# DIY Power Compacts



## onemyndseye (May 12, 2006)

I just put this together for my 20 Gallon and thought I would share 

Two of these: (Good Earth 26Watt Wall Sconce)









Plus This:









Equals:









I work at a hotel and the maintenance department were going to throw away the 2 26Watt fixtures and a 13watt PC Desklamp due to missing or broken pieces, etc ....JACKPOT!! I asked the maintenance supervisor to hold them for me and picked them up after work friday morning.

I didnt show how to put it together But I'll explain.

The Aquaculture light fixture was gutted completely. Except for the switch.

I then fastened a 9volt dc transformer (stolen from a wall plug AC/DC Adapter) where the old NO Lamp ballast was mounted.

There was enough room on either side of the white reflector to house the new ballasts.. they are not mounted in any way, simply wedged into place and held down by they're own wiring. Then new endcaps where fastened into place with abit of epoxy putty.

Everything was wired up to the stock switch and the 9volt transformer is used to power a small CPU cooling fan that takes advantage of the hole in the reflector where the starter used to be. (Shown below)










After running 12 hours the bulbs and the hood glass are both warm to the touch.... but not hot.

Finished product installed and running:


















The 13watt Desk lamp ended up in the lid of my 2.5 Gallon fry tank:









Managed to sqeeze the ballast, endcap, and switch into the same space where the screw-in bulb socket used to be (after alittle surgery to that clear plastic cover).

Take Care,
-Justin
One Mynds Eye


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Looks pretty good, but I wouldn't want to risk those ballasts dropping down into the water, so I would attach them someway. More epoxy is one way. Does your fan blow down into the canopy or out of it? I like having mine blow into the canopy, across the water and out the ventilation holes. I think that is the most efficient way to use it. As I'm sure you know, you can reverse the fan by reversing the wires to it.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

The two bulbs that are 26 watts actually give out not more than 18 watts worth of light each. That's due to the moronic design. I speak from experience but you can just look at the bulb - no matter how you turn it you can always see only 2-1/2 maybe 3 tubes exposed. A lot of the light just bounces back and forth in a closed space. A perfectly designed reflector will help but if makes no sense to make one.

As usual - if your plants do well and the tank is clean who cares about the wattage. Just giving you heads up about the drawbacks of bulbs like these.

--Nikolay


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## onemyndseye (May 12, 2006)

niko - yeah, I've had the same thought... but the tank only has anubias, crypts, and dwarf sag.... probably will be ok either way. Those are the lamps that came with the fixture and I've already started looking for ones that will work abit better. There is also a 4 Pin 3 Tube bulbs that might be marginally better. The tubes are in more of a hex shape instead of square... I also thought about making a reflector with some specular aluminum I have lying around... but also had the same thought - the difference probably isnt worth the effort.... thats why I kept the original lightstrip parts.

I probably should have wired on the normal 4 pin endcaps ..... but I didnt - I still could If I have alot of problems as the epoxy can be cut away from behind the reflector.

hoppy - They cant drop into the water because the light strip sits on top of the flat plastic hood... standard hood that Aquaculture makes....or All-Glass. Not that they can move - infact as a test I held up the lightstrip by the ballast and shook it - ballasts had about 1/16th an inch play.. The fan is blowing out of the light strip to pull heat out. In a wood canopy where the air from fan interfaces with the water I would do the opposite because it would keep moisture from ruining your fan (or salt creep in a reef tank)... Also I did this because the fan is quite tiny and not running at full speed since a 9V Trans was the biggest I could fit into place... LOL if you look at the full size pic... in the top center of the white plastic reflector you can see that shape is distorted - because that transformer had to be squeezed in with a shoe horn!  . This fan unfortunately cannot be reversed. Yet another reason for mounting they way I did - turned around it would rub the white plastic (well... shims or spacers of some sort could be used) All that being said I believe you are right.... blowing IN probably cools better I was just unsure this tiny little fan would be able to push air through all these tight little spaces - this was it more or less assists in convectionary ventilation  

The light on the 2.5 gallon is BRIGHT. I fired it up today for the first time and was quite pleased 

Thanks guys 
-Justin
One Mynds Eye


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## onemyndseye (May 12, 2006)

I found a bulb this weekend at my local lighting supply that is similar to this one:

http://www.servicelighting.com/catalog_product.cfm?prod=GL29024

It forced me to revamp the fixture abit but it should get more light to the tank.

-Justin
One Mynds Eye


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