I have been working with @Printed Reef to create a new design for the Kessil A360X.
This began because of the light spill I'm experiencing over my tank (anyone else?). The Kessil has a 135dg native spread and that goes well beyond the 24x24 footprint when mounted at 8" such that anyone seated in the same room as the tank gets blinded. My system is a WB 170.4/5... 54"x26"... so similar to a fatboy 120g (48x24) but the Waterbox stands are somewhat tall resulting in the bottom of the fixture at 67" off the floor -- that's above eye height for most people!
I debated on how to solve this as there aren't many ready made solutions beyond a canopy and that isn't the look I want. A few people have rigged some lamp shades or other DIY solutions. I looked hard at 55dg adapters from Kessil, but I didn't want to cut the spread down that much (foreshadowing!) Ultimately I discovered Printed Reef and their recently released shade for the A360X: I decided to order a set of them in the cone version:
Oooh fancy! They mount with a magnetic adapter and fit tightly to the fixture. I calculated that I didn't need the shade to be as tall to be effective, so I had my set made a custom height of 1.75" vs the standard 2.5"
They came quickly and I was pretty excited. So I installed one and unfortunately the shade was too successful at reducing spread; it went from roughtly 40” coverage to 16” at 7” below the light, meaning that the tank received significantly less light and shadowing was extreme. In hindsight it makes perfect sense because they have a narrow form, which would be perfect if I had a nano or wanted to mount the light much higher, but it wasn't going to work for my install.
No Shade, notice all the light outside the tank, up on walls, etc.
With Printed Reef Cone Shade:
So with some back and forth, some napkin math and some cardboard cut-outs, we came up with this:
Pro-grade, right? Cereal boxes and packing tape to the rescue. It is a wide enough angle (about 90dg spread) so that the light is now hitting the entire top of the tank, but keeping it from spraying light all over the room. Most importantly, when seated my eye doesn't see the lense.
With somewhat flimsy cardboard Wide-angle Shade... the back left corner is a little over shaded because the cardboard is warping:
Printed Reef went to work and have skillfully produced a new wide-angle shade!
Reportedly they are tricky to print because of the shape and take significant time on the printer, but things are in motion. I'm anxiously awaiting the final product to test out. Will be posting again when I get my hands on them, but wanted to give the heads up to anyone looking for a solution. Feel free to pitch ideas too!
This began because of the light spill I'm experiencing over my tank (anyone else?). The Kessil has a 135dg native spread and that goes well beyond the 24x24 footprint when mounted at 8" such that anyone seated in the same room as the tank gets blinded. My system is a WB 170.4/5... 54"x26"... so similar to a fatboy 120g (48x24) but the Waterbox stands are somewhat tall resulting in the bottom of the fixture at 67" off the floor -- that's above eye height for most people!
I debated on how to solve this as there aren't many ready made solutions beyond a canopy and that isn't the look I want. A few people have rigged some lamp shades or other DIY solutions. I looked hard at 55dg adapters from Kessil, but I didn't want to cut the spread down that much (foreshadowing!) Ultimately I discovered Printed Reef and their recently released shade for the A360X: I decided to order a set of them in the cone version:
Oooh fancy! They mount with a magnetic adapter and fit tightly to the fixture. I calculated that I didn't need the shade to be as tall to be effective, so I had my set made a custom height of 1.75" vs the standard 2.5"
They came quickly and I was pretty excited. So I installed one and unfortunately the shade was too successful at reducing spread; it went from roughtly 40” coverage to 16” at 7” below the light, meaning that the tank received significantly less light and shadowing was extreme. In hindsight it makes perfect sense because they have a narrow form, which would be perfect if I had a nano or wanted to mount the light much higher, but it wasn't going to work for my install.
No Shade, notice all the light outside the tank, up on walls, etc.
With Printed Reef Cone Shade:
So with some back and forth, some napkin math and some cardboard cut-outs, we came up with this:
Pro-grade, right? Cereal boxes and packing tape to the rescue. It is a wide enough angle (about 90dg spread) so that the light is now hitting the entire top of the tank, but keeping it from spraying light all over the room. Most importantly, when seated my eye doesn't see the lense.
With somewhat flimsy cardboard Wide-angle Shade... the back left corner is a little over shaded because the cardboard is warping:
Printed Reef went to work and have skillfully produced a new wide-angle shade!
Reportedly they are tricky to print because of the shape and take significant time on the printer, but things are in motion. I'm anxiously awaiting the final product to test out. Will be posting again when I get my hands on them, but wanted to give the heads up to anyone looking for a solution. Feel free to pitch ideas too!
