DIY lighting system, yay or nay?

[viviana]

Was considering if I can do a DIY lighting system for my 30
g , but I am wondering if anyone of you done it.

so


yay or nay

 

[ValiantJared]

I was really debating doing it myself, but even with DIY its difficult to come in under the cost of a Chinese black box. (esp a used one). BUT you might be able to score some used/broken lights and scavenge the useful bits out of them and end up with something valuable. (anyone have an AI prime hd with broken leds they wanna sell me? lol)

 

[sbash]

What do you consider a DIY lighting system? (is there soldiering involved?)

 

[viviana]

Just been watching some youtube videos on it...not many though :/

 

[viviana]

On

 

[sbash]

If a you are looking into a complete DIY LED build, the cost can be quite low. The biggest physical challenge with larger lights will be the chassis itself. I built a nice little ~40 watt reef LED for my nano tank, it would have cost me less than $20 CAD.

There is a lot of reseach involved to get the right combination of LEDs to suit your needs. There is also getting the right drivers, getting or building a PWM circuit to allow for dimming, sourcing the hardware, math, building the chassis, etc.

How big is the tank you want to light?

 

[viviana]

oh lord...now that just sounds all too complicated haha, i'll just stick to buying one online.

and my tank is 30 gallons

 

[ValiantJared]

there are some companies that put out diy kits, if you really want to save money you can look at everything in their kit, and then source the parts yourself.
rapidled.com is pretty popular with reefers, but just buying their kits isn't really going to save any money over buying Chinese black boxes on ebay.