DFW
Active Member
I had been thinking about mounting 6 or 8 T5s with reflectors in the hood of my main display tank, but the Sunpaq retrofit kits that I have would not fit, because each of the reflectors with that kit are 3 1/2 inches wide, and I only have 16 inches of width in the hood. There are 2 inch wide reflectors being sold, but 8 reflectors would be more than $180, and even just 6 would be at least $140. Ouch! Being slow to spend, as I am, I committed this to my thoughts, and prayers. How do I provide reflectors without having to spend all of that? Then I had an idea! While looking at the reflectors provided with the Sunpaq kits, I noticed that the back of each reflector was 1 1/2 inches wide, while each of the other 4 surfaces - 2 on either side of the back side - were 3/4 of an inch wide. If one were to cut the reflector in half longways, they would then have 2 reflectors with three 3/4 inch wide sides, and they would be 1 3/4 inches in width! (I could fit 9 of these in my hood!) So, that's what I decided to do! But how?
How to divide the reflectors lengthwise neatly, and without leaving unnecessarily sharp, ragged edges? While digging around in my tool/junk box, I ran across one of those plastic dividers that come with those plastic storage/fishing lure boxes. After putting the straight edge of the divider in the bend of the reflector, I determined that it might make a good jig for use with my utility knife. After marking center on the reflector, I placed the divider so as to transfer the center mark on the reflector to the divider. Then I drove the knife blade through the divider at this mark just enough so that the blade tip could make contact with the reflector. This tool made it easy to make a clean, straight cut!
Several passes of the utility knife down the length of each reflector while keeping the straight edge of the plastic divider in the crease of the reflector scored the metal making it easy to carefully bend, and then break them into two reflectors. Then it was down to a few adjustments of the bends to get them the way that I wanted them.
The Sunpaq kits were designed to have the reflectors installed under the end mounts. This would no longer work, since the mounts rested on the 1 1/2 inch wide back side of the reflector, and now the back of each reflector is only 3/4 of an inch wide. Since they will no longer fit under the mounts, each reflector must be cut shorter in length, and since I am having to cut them down shorter anyway, why not mount them to the bulbs with clips, since this is likely a big improvement in reflector placement over the design of the Sunpaq kits anyway? Two bulb mounting clips must be added to each reflector.
These reflectors are only 3 sided, and I do have to buy bulb clips to mount them, and they may not be equal to the high dollar reflectors I could have bought. But I bet they will do pretty darn good, and I can make 16 of them out of the 8 that came with my Sunpaq retrofit kits! Now I can spend $20 on clips instead of $200 on reflectors, and I can squeeze a bunch of bulbs in the hood of my tank!
I still had to overcome the width of the retrofit end cap mounts. Fortunately, my tank is 39 1/2 inches long, making it possible to stagger, lengthwise, every other tube in the hood in order to get the bulbs that close. This will not work unless you have that extra length so that you can stagger the mounts. It would be pointless to make narrow reflectors, only to find you cannot squeeze the end cap mounts in there that close as well, although I think that there is some room for modification of the mounts as well. They might take some trimming to make them narrower as well.
I am sure that some of you have already done something like this, but I thought that I would pass it along, just in case someone could make use of reflectors that you already have. Thanks for looking!
How to divide the reflectors lengthwise neatly, and without leaving unnecessarily sharp, ragged edges? While digging around in my tool/junk box, I ran across one of those plastic dividers that come with those plastic storage/fishing lure boxes. After putting the straight edge of the divider in the bend of the reflector, I determined that it might make a good jig for use with my utility knife. After marking center on the reflector, I placed the divider so as to transfer the center mark on the reflector to the divider. Then I drove the knife blade through the divider at this mark just enough so that the blade tip could make contact with the reflector. This tool made it easy to make a clean, straight cut!
Several passes of the utility knife down the length of each reflector while keeping the straight edge of the plastic divider in the crease of the reflector scored the metal making it easy to carefully bend, and then break them into two reflectors. Then it was down to a few adjustments of the bends to get them the way that I wanted them.
The Sunpaq kits were designed to have the reflectors installed under the end mounts. This would no longer work, since the mounts rested on the 1 1/2 inch wide back side of the reflector, and now the back of each reflector is only 3/4 of an inch wide. Since they will no longer fit under the mounts, each reflector must be cut shorter in length, and since I am having to cut them down shorter anyway, why not mount them to the bulbs with clips, since this is likely a big improvement in reflector placement over the design of the Sunpaq kits anyway? Two bulb mounting clips must be added to each reflector.
These reflectors are only 3 sided, and I do have to buy bulb clips to mount them, and they may not be equal to the high dollar reflectors I could have bought. But I bet they will do pretty darn good, and I can make 16 of them out of the 8 that came with my Sunpaq retrofit kits! Now I can spend $20 on clips instead of $200 on reflectors, and I can squeeze a bunch of bulbs in the hood of my tank!
I still had to overcome the width of the retrofit end cap mounts. Fortunately, my tank is 39 1/2 inches long, making it possible to stagger, lengthwise, every other tube in the hood in order to get the bulbs that close. This will not work unless you have that extra length so that you can stagger the mounts. It would be pointless to make narrow reflectors, only to find you cannot squeeze the end cap mounts in there that close as well, although I think that there is some room for modification of the mounts as well. They might take some trimming to make them narrower as well.
I am sure that some of you have already done something like this, but I thought that I would pass it along, just in case someone could make use of reflectors that you already have. Thanks for looking!
Thanks for sharing!
