Just been looking at your LED setup and have a few q's if that is ok mate?
Have been tempted to try something similar myself - are these the 3watt ones? If so how many do you think I would need over a 4 foot tank? Do you think 3w would be enough to punch down to the bottom at 24" or would I need 5w?
What angle of lens did you get?
How do the heatsinks attach to the LED? Is it using thermal compound like with a cpu?
Was the seller ok? How long did it take to arrive from HK?
Sorry for all the questions!!
These are the 3W high power LED's, they'd more than likely be enough to reach the bottom, a lot of people have them suspended higher above the tank than I do and their tanks are bigger so they'll be fine, 3W's are also good as if you were to use 5W and didn't want too high light then you'd have to use less and space them out which may cause dark spots.
I used 60 degree lens's on all mine as I'm now using less LED's, thing is with these LED's and lens's, you'll need to work out the lens angles yourself as you may need different ones for your set up. I used a large protractor and made up a card cut out to see where the light from each LED would be most intense and the one with 60 degree angle worked best for me. With setting up one of these, the more planning and research you do the less intense your head ache will be lol.
You can use thermal pads for the heat sinks but I used superglue, works fine and they've never gotten hot enough to need cooling yet. What I did was use 1mm sheet steel for my lid, no holes cut in it just painted the under side black to absorb heat and used a pillar drill to polish the top to reflect the heat. Better than steel would be aluminium as it has a high heat transfer rate but there will be a write up soon of all three units in case you need any more help by the way mate.
Seller was great, I've used them so many times now that I just drop them an email of the parts needed, they tell me how much, I pay via paypal and get them a week later.
Any more questions mate let me know, I found after testing numerous LED's that the plain white 6000K - 6500K LED's are the best for showing off your greens, I'm working on something to add to the units to make the colours in the fish pop a little more as they dull a little after using LED lighting. Also a good idea for adding a little stage style lighting is using a warm white LED on one side of your tank, hidden from sight that shines through the plants which creates a sunset/sunrise look, I'm working on mine at the mo as I need to build a small housing for it that's hidden.
