I just want to share my experience with everyone about my Rapid Led Kit. I have absolutely no experience in building a LED light. So if you are thinking about building one on your own and have some reservations, just read a bit and go forward with it. The lighting is amazing! It really brings out the colors of the corals in a unique way.
I bought the 24 bulb kit with 2 heat sinks (drilled and tapped) to replace my 250 W metal Halide. At 3 watts a piece, I should only use around 72W of electricity plus very minimal heat....
If you suck at soldering like me, it is OK. You'll learn and figure it out. That's what DIYers do? right? And since I am not a pro at this, I dont expect my fixture to be pretty either
Here's a quick summary of the VERY important lessons to learn:
The DO's and DON'T's:
1) Get a nice soldering iron if you can affoid one. The crap I got from Radioshack gave me more frustration if anything. If your solder is not sticking, chances are, the iron is not hot enough. I ended up buying a Weller Station (off Ebay for 130 free shipping and no tax). Had I known about this earlier in my life, I would have bought one without any hesistation. You power the switch on and less than a minute, you are ready to solder! With heat adjusted to around 600F, it took less than 45 seconds to heat up... With this temp, your solder will adhere on the star board a lot quicker solving the non-sticking issues that many beginners experienced like me.
2) Be very patient....it will take some time to do it. It is not like a CFL or T5 with some wires to connect..you'll have to solder quite a lot.. If you get a hand of soldering, then you are in good shape. At this time, after doing over 36 LEDs and over 100 connections, I am getting less shaky doing it. Remember to open the windows with lots of circulation - your house will stink
3) After you are done soldering (assuming that the joints are good...you should look to see what a good joint should look like...), IF you have a multi meter, see if you are shorting it against the heat plate. THIS is my $75 dollar learning experience since it shorted 12 of my bulbs. What you do is run to see if there's any conductivity between the heat sink and EACH of the connections on the star plate. If there's no conductivity, then you may be OK. In my case, the star boards were screwed down to the heat sink, there's no much clearance between the screws and terminals.
4) DON'T plug the driver in and "test" the bulbs without firmly connecting the wires. Firmly means, not using my fingers to hold it and use my toe to plug it in. That's my $30 mistake and it shorted out 6 of my bulbs. Always solder and connect all wires before plugging it in...
5) lastly, if the solder comes lose while "testing", AVOID using your natural instincts to reconnect it while it is plugged in.
6) LED bulbs are very unforgiving with the above violations....just keep this in mind. But once you can get it running, I am sure that you'll be amazed too.
if you follow the above steps, I think you can avoid some of the mishaps. And finally, if you buy these kits from Rapid LED, Mike is VERY supportive. I really enjoy the experience of building one and when I can power this thing up and running, I will post some pictures.
I bought the 24 bulb kit with 2 heat sinks (drilled and tapped) to replace my 250 W metal Halide. At 3 watts a piece, I should only use around 72W of electricity plus very minimal heat....
If you suck at soldering like me, it is OK. You'll learn and figure it out. That's what DIYers do? right? And since I am not a pro at this, I dont expect my fixture to be pretty either
Here's a quick summary of the VERY important lessons to learn:The DO's and DON'T's:
1) Get a nice soldering iron if you can affoid one. The crap I got from Radioshack gave me more frustration if anything. If your solder is not sticking, chances are, the iron is not hot enough. I ended up buying a Weller Station (off Ebay for 130 free shipping and no tax). Had I known about this earlier in my life, I would have bought one without any hesistation. You power the switch on and less than a minute, you are ready to solder! With heat adjusted to around 600F, it took less than 45 seconds to heat up... With this temp, your solder will adhere on the star board a lot quicker solving the non-sticking issues that many beginners experienced like me.
2) Be very patient....it will take some time to do it. It is not like a CFL or T5 with some wires to connect..you'll have to solder quite a lot.. If you get a hand of soldering, then you are in good shape. At this time, after doing over 36 LEDs and over 100 connections, I am getting less shaky doing it. Remember to open the windows with lots of circulation - your house will stink
3) After you are done soldering (assuming that the joints are good...you should look to see what a good joint should look like...), IF you have a multi meter, see if you are shorting it against the heat plate. THIS is my $75 dollar learning experience since it shorted 12 of my bulbs. What you do is run to see if there's any conductivity between the heat sink and EACH of the connections on the star plate. If there's no conductivity, then you may be OK. In my case, the star boards were screwed down to the heat sink, there's no much clearance between the screws and terminals.
4) DON'T plug the driver in and "test" the bulbs without firmly connecting the wires. Firmly means, not using my fingers to hold it and use my toe to plug it in. That's my $30 mistake and it shorted out 6 of my bulbs. Always solder and connect all wires before plugging it in...
5) lastly, if the solder comes lose while "testing", AVOID using your natural instincts to reconnect it while it is plugged in.
6) LED bulbs are very unforgiving with the above violations....just keep this in mind. But once you can get it running, I am sure that you'll be amazed too.
if you follow the above steps, I think you can avoid some of the mishaps. And finally, if you buy these kits from Rapid LED, Mike is VERY supportive. I really enjoy the experience of building one and when I can power this thing up and running, I will post some pictures.
