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Light Hood for 4x18w Tubes

Here I going to tell the story how I manage to build a cheap good light hood for my 105L tank.
I realize that I need more light on my tank, so I look around loading platforms and talk with some shops if they got some old light equipment they about to throw away.
I found some good stuff, so now I going to write a few lines to explain how I build a well working cheap light hood with parts that I found.

  Observe
This is only a description of how I made my own light hood.
I can not be hold responsible if anyone follows my advise and cause accidents or hurt themselves.
It´s absolutely no reason to try to deal with electricity if you don´t have the knowledge.
If anything goes wrong when you deal with electricity you or someone
in your near can get really hurt or even die.
If you decide to build yor own hood you should always consult a competent electrician
before you even thinking of plug it in and try it.

Because It´s a lots of pictures I dicide to go for thumbnails to save you some loading time
just click a pic to see a bigger view

On the left picture we see a old fluorescent-lamp fittings that I found in a garbage room of my girlfreinds old working place, It´s been holding 4x18 w tubes in the past and you need a smaller caterpillar just to move it ;-)
I take the tube holdings and the holdings for the glow switch from that pice of crap.

On the right picture we see a nice small fluorescent-lamp fittings from Sylvania that´s been mounted in an show-case from a swedish chicken company :-) I found six of them on a loading platform behind a food shop when I was out working.
I run in to the shop and ask the staff if I could buy them, the answer was that I could take how many I would for free because they was just about to throw them away.

 

So the things that I need to build the hood we see on pics below.

• One pice of wood I found in a container
   
• Reactor from the Sylvania fluorescent-lamp fittings
   
• Some cable
   
• 8 angle-iron to mount the tube holdings on
   
• The tube holdings
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
• Some masonite and triangle wood strip unfortunately I have to buy that :-(
  
   

Here wee se two pictures when I mounted the tube holdings.
The pice of wood I mounted them on is size 36 x 75,5 cm the distance between the angle-iron is 5 cm. The hole you see are going to be a food hatch, very conveniently if you dont want to lift of the hood when you going to feed your fish.

The holdings for the glow switch are mounted and the cable around the tube are connected + one reactor for testing.
look we got light......

 

Now we mounted the gable and beacuse I´m very careless when it´s came to measure it´s seem like a good idea to test it on the tank, it´s amazing it fits.....

Now we jump to the box thats going to contain the heat producing reactors. I made a small box with masonite for them becuse I didn´t want them in my hood beacuse the heat and the weight.
If I wanted I could make one tube at the time go on but I choice to light them up in pairs.
On the picture you will only see 3 rectors the simple explanation is that I not yet mounted the last one.
 

 
And now we must boost the light with some good reflectors because this is a low coast building I use a type of reflecting carton I bought on a hobby shop in Stockholm "Panduro hobby"
And I´m really impressed the work really well..

I use galvanized steel band to mount and give reflectors the right U shape
And I use construction glue PL400 to fasten the steel band

 

 

And now the final test drive of the hood to see if everything working as it should .
As you can see on the last picture I dont use a gable on the back and that´s beacuse I want to skip cover glass and get good air circulation to avoid condensation.

 

Improvement I did

• I saw up a small hole in the reactor box and mounted a metal net to get down the temperatur in the box. It got really hot in there, but now It´s about 55° celcius and that´s feels ok.
  

• I drill up some ventilation hole on the sides
  

• Painted it black

• Put on a lock on the reactor box to avoid accidents
  

• Have a electrician to look up it
  

Observe
This is only a description of how I made my own light hood.
I can not be hold responsible if anyone follows my advise and cause accidents or hurt themselves.
It´s absolutely no reason to try to deal with electricity if you don´t have the knowledge.
If anything goes wrong when you deal with electricity you or someone
in your near can get really hurt or even die.
If you decide to build yor own hood you should always consult a competent electrician
before you even thinking of plug it in and try it.

The way it look 3/9 2003

©2004 Michael Eklund