DIY LED Hood: Prebuild Thoughts...

[Milad]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I don't anyone has ever said you need a big finned heatsink, what I believe has been said is that yes with fans you can get away with smaller and cheeper forms of heat sinks, even 1.25x1.25 al tube.

what has been said though and provin is that if you have a fan failure and are not home to catch it or didn't build over temp protection into your design then that cheeper lighter heat sink puts your whole system at much more risk than a higher watt/in2 heat sink would.

got any pics of it with everything on full?

Steve

uh? Do you read all my posts or something, that you can say that for sure? Ive gotten flamed on other boards for saying you dont need the oversized heatsinks, you can use aluminium u-channel. I stopped saying it and started selling the oversized aluminium heatsinks but still tell people they can use the u-channel.

[claymax]

do you like the 1:1 rb/cw ratio?

[lastlight]

Does the thermal tape work as well as the silver paste?

The people that have been mounting with screws...is there paste used in these applications?

[GMGQ]

Thermal Tape is different from Silver Paste though.

Thermal tape is basically double sided tape, used to attach the LEDs to the heatsink, so that you can remove them later if you need to.

Silver paste is a thermal paste used between the LED and Heatsink to fill in the gaps between the 2 surfaces for optimal heat transfer. Yes, you should use some sort of thermal paste under the LED when using screws to mount them.

Originally Posted by lastlight

Does the thermal tape work as well as the silver paste?

The people that have been mounting with screws...is there paste used in these applications?

[GMGQ]

I like the colour i've adjusted them to now. It's kind of hard to say it's 1:1, as the whites can handle more voltage than the blues. Right now my blues are at about 800mA and the whites are around 1000-1100mA.

This fixture is on my frag tank, so I set it for a bit more white than blue, for better growth.

Originally Posted by claymax

do you like the 1:1 rb/cw ratio?

[Milad]

thermal tape is so much easier to work with than grease

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Milad

uh? Do you read all my posts or something, that you can say that for sure? Ive gotten flamed on other boards for saying you dont need the oversized heatsinks, you can use aluminium u-channel. I stopped saying it and started selling the oversized aluminium heatsinks but still tell people they can use the u-channel.

I agree with you. you can use a flat bar al if you want, just got to keep it cool.

Steve