300 gallons of blog!

I was able to work on the main display lighting this last week, and here are a few images. The lighting will be comprised of a trio of lumen bright mini wide pendants, 20kK Radium bulbs, and 250W lumatek ballasts. The light rack also has 36 Cree LEDs on it driven by meanwell drivers (6 white, 30 royal blue). The LEDs will provide dawn/dusk control, as well as supplemental lighting during non-MH times (as I typically only run metal halide bulbs in the 4-6 hour range per day). I built a light rack using product from www.estoconnectors.com, and here was the initial sketch-up.



I got the light rack material on hand and confirmed that the pendants fit (this was a few months ago).



This week I accomplished two things. I wired up the light panel. These outlets are wired to either a DC-8 outlet or a switch on my main power panel. The meanwell drivers will also mount next to the ballasts on this light panel.



And finally, I finished wiring up all the LEDs on the rack. Here it is fired up. It is amazingly bright, even at only 3V across the dimming circuit (or, if you prefer, at 30% power). I think this will provide very good supplemental lighting (though note; the color in this picture is very misleading).



A lot of people have asked me about the connectors on the rack, but those are really just intended as feet for when I put this on the ground during maintenance or other off-nominal operations. Also, this rack will hang from the ceiling with a bike hoist to control height an for easy maintenance.

Next step? Building a stand.