DIY PAR38 LED Track Light

[moonshinetheslacker]

Pretty sweet light setup. I really like it. About those shades though... you mention that finding ones you like, that have plenty of airflow are few and fare between, and expensive. But you also mention "modern looking" shades. Have you considered not using a shade at all? I personally think that it would look plenty modern. I wouldn't think that there would be too much light spilling into the room, as concentrated as that beam is.

If there is too much light spilling into the room if you remove the light shades, maybe you could manufacture something out of aluminum flashing? It's what I used on my 10 and 20 watt LED floods, to keep the light from bouncing against the glass, causing algae issues. Bonus is that aluminum flashing is plenty cheap.

[DogFish]

I'm sure someone with metal skills could fab up something out of of flashing.

I did look at them as bare bulb application. The bulbs on a white power cord are very modern looking. In the right place that would work.

We didn't like the look at all. We felt your eyes went straight to the bulbs and they detracted from the tank. In that particular room your mind tends to ignore the lights/shades all together as they tend to just blend in. In a white room stainless steel would be a major distraction.

[audioaficionado]

While I was in the hospital infusion room with my wife, I noticed how well those 1x1 chromed egg crates were able to keep all the light shining down and not to the sides. I'm thinking I'll pick up some panels and experiment with T5s and LEDs to see if that could be a nice compact elegant solution. I dislike those huge aquarium canopies or anything resembling them over my tanks.

Those stainless steel salad bowls can be painted any color to help blend in better. Your shades look fine. Most people here expect a more standard aquarium look to the lighting fixtures and yours look different from anything we usually see posted on the forums. As long as they look good in the room and do the job, it's all good.

[DogFish]

Steve - Thanks. The whole idea was to NOT look like the typical Aquarium I'm pretty happy in the results.

Funny, my back-up plan was that very thought, paint the outside of the salad bowls flat white.

I think one could also make a neat looking display with track can lights. Think stage lights. They would need to be a maybe 40 degree andle optics as they would be higher up near the track. Two at the edges pointing untoward center , sweeping the tank from each side. Then one or two straight down from above. Again right room could look very nice and not at all typical aquarium presentation.

[wkndracer]

pictures from early on have dropped the link and aren't posting

any updates on the lighting and growth results?

[DogFish]

Originally Posted by wkndracer

pictures from early on have dropped the link and aren't posting

any updates on the lighting and growth results?

Mike thanks for the heads-up. I've updated the thread. Apparently, PhotoBucket defaults to the last use
post of a pic file.? I kinda forgot about this thread.