ReefLEDLights Build

[GuySmily]

My ReefLEDLights order arrived last week, and I've been working on it little by little. I've been snapping pictures of the build process so far, and I'll post updates as I make progress.

Planning
I asked the guys at ReefLEDLights what kind of build I should do if I wanted a more white than blue for my 36" tank, so what they put together for me is a modified version of their Phoenix 25 kit on two 12" heatsinks.

25 LEDs is a little awkward since it leaves an extra empty column, but I stuck with it since that's what they recommended. If the drivers can handle it, I might fill the extra column in later on, just because it bugs me so much.

I had originally planned on soldering, but I'm glad I didn't because the solderless kits look very nice and are very easy to make changes to. I definitely did not want to do thermal epoxy, so I also got drilled and tapped heatsinks.

Here's what I bought:

Unboxing
The USPS flat rate box was packed like a puzzle - everything fit perfectly together. The two heatsinks were packed with the fins inside eachother, wrapped with super thick saran wrap stuff to keep them from sliding against eachother, then wrapped again with foam sheets and placed at the bottom of the box. Everything else is individually wrapped in foam sheets above that, then a foam block goes on top.

It's too bad that BOTH heatsinks were damaged. I'm pretty sure it happened before shipping, since the foam/saran wrap was in perfect shape. I'm guessing they were dropped onto a concrete floor or something. It's purely cosmetic, so I just put the damaged parts in the back:

[Pic of other heat sink to follow]

Here's everything unpacked. Each item is neatly bagged and labelled:

I've never seen LEDs on stars before, so I thought I'd take a picture of that too:

Coming up next: The build

 

[h20cooled]

I'm doing a similar install on my tank, the design and build was very easy and quite bright. Now I just need the money to buy the 2nd Phoenix 25 kit.

I think my only complaint was there were no clear instructions on how everything goes together, so I ended up calling them and found a video that helped.

Rich

 

[GuySmily]

Assembly
1. Break off a star. The stars are already scored, so all you need to do is bend back and forth. I prefer more repetitions and less bend angle - less than this picture.

2. Apply thermal grease. You don't need a lot:

I spread the grease around. On a CPU you would use something flat like a credit card, but I didn't worry about making it nice for the LEDs. This star has way too much grease, and it'll all squish out the sides:

3. Place star on heatsink. Watch your polarity!. If you're going solderless, your stars will be partially rotated - NOT upright! I had to redo half my first heatsink because I didn't realize this.

+ on top, - on bottom:

If you're daisy chaining rows together, you might need to flip a row upside down (+ on bottom instead of + on top). This is similar to how a remote control would have you flip one battery upside down, so that the two batteries can be connected end-to-end.

The bottom row of exposed stars is purposely flipped, + on bottom, - on top:

4. Install solderless connector. I used a T10 bit since none of my hex heads fit. This is star is lined up wrong. Also notice that the BJB connectors have + and - sides (but you can completely ignore them if you want to):

Notice where the bottom of the star contacts the heatsink. This is snugged up, but not tightened.

Tightened. See how a little bit of thermal paste squished out?

Repeat the above process for every single star. It takes a while, but you'll get really good at gauging how much thermal grease to use.

Next time: Wiring

 

[ReefLEDLights]

Fantastic build thread! LOVE the photos.

Also inspired us to drop USPS for shipping heatsink'd kits

 

[GuySmily]

Yeah, looking again it's pretty clear that this happened during shipping. (will edit my post - Sorry!)

It's too bad since priority mail is so quick. You guys even wrote FRAGILE so hugely on the box.

I found the spot where the damage happened. The whole corner is smashed in and you can see a hole where the heatsink poked through. That hole shows how far away the heatsink was from the corner, but they threw the box so hard they still damaged it.

Did you guys insure the package? Maybe USPS will buy me a new kit?! Yeah right, lol. No biggie though - I put the dented corners on the back side.

I need to finish writing the build, but here's a teaser:

I just spotted a minor issue thanks to the above picture. Can anyone see it?

 

[C Dog]

far right row, 2nd led is tilted

 

[Travis55]

Wow. Amazing job! I really want leds but skipping a house payment to get them probably wouldn't be the best idea. Lol

 

[ReefLEDLights]

haha, just use a flat head screwdriver to push up and click in the optic holder. I have done the same thing on a couple builds.

 

[GuySmily]

Yeah, I somehow missed that back when I first got the lights over the tank. It clicked right into place though.

Wondering if I should ask a mod to move this to the ReefLEDLights forum so that it's more visible for people doing these builds.

Wiring
This part is easy once you get the process down. I had an easier time cutting each wire one by one, instead of pre-cutting and stripping the wire beforehand. I used some solid 20 gauge white wire I had laying around.

1. Strip one wire end. It's still attached to the spool here. Try to throw the insulation pieces away as you go, or you'll end up with a ton of them all over the place (like in the next pic):

2. Push that end into a connector. With 20ga, I had to hold it closer to the connector than pictured, and aim it relatively straight, or I would bend the wire.

3. Optional. I bent the wires to create a more squared off look, but you don't have to.

4. Cut the wire. You want to make sure that you have enough length to be able to strip and insert it into the next connector. Too much is better than too little.

You can see about how much length I add - it almost reaches the end of the connector area:

5. Strip the end (tricky, since the wire is short now), and insert into next connector. You have to do a little extra bending to get it into the connector, which kinda ruins the creases, but it still comes out looking good.

Things get a little more complicated when you're wiring complex layouts. You can sometimes get away with flipping a row of stars upside down, but I wanted my main connectors to be on the same side so I had to run one wire up and around the heatsink to connect two rows together:

On the left side of this picture, you can kind of see the top row of blues is connected to the middle row. But I had to connect the left side of the bottom row to the right side of the middle row (which disappears under the ruler). The red and black wires are 18ga, and will run down to the project box:

Next time, I think I will use one ground wire, and have different colors for different strings of lights.

 

[GuySmily]

Project Box / Miscellaneous
My project box is still a WIP, and I don't think I like the way it's going. So, for now, I'm going to show pictures without writing them like instructions.

I love 3M trim tape. It's NOT like any double sided tape I've ever heard of. Quick story: My friend mounted a spoiler to his car, and I was like "You're crazy. You can't tape a spoiler onto your car." A couple years later, we practically had to saw it off when he sold his car (and kept the spoiler). But the tape left NO damage on the paint. (Now my spoiler is mounted on the same way. If you jumped on the spoiler, you'd break off the bumper before the spoiler came off)

So, I used that stuff to mount my drivers to my project box:

Don't need much. I cut the strips in half. It's still REALLY hard to take the drivers out of the project box. I didn't even clean anything before sticking it on.

Mounted into a project box from Radio Shack. They're in stacks of two, which I would NOT recommend except that I'm using a fan on these.:

As for the dimmer pots, I had to cut these tabs off for them to sit flush against the project box. I don't know why they even put these tabs on there, but the knob would sit at an angle until I got rid of em.

Before = right, after = left:

Here's how the project box looks. The bottom left will be AC in - the same figure-8 connector you'd find on, say, a laptop charger. On the top left, I was going to use a DE-15 (VGA/monitor) connector to connect to BOTH fixtures, but now I'm not sure if that's such a good idea. I do have separate connectors for each heatsink though. Also, the colored knobs from ReefLEDLights are a NICE finishing touch. Notice that both my fixtures run on the same set of knobs (ie one blue knob controls the blue brightness for BOTH my heatsinks)

For now, since ReefLEDLights kindly sent a couple free Medusas (euro-terminals), I have everything hooked up that way, all hanging out of the project box.

---------------------------------------------------

I wanted to make a single fixture out of two heatsinks, so I bought some aluminum L brackets from Home Depot, cut them to length, and drilled them to use existing holes in the heatsink:

I picked up stainless steel (don't want rust!) hex bolts and bonded sealing washers to attach the sides and bottom. In this picture, you also see the brackets I made for mounting my fans:

I only used two brackets for each fan. My favorite 3m tape to stick to the heatsink, then a zip tie to hold the fan down.

I didn't buy fans from ReefLEDLights because I had some spare computer case fans. Then when I realized how small they were, I freaked out and bought 200mm fans. TOTALLY OVERKILL. They blow so much air that my tank evaporation has doubled or tripled. Next time I'll just get the temp sensing ones that ReefLEDLights sells.

 

[dwolson2]

Very nice build! How are you liking the lights? Itsn't that overkill for your set up? How big of a tank do you have(36" by what)
What percentage are you running them at?

 

[dorky]

dude!!1 i highly recommend you to get the temp control fan as matter of fact i dare u to get em. i bought 2 of em n totally fell in love wit em. it just so awesome that i will get it for every led project. the only con is figuring where to the sensor that is all.