AHsupply.com light kit question?

debaric said:
I wouldnt recommend it at all just because the ballast is actually pretty heavy and where would you put if you did this.
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The ballast is not heavy at all. I think it only weighs 8 ounces, that's for a 2x55 watt kit.

Like I said before, you could get away without mounting it to a hood. Just do as others have said and screw the reflectors and bulb clips into a 2x2 piece of lumber. You can attach the ballast on the back side of the wood if you don't want to see it. Or right on top since you're going for the inustrial look.

I do still recommend covering the open ends of the reflectors with something as they really do throw a lot of light.
 
AH Supply offers free plans for building a very basic and easy to build box for their kits. I have made 4 of these as well as mounting another kit into a gutted Perfecto Strip.

I do suggest you try using the kit without a "container" of some kind.

One thing you can do with the kits is mount the ballast remotely- but that will limit the movement of the rest of the system based on how long a wire set you use.
 
its not that i don't think i can build a hood, i know i can, i just don't want to. and i am going to get the 1x96w kit. this is a 45g tank so its only 36" long. i'm going to hang it from some steel pipe coming up from behind the tank and put it on an adjustable chain so i can drop it down to be like 1/2" above the tank most of the time, then raise it up when i need to get into the tank for mantinence and stuff.
 
The clips for the lights screw through the reflectors into something. Thats what holds the reflectors and light clips in place. If you don't at the very least attach the clips to something, the lights will just hang down by the wires. If you wanted to use a piece of pipe, you could just screw or pop-rivet the clips and reflectors to it and it would work fine. You could either attach the ballast on top of the pipe or use the long wires and leave it behind the stand or something. I'd just tape the crap out of it because you don't want open wire nuts hanging around where water might be spilled or splashed, especially if everything's attached to metal.
 
Actually, she could just get some washers and the right sized nut for the screws for the bulb clamps and assemble it that way. There would be no need for a bar or anything to attach the reflector to.
 
While the AH Supply reflectors are superbly designed, they are not very rigid/sturdy. Left exposed using this design means they are going inevitably to get banged around. The plans AH Supply offers free use all dimensional lumber that require minimal cutting and are really easy to do.

One of the big advantages to having the lights 'boxed' is when you get to working in the tank. It is easy to postition the box in different ways on the top provifing lots of light so you can see what you are doing.

The design you have laid out will actually be as much and likely more work than making a box would be.

One last note- when i got my kits they didn't come with and on off switch. I had to buy and install my own. I don't know if this is still how the kits come.
 
Yeah, I had to buy switches for both my kits too. The alternative is to hard-wire the ballast to the plug and just plug it into a timer.

And I agree with TTA, the reflectors really should be mounted to something, they're very effective reflectors but not the sturdiets things ever. Not really meant to support the whole light by themselves.
 
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