Hey all!
Hope everyone's weekend was good, summer is flying by in the most underwhelming fashion due to the zombie apocalypse. Get out there and make your own fun. I spent the day out on the water with my new kayak trying to teach myself how to roll. While not so successful on the roll part just yet I did manage to learn how not to fall out of the kayak while upside down and I no longer panic when hanging upside down under water (until i run out of air at least). I'll keep working on completing the roll. Something about that hip snap I'm not quite getting right yet. It was so nice to just be in the water, it's been so hot around here lately. Anyhoo...
I posted on saturday about building a DYI retro T5 kit from
BRS. I think most ppl just slap a wooden hood/box together for these things and while that's perfect for most applications, I never bought this with the intention of permanently putting it over a tank for the most part. So I went looking for an el-cheapo fluorescent light fixture to hack into an useful hood for a burn-in temp fixture for general purposes. Nothing magical about this project other than just being creative about working within the limitations of space and equipment available to make something functional that was not intended for the purpose I was using for. This was what I bought
link to the 36"
retro kit
i wanted to minimize the amount that extended past the bottom of the hood as it was pretty low profile so i ditched the end cap standoffs that came with the kit and decided to try my hand at mounting them directly to the housing. After laying out the location and size of the rectangular cut outs (roughly 3/4" x 1") I used a drill, dremel tool and a 'precision file' to create the cutouts for the end caps. While a bit tedious it wasn't too bad and only took me an hour or so.
All end caps mounted (they have spring clips built into them that were designed to hold them to the plastic standoffs they came with)
While at the hardware store, of course i forgot to pick up some rubber grommets to protect the wires from the steel housing so I improvised with some rubber tubing that ended up working quite well for the task.
I mounted the ballast on the top of the housing as there wasn't room and as a general practice you don't want to mount a ballast next to bulbs unless it's completely separated.
Instead of mounting the reflectors to the bulbs themselves directly using the standoff white metal clips as intended by the kit I reversed them and mounted them to the housing using the screws provided then pinched the clips together and slid them into the existing slots on the end of the reflectors as shown. This way I can change the bulbs without dorking around with the reflectors every time. This ended up working out very well and they are really secure using this technique.
I removed the OEM cord from the fixture and ran in the one provided from the kit next, secured it to the housing reusing the restraining clip from the housing.
Fully assembled
It's aliiive!!!
So all that's left is to come up with a cover for the ballast on the top of the housing. I'll give that some thought this next week. Let me know what you guys think.
