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DIY LED mini luminaire

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29th January 2008

After completing my large DIY luminaire I decided that as I was making a small 10 litre fry tank that I would make a smaller luminaire for it.

This would comprise of 1 series of 3 x 3W Luxeons put together the same way as I did in the large luminaire. 1 series instead of 5 so basically 20% of the output. As they are basically the same thing as I used in the larger luminiare I won't go through that process again. Please see here for what I previously did - DIY LED LIGHTING

I did however decide that this one would be made with proper heatsinking, collimators and lenses.

The lenses I decided on were 30º and made for these Luxeons as were the heatsinks.

Firstly I used some spare acrylic to make myself a basic luminiare and mounting legs. Once this was done I used a 20mm drill bit to make 3 equal holes for the LEDs to shine through. Finally I sprayed the unit silver.

Once that was done all I had left to do was to solder the 3 Luxeons in series and to a current controller which then went to a single 12V DC adaptor.

Next I put thermal paste on the back of the Luxeon stars and pushed them onto the heatsinks. Whilst they were in position on the thermal paste I put superglue all around the edge to stop them sliding around.

The final step was to glue the front side of the lense holder to the inside of the luminaire base making sure that they were in position as best as I possibly could get them to shine perfectly through the holes. The dies of the stars then push straight into the back of the lense holder and are a very good fit.

Upon testing the unit works very well and so the unit complete.

17th February 2009

After a month or so of being annoyed with the lenses making the light shine in beams (It is noticeable through the water) I decided to see how they were without lenses just like I have done in my main luminaire. The test below shows the difference between the 2 LEDs on the left which have lenses and the one on the right where I have removed the lense. It shows that with the lense the beam intense centre measures about 3 inches with the lense whereas without the lense the light spreads out more equally to about 6 inches. I decided to go without the lenses and it was much better.

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