Hexagon LED scrubber

[snail]

So this is what I have in mind to blend the light better. Use your imagination on the pics below. I intend to drill the hex and glue the LED right into the tank, then use wire jumpers to build the light banks and get a 12 volt power supply from a phone or printer, and power it up.

Maybe even make covers for over the wires etc.

[snail]

But for a truly slimline you could run the lights almost parallel to the scrubber screen. A slight angle and you can see the footprint of the light changes tremendously. Now your red and blues can blend better also.

[SantaMonica]

I see what you mean now by the parallel layout. Might be worth a try. What was the advantage?

[snail]

I see what you mean now by the parallel layout. Might be worth a try. What was the advantage?

Ah the advantage is that the led needed about six inches to spread out enough to overlap when all faced the same direction at a 90º angle to the scrubber.

[SantaMonica]

Do you thing optics could perform the same "spreading out"?

[worley]

it's an interesting idea, as the majority of LED light is reflected/refracted forwards (almost like a laser), so the fact that the LEDs are further away from the screen won't make much difference as long as the light that is "spread out" falls on the screen

[SantaMonica]

Isn't the total amount of lumens impacting the screen less, because there are less LEDs?

[worley]

If there are less LEDs, yes, however, if you covered each side of the hexagon with LEDs you could get a lot more to point at each side, and they would merge the colours nicely, not quite as slimline though, but more light.

[snail]

I figured on using about 200 or so led's and light both sides of the small hex (10" tall X 7" wide) for my 29 gallon tank. And probably around 500 or more for the 16x9 hex for my large tank.

Because of the angle, I can get the overlap and with proper arrangement can keep the same ratio as the panels without backing the lights up to far. Because of the overlap from shootng the light from both sides, I think I will get better absorption of light. For example if the sun was at high noon all day the under branches would not get lit. Of course, I could put lights on the face shooting at the 90, but don't really want to.

I have had some difficulty drilling this thinner plastic without cracking it. I did use a regular bit and this time would use the type bit for glass. Then I have to make sure I get the lights all facing the right way (+- leads) to keep wiring simple. Then spray the whole thing with a white lacquer, a few layers, over the wires and led's etc, to reflect the light better, and also to prevent corrosion. Then cover with a layer of black for cosmetics.