Finished lid and lighting, yay

[sammydee]

Just got my marine lighting finished. My mum seemed to think that for some strange reason I-shouldn't-be-doing-soldering-in-my-room-and-why-wasn't-I-doing-my-homework-anyway? Luckily I had just finished, so here are the pics...

I soldered it for two reasons:

1) I am too poor to afford Endcaps.
2) After hearing horror stories of fires caused by overdriven bulbs, I was a bit worried about using endcaps.

I got the ballast off ebay for a fiver, and the bulbs were £7 each. That's 72 watts of lighting for £19! Not bad, huh? I am going to add two more bulbs eventually to give me a total of 144 watts for £38.

General installation:

Close up of my shoddy bodged up wiring : I know it's extremely dangerous - would anyone reccomend electricians tape or silicone or something to cover those exposed ends? My dad said not to use silicone, but didn't mention why..

I would highly reccomend this as a cheap, easy way to get a reasonable amount of light. If you're short of money this is the route I would go.

So, how bright is THAT:

It is blinding. I was surprised that it worked first time, but it did, and that's the result. I'm so pleased it worked!

At least it took my mind off my horrific disaster which happened in my other tank

 

[Lust]

[1] yeh i would coat the wires in some hot glue or silicine or somethinglike taht and coat them really well

[2] id watch those cable ties they mighjt melt

[3] i hopw have a glass lid on ya tank so if a bulb breakes it wont go fully in your tank

as for the hood it looks good (excluding the lights

 

[Blacky]

exposed wires like that is extremly dangerous and over water is worse cause you have moister everywhere i would have gone for the end caps

silicone will melt as well as any other kind of glue you really need the proper plastic end caps they wont melt cause they have metal links for the bulbs to go in

they cable ties will melt also

i wouldn't be turning those on at all untill you have some other kind of way to hold the bulbs in place

if you get the end caps the will screw in to the timber also giving you a way to hold the bulbs in place and a much safer wiring job

you will find this is very illegal an extremly dangerous
its a fire waiting to start

nice try though

the bulbs my freind should not touch anything at all apart from the end pieces you will find the varnish or what ever you used to seal the timber is flammable hot bulb on this is not a good outcome

you also want to be mighty careful those wires dont touch either




has you father seen this work ?

 

[sammydee]

I wasn't going to leave it directly over the tank, I was going to screw a piece of acrylic there to stop water and fingers getting to the contacts. I let them run for half an hour yesterday and then when I unplugged it and put my hand on it it didn't feel that hot at all. Certainly not hot enough to melt plastic I wouldn't have thought. I thought silicone had a high temperature tolerance anyway?

Maybe it would be a better idea to use those cable connector thingys with screws on, rather than the solder - I didn't think of that.

 

[Blacky]

yeah

you can get this electrical tape with what looks like fabric in it its real heavy duty stuff this may fix the problem

 

[sammydee]

I wasn't going to leave those wires uncovered by the way, just in case that's what you thought. That's why i asked for stuff to cover them with. I will look for this electrical tape stuff. Got a link on it so I know what i'm looking for?

thanks

 

[abstract]

as far as i know most acrylic (i assume you mean plexiglass) will also melt/warp/deform with heat....i have 2 thin strips (12" x 4") that i got for free covering the open spaces in my hood where filters used to be positioned so fish cant jump out......even without my lights being directly over it, they have warped to a U shape within 3 months

 

[sammydee]

You think? Hmm... It's an open backed hood... I wouldn't have thought it would get too hot in there... maybe I'm wrong. I will add a couple of fans tonight, for air circulation. That should keep heat problems to a minimum.

EDIT: This is why I wanted to use hard wired ends rather than endcaps.

 

[Grim Reaper]

looks nice but i hope u got a home insurance

 

[sammydee]

Hey, it's not as dangerous as it looks. I'm not actually going to put it on my tank in that condition. With some insulation around the exposed wires, it's probably the same/less of a fire risk than using standard endcaps (did you read through the link in my previous post?).

 

[Grim Reaper]

did you read through the link in my previous post?

Link what Link i dint see any link

 

[sammydee]

Link

You gotta read the first page, and like the 15th or 16th one where they work out what the problem is.

 

[Paul_MTS]

righty get yourself some heat shrink for the wires.

the bulbs do get hot, very hot.

i just took a reading from 2 bulbs that have been on all day and a 2ft 1 was at 115F and a 42" bulb was at 130 F. these readings were taken with a Infra red thermometer so the readings are very accurate.

the shorter bulb is in a open back hood with glass sliders before the water and the 42" tube is directly above the water.

proper end caps you can pick up on ebay for pennies.

get yourself some tube clips and a couple of reflectors that was the light won't be heating the hood to much.

 

[sammydee]

Ok you've convinced me it's not worth it to connect the lights up this way. Even if I am not going to get shocked, the ends could corrode or the hood could get hot and catch fire. I don't think it's worth the risks.

I will have a look for cheap fire proof endcaps on the internet.

 

[Blacky]

good i dea cause the stuff you used to water proof the hood will no doubt be flammable to and wont take long to burn