thing for them.
 
youre right, I dont doubt that the numbers are wrong the way they tested them.

I was just wondering if the white paint would be more diffused and so the intensity would fall off faster, making it less ideal for focusing light into tanks. I'm probably overthinking it..

is the glossy surface really able to achieve the same specular as the mirror like finish of polished aluminum?

I'm curious why all the diffuse and specular properties are omitted for the white painted aluminum.
 
I still have to go back to the point, NONE of the major reflector manufacturers in the world sell a high gloss white reflector.
 
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