# DIY LED Lighting



## CSJ10 (Jun 7, 2010)

Hi all. I've been looking at a lot of lighting options as I need to light a 9 viv unit. I finally settled on LED's. Once I got them I set about mounting them and this is what I came up with:










In the picture you can see how the LED strips arrived. I've mounted them in 4mm glass runners. It holds the LED's tightly and keeps them in a straight line. In the picture the strip was not fully pushed into the runners. I used a strip of wood to do this. 









This is the power supply I'm using. It has a variable voltage so can effectively be used as a dimmer. All I've done to use this is cut off the end and attached the wires to a terminal block. I've drilled a hole in each end of the runners to mount.

I hope this is useful to someone. I'll post some pictures when they're all in the vivs.

LED strips on ebay: Clicky


----------



## carbon8ed (Oct 1, 2009)

I use the same, but double it up and hold them in the small electircal box conduit which sticks into the viv. 3 strips of blue for night time illumination and daytime is achieved with a white strip between two green ones.

Daytime light is not too bright, the green LEDs enhance the greenery creating a 'deep in the jungle' effect, whilst the blues give a great moonlight effect. Lights all on timers and moonlight comes on a couple of hours before the daytime and goes off a couple of hours after.
All my snake are nocturnal so I make sure they get plenty of dark time.

They look great IMHO (snakes don't mind them either. it lets people see their habitat without being too bright:2thumb:


----------



## CSJ10 (Jun 7, 2010)

carbon8ed said:


> I use the same, but double it up and hold them in the small electircal box conduit which sticks into the viv. 3 strips of blue for night time illumination and daytime is achieved with a white strip between two green ones.
> 
> Daytime light is not too bright, the green LEDs enhance the greenery creating a 'deep in the jungle' effect, whilst the blues give a great moonlight effect. Lights all on timers and moonlight comes on a couple of hours before the daytime and goes off a couple of hours after.
> All my snake are nocturnal so I make sure they get plenty of dark time.
> ...


That sounds nice - where are the pics? I had 9 vivs to light so stuck with just the white and don't have any light at night. I did all of them for £27 which was much cheaper than any of the other options I looked at. I tried a couple of different types of light but found that the LEDS were much less obtrusive both visually and in the light they emit.


----------



## LadyYoruichi (Jun 26, 2010)

Installed them yet? Looking forward to seeing what they look like in the viv x


----------



## cbarnes1987 (Feb 2, 2010)

carbon8ed said:


> I use the same, but double it up and hold them in the small electircal box conduit which sticks into the viv. 3 strips of blue for night time illumination and daytime is achieved with a white strip between two green ones.
> 
> Daytime light is not too bright, the green LEDs enhance the greenery creating a 'deep in the jungle' effect, whilst the blues give a great moonlight effect. Lights all on timers and moonlight comes on a couple of hours before the daytime and goes off a couple of hours after.
> All my snake are nocturnal so I make sure they get plenty of dark time.
> ...


do you have pics of the daytime lighting? (the green & white effect). Also what size do you use for each of the 3 strips? and can you put all 3 strips on the universal adapter?


----------



## haunted-havoc (Aug 6, 2009)

ive done a similar thing. cept mine are night lights (used to be for my leos and now used on my fish tank)

i didnt bother with led strips, just bought a power supply, some resistors and some LEDs off ebay. drilled some holes in some electrical trunking and wired it up using telephone wire

dead easy to do and cost me about £5 for the lot


----------



## CSJ10 (Jun 7, 2010)

haunted-havoc said:


> ive done a similar thing. cept mine are night lights (used to be for my leos and now used on my fish tank)
> 
> i didnt bother with led strips, just bought a power supply, some resistors and some LEDs off ebay. drilled some holes in some electrical trunking and wired it up using telephone wire
> 
> dead easy to do and cost me about £5 for the lot


I considered making my own too but with the number I needed it would have taken an age to make them so I went for the lazy option. I really like the idea of using trunking to house, conceal and protect the components. Having lit my unit with LED's, I now want to do my 4 individual vivs too so think I'll use your method, thank you :2thumb:


----------



## haunted-havoc (Aug 6, 2009)

np. i mean if you need loads of light. you can use connective strips rather than wire. run two in parrallel, solder the resitors onto the leds and then just solder the LEDs onto the strip

i only needed a few so it didnt bother me. took around 5 min per strip

but if your cheap (like me) and have white vivs. then you dont notice the trunking.


----------

