Thought i would quickly share one of our recent builds. The plywood that everything is mounted to is actually the bottom of a “shelf” for an in-wall bearded dragon tank we have. Below that tank is a 6’ planted turtle tank with a false background and these LEDs will replace 4 36" T12 shoplights that were used for the plants and tank lighting. There are a total of 36 3w Luxeon Rebel LEDs on 3 12" x 6" heatsinks driven by 3 750ma drivers at 75% power. The other three heatsinks in the picture are 12" x 9" heatsinks that will go over our frag tanks. We will have a total of 36 LEDs over three heatsinks with 18 Rebel 10K whites and 18 CREE Royal Blues driven at 1A without optics. The tanks are only 8" deep and the optics are overkill. We didnt want to drive them at 1A but could not find a 750ma dimmable driver that would work for our needs. Our next LED build will be to retro the T5 over our 265g tank. The main reason we waited so long to do the main tank is because the T5 bulbs still had life left. Ill post pics when we do it!
No but im sure Shawn will try to think of a way ;D We use one mecury vapor bulb per tank because they provide heat and UVB. I know they make UV LEDS but im pretty sure that any LED big enough to provide enough heat for the reptiles will probably blind them!
Sure. We buy from a bunch of different places but digikey.com is probably the best for most components. We get almost all of our drivers from rapidled.com since their prices are lower for single pieces then most other places bulk prices. Some of the stuff we buy direct like some of the starboards that arent stocked by anyone. We contacted bergquist directly and they got us in contact with a distributor but you have to have a business license to make purchases. Some of the other stuff we get from jameco.com, newark.com, and alliedelectrical.com. The rebel reels shawn got locally from a friend but he says they were surplus and arent always available whatever that means.
We just got the heatsink today for our 265g and we should have it built within a day or two. We have a 6’ nove extreme fixture on the tank now. We are going to take out half the bulbs and let the fixture run as 3’ LED and 3’ of T5 for a month or two. It will be our first chance to compare the two side by side and allow us to get the PAR and color of the new LEDs dialed in as closely as possible to our exisiting T5 setup. Ill post pics when we’re done.
[quote=“ponies999, post:6, topic:3740”]
The rebel reels shawn got locally from a friend but he says they were surplus and arent always available whatever that means.[/quote]
im pretty sure that means they “fell of a truck” hahahaha lOl
