DIY LED for shelf unit.

Muckydoo

Carnivorous Plant Addict
So, I to work at an electrical wholesaler.
We get thousands of LED fixtures in, and sometimes they get damaged in shipping.
Normally we toss them into the metal recycling, or the freight company comes and takes them.
I decided to reuse these bent and banged fixtures for my plants!

I picked up a 4 level shelf unit at Costco ~$40 bucks.
Fits 2 1020 trays... almost fits 3... sigh so close, but nope..

I hacked up the fixtures like this..
Took off the side reflectors and cut them in half.
7238
7239


Then planned mounting for the strips and driver.
7240


Drilled some holes and mounted the LED strips.
2 strips on each panel. Driver on the back of 1 panel

7241
7242
7244


And wired in the power. We have light!!
7243


Driver mounted. I used a strip of thermal gap filler under the driver for better heat transfer.
Also a few old heatsinks on the top :)
I wired on a 50K ohm rheostat to the 0-10v dimming lines on the driver, so it's fully dimmable down to around 10%
Nice option, since the rheostat was under 2 bucks!
7245
7246



All done! Both shelf levels done the same way.
I dimmed them down all the way so the picture wasn't blown out!

7247


After this I'll start a new shelf unit... I have an even better fixture to hack up this time :D
 

Muckydoo

Carnivorous Plant Addict
So here is DIY led fixture part 2!

It's a 100w , 4000k, 12,000 lumen fixture.
I harvested 4 led strips and 2 drivers from two 1' x 4' fixtures.
7310


I then cut a 2'x4' fixture down to 2'x3'

7311


Figured out where I wanted my LED's and drivers. Drilled and tapped the holes..

7312
7314


Then since this fixture was damaged, the panels weren't quite flat, as you can see on the top left corner.
I used some thermal paste, and a bit of thermal tape to keep it all snug, and really help heat transfer.
I broke out the old Arctic Silver thermal paste I used to use when I did CPU overclocking :D

7315



Wired in the LED's and cleaned up the wires.
7316


Did the same on the back.
7317


And there she is, in all her glory!
I used 4 SS cable ties to attach it by the hook at the corners to the top shelf.

7318
7319




Now, onto the next project.... I have to do the shelf below that one!

Meet the victim... I have 4 of these ones, all damaged.
150w each, 4000k and 24,000 lumen!

But the led strips are all 4ft long.. I'll have to cut them, and do some re-wiring to fit a 3ft shelf :confused:
7320
 
Top