My DIY Light Hood (56K warning)

Looks pretty good! I just finished building my own hood project which I put info and pictures up on this post:http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79093

I realize you already have it built but I found that the larger fans are quiter for the most part. The smaller ones generaly spin at higher rpms making a higher pitch whine while the large ones spin more slowly making more of a deep hum. I forget what they measure in mm but they are 5"x5" ultra quite ones, and to further reduce the noise I wired them both in series so they are getting 1/2 power each and I assume around 1/2 the rpms. Now I cannot hear them with the hood closed (they are on the back side of the hood next to the wall too), one blows in the other blows out. They are cooling my ballasts and lights well that are ~250W. Just thought I would mention incase you find they are loud, as many folks probably would think of trying to wire them in series.
 
I also bought 4 ballists running 4 lights(but thats because i had too cuz i got t6 bulbs), I got 4 40w 2 blue and 2 colour enhancers. not to go off topic but how are you getting 250W out of 4 lights when each t8 only outputs 32w?, anyway nice hood i like the lunar lights..
 
The T8s are overdriven, so instead of 4 bulbs on a ballast there are 2, and each bulb gets twice the power. This way, a 32w bulb gets roughly 64w of power, and is proportionally brighter. 64w*4= roughly 250w.
 
??? I'm not an electrical engeneer but i thought that it didnt do that???, so are you saying that I'm overdriving my 4? since i have 4 ballists that support two each on 4 bulbs?, if so then that explains why I grow the baddest strongest algae ever(i dosed my tankd with hydrogen-peroxied for two weeks with no results.)
 
I was wondering about having 4 ballasts too... I think IceCap 600s will drive that array of bulbs (but it wouldn't have been much cheaper, may not have had as much flexibility w/ timers etc.).

Very nice effort!
 
portabuddy said:
??? I'm not an electrical engeneer but i thought that it didnt do that???, so are you saying that I'm overdriving my 4? since i have 4 ballists that support two each on 4 bulbs?, if so then that explains why I grow the baddest strongest algae ever(i dosed my tankd with hydrogen-peroxied for two weeks with no results.)
Click to expand...

You overdrive a bulb by hooking mulitple ballast outputs to a single bulb. Like if you parallel all the outputs on a 4x ballast into just one bulb the thing will be really bright. You have to specifically wire it up that way though, you cant just remove 2 of the bulbs from a 4-bulb fixture and expect that the remaining 2 bulbs will be getting more power, just doesnt work that way. Do a search for "ODNO" to find out more info on that subject or check out a brief write up I did on it at http://tristan.homelinux.net/fish/tank/retrofit/index.htm
If your ballasts are wired up by the manufacturer thier arent odno, if you wired them and instead of using the wiring guide, you paralleled multiple outputs then you may have an odno setup.Without knowing exactly how its wired I cant really tell just by your description.
 
thanks man i'll mlook into it, i have a thread going in when i made the setup New Lights For My Cichlid Tank

but i only used one output from the ballist so i would say no im not overdriving it, but now that you mention it i might.
 
Nice work !!!!!! What paint did you use ? I have found that alot of over the counter type white oil base paints yellow fairly fast. A painter turned me on to the Porter Paints Glyptex. It resists yellowing. I use it and it does stay white. Just thought I would pass on this info if you ever need to repaint it.
Nothing like a good DIY :)
 
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