# COB LED - ALU - Mecanno style light stand..



## zozo (10 Jul 2017)

Simple straight foreward, easy and cheap from any hardware store and but effective for, as far my eyes do not deceive me, a not to large medium lit tank.. Anyway i think, if you know this 




(and if you're from the UK i bet you do.)

Than making this will be peanuts for you. 



It still only testing right now, so it still is a bit rough around the edges.. Still have to give it a nice sanded finish and a acrylic cover to protect the led from dirt and splashes. I'll come back to that later. But for now it tested perfect for the job.

Builded it for a future 40 cm cube tank with 6mm glass thicknes, which i obviously yet do not have.. So testet it on my 40x25x25 cm little plantbin. The cob units run on DC 12-14 volt and are about 15 watt each. In the picture it runs on 13.8 volt at it's max power.. These are dimmable with PWM. A simple pot. meter controlled PWM dimmer or a TC420. Obviously at 12 volt they are a bit less bright, but still enough for a low to medium lit tank. I must say, even if you put 14 volt on the TC420 the max output still will be a bit lower then 12 volt. So it will always be less in power on this device. For max power a manual PWM dimmer with a +12 volt input is required for full power option. Ofcourse you need a 14 volt power supply for that. If you have a 12 volt, measure its real output, if it is realy 12 and no more, you could consdider a Buk converter to step it up to 14 volt.







As said it's Mecanno style and the pictures are rather self explanatory.. I'll link to the materials used and give if necessary a little how to description. So it also would be an easy calculation for you to get to the approximate total cost.

Materials and tools used listed.

2 x COB unit DC 12-14 volt - 15 watt - 6500K
2 x aluminium heatsink 100x50x10mm 
10x10mm aluminium corner profile
10x10x8mm aluminium U profile
8x6mm aluminium tube
M4x6mm aluminium Blind Rivet nut
M4 x 10 stainless alen bolt
M3 stainless alen bolts different lengths

M3 metric tap
2.5mm, 3.0mm , 4.0mm metal drill bit
cordless drill
Mini hand saw
Mini pipe cutter
And some other obvious tools.

! point of consern you should note, i chosen 10x10x8mm U profile because it is meant to stand on a 6mm glass thicknes. And it also can stand on a 4mm glass thickness, but, than keep in mind you are measuring centre to centre. A 6 mm tank will be wider than a 4 mm tank.. So this means if you make something like this initialy on a 4mm tank, keep in mind to make it a few MM wider so it also fits a 6 or 8mm tank later on. 

The stands are 8x6mm alu tube.. How to get thread in the tube? That where the blind rivet nut comes in. The M4 blind rivet nut is 6mm outside diameter and 11mm lenght. Fits snugly into the alu tube.. You can use a blind rivet gun to press them into the tube. If you don't have such a gun, you can glue them in.. One at each end of the standoff and you'll have M4 thread at each end of the 8mm tube.




The drilling part comes in the rest, mostly into the heatsink. All 2,5mm drill bit and taped M3 thread.




So all is screwed with little stainless screws, LED units are simply connected in serie.. You can make it with as much UNITS as you like or will fit over the lenght of the tank.



Used a few little pieces of M3 felt padding material 10x8x2mm to glue into the U profile for some glass protection. Anything else soft will do as well, whatever you have, cork, piece of a bicycle tire inner tube etc.

This is the raw proto type..  The top will simply be covered with some 4mm acrylic inlay into the corner profile, with some sticky alu foil tape glued to it, to make it look the same from the top. For the LED cover i need to bend some acrylic. Which actualy also isn't that hard.. But yet didn't come to that.. First wanted to know how warm it all gets when burning.. But till now it stays rather cool to the touch.. So i guess i'm good to go with that.. And will come back to it later on to show the finnished light stand.

And BTW, if you leave off the stands and only use the heatsinks and corner profile. You can make it hang on a wire and have a pendule light..  Ofcourse...


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## Tim Harrison (10 Jul 2017)

...Genius


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## zozo (10 Jul 2017)

Thank you..


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## PARAGUAY (11 Jul 2017)

presume this is patented,thanks no more drilling the cabinet for me


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## zozo (11 Jul 2017)

zozo said:


> ! point of consern you should note, i chosen 10x10x8mm U profile because it is meant to stand on a 6mm glass thicknes. And it also can stand on a 4mm glass thickness, but, than keep in mind you are measuring centre to centre. A 6 mm tank will be wider than a 4 mm tank.. So this means if you make something like this initialy on a 4mm tank, keep in mind to make it a few MM wider so it also fits a 6 or 8mm tank later on.



Oops! Have to correct myself on this, mixed it up while writing, It should be other way around.. Made a over a month ago and didn't finnish it. So it wasn't freshly on my mind anymore. Excuse me for that. 

Anyway i'll explain it with numbers which makes it more clear. And use a 40 cm tank as example

40 cm wide x 4mm glass is centre to centre 
400mm - 4mm = 396mm

40cm wide x 6mm
400mm - 6mm = 394mm

40cm x 8mm
400mm - 8mm = 392mm

Since there only is 8mm clearance in the U profile, this rather should be taken into account at forehand if it is measured on a 4mm glass thikness and want to place it later on on a 6mm or 8mm glass thickness. If you measure it on a 4mm glass tank it wont be centre to centre on a 6mm and look off and it wont fit at all on a 8mm glass tank.

And obviously goes the same for any lengt of tank.. Keep future projects in mind so it ca be used optimaly without a need of a rebuild.


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## zozo (11 Jul 2017)

PARAGUAY said:


> no more drilling the cabinet for me


That is my main inspiration for comming up with alternatives.. I also dislike damaging cabinets with uggly holes if not necessary.
That simple cheap M4 blind rivet nut was the main problem solver in this build. It accidently has the same dimension as the inner diameter of a 8mm alu tube. Makes the ends of the tube 9mm which again fits perfectly in the 10x10x1 mm alu corner profile, 10x1 = 9

Another hint for alternative materials to use for DIY builds. Are components from the glass display cabinets. With minnor modifications perfect for fixing light fixtures to tanks.

Small collection of possibilities. There are many more didn't research them all yet.




Fix a goose neck to it.. 
Next project..


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## rebel (31 Mar 2019)

Superb work as always.

I am surprised that you were not tempted to try out different spectrums with red, blue, green leds etc.

Any thoughts on exposure of aluminium to the aquarium water? I would be cautious as it can dissolve in acidic water and potentially accumulate.


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## zozo (31 Mar 2019)

rebel said:


> Superb work as always.
> 
> I am surprised that you were not tempted to try out different spectrums with red, blue, green leds etc.
> 
> Any thoughts on exposure of aluminium to the aquarium water? I would be cautious as it can dissolve in acidic water and potentially accumulate.



Thank you Rebel.. 

I did experiment with colors for about 2 years.. RGB and the so called Red/Blue full spectrum grow lights. RGB was fun for playing with decorative ambient lights such as sunrise, sunset and moon light or back lighting. But it all is in the little minnor details and after i felt i played enough, i lost interest. For the plants i never noticed a valueable improvement with using RGB or these grow lights. Thus came to the personal conclusion a simple white color light is sufficient enough and looks best for what i do and want. 

Aluminium and aquarium water exposure is a relative slow process, i've used this build for over a year above an aqaurium and didn't realy notice anything drastic. I guess it might also depend on water paremeters and how much water will be regularly spilled on the aluminium. In my case nothing much happened, the light just stood there and was taken away when performen maintenance on the tank. I never realy came in contact with much water other than i little drop now and then.. I can not speak in universality about parameters and husbandry ofcourse. But after a build is completed a thin layer of protective coating on the aluminium parts can always be applied if problems are suspected.

I stopped using thsi light because for this summer i need to tear all aqauriums in this room down. The room needs a new paint job etc. An probably wil no longer have aqauriums in the future.


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## rebel (1 Apr 2019)

Make sense @zozo.

I didn't see that the build was from 2017! Way ahead of it's time....


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