UV Lighting

[Nate152]

Hello everyone

I am a new member here and my first post. I want to start off by saying what brought me here is watching some youtube videos of Daz and his LED 5mm lights and LED strips and how to connect them. He is very helpful and shows you different ways on how to do it. Daz has also replied to emails I've sent him and he is downright a very nice and helpful guy.

Now to my query:

I will be helping a friend of mine do a new build in the mercury s8 case. He will be using two aquacomputer aqualis pro reservoirs which can hold up to six 5mm LED's, so that is a total of twelve 5mm uv LED's. He also wants some uv cathodes/strips. So I chose for him six 12" LED strips. After watching a youtube video on Daz's 12" UV LED strips I decided he should go with them as they seem to work very well. He is going with a green theme with the primochill advanced lrt uv pearl green tubing and koolance uv green coolant.

He will be connecting all the LED lights/strips to a single channel on a fan controller and I was wondering if this is how you all would do it.

Twelve 5mm LED's and six 12" strips = 18 lights altogether.

Six 3 way to 3 pin type 10s cables , one 6 fan y splitter then connected to the fan controller and will this be enough 12" strips to light everything up like a neon sign.

Is this how you would do it?

[Bartacus]

Hey Nate, welcome! There might be one small hitch in your friends plan. I have an Aqualis res too, and it's nearly impossible to fit all 6 LEDs unless you wire them up yourself. If you buy 6 sleeved 5mm LEDs from Daz, the sleeving / heatshrink on the ends of the LEDs won't fit under the res. There's just too much bulk material to fit into the little channels under the res where the LEDs fit.

Also, keep in mind the Darkside LED strips are bright, REALLY bright! He probably won't need 6 of the 12" ones. You'd be shocked at just how much UV light one of them throws off. But that's something you'll have to judge for yourself, of course. I have 2 12" and 2 6" UV ones in a tiny little mITX case, so I'm cool with UV light overkill. The fan controller idea is a sound one if you want to control the brightness. Just make sure it's not one of those 6w/channel controllers. I haven't had to do the voltage math on mine since I'm using a molex powered 3-pin power distribution PCB for the lights, but check the LED / fan controller voltage specs just to be safe.

Oh and do a build log too, with lots of pics.

[Nate152]

Thanks for replying Bartacus

So six 5mm led's won't fit in the aqualis pro reservoir? What a bummer, they shouldn't advertise it if it can't do it.

He will be using the lamptron FC5 v3 30 watt fan controller which should be enough to handle all the LED's.

Would you know how many of Daz's 5mm LED's will fit in the aqualis pro? They are the ones he will be using.

[snef]

Hi and welcome to the greatest community


Bartacus is right, for UV , 2 or 3 will be enough

in one of my build (Caselabs S5), I have one 12" and one 7.5"
and look the result






another thing, witch color will be your 5mm led

if you use any other color than UV you will kill the UV effect of led strips

and if you use UV 5mm led, no need for 12 its to much

[Nate152]

Hello snef

And thanks for the welcome guys!

I see you have your strips mounted on the inside of the frame which is where we planned on putting them too. I see you also used the acrylic tubing which looks great and truly does look like a neon sign! I hope his gets that effect with the uv tubing and uv koolance coolant. Green and purple looks nice together as a color combination. I dig your build it looks totally awesome!

So I guess it's three 5mm uv led's for the reservoirs then. There are two holes at the bottom for the led's

All the lights will be UV, 2 in one hole and 1 in another maybe?

http://www.aquatuning.us/water-cooli...ed-holder-g1/4

You must have got the pedestal too as well as my friend did. He's putting two 360 rads down there with corsair high static pressure green led fans. Then he's going to put two 240 rads up top with uv green fans like you. he went with the Gelid solutions 120mm uv green. What fans are those you have I like the design on them.

[Nate152]

Well it seems a moderator has to approve my next post as I added a link to it so hang tight. I love that purple and green color scheme.

[Bartacus]

Thanks for replying Bartacus

So six 5mm led's won't fit in the aqualis pro reservoir? What a bummer, they shouldn't advertise it if it can't do it.

He will be using the lamptron FC5 v3 30 watt fan controller which should be enough to handle all the LED's.

Would you know how many of Daz's 5mm LED's will fit in the aqualis pro? They are the ones he will be using.

Technically, 6 LEDs *might* fit, if you were wiring them up yourself. You basically need to run bare wire under that Aqualis pump top to the LEDs. Here's a pic (just realized it was sitting next to me in a box). With mine, I used an old set of XSPC LEDs (5mm pairs, 2 sets), and mangled them to get them to fit:



Honestly, you won't need UV LEDs in the tube if you're using Darkside strips. The strips will be MORE than enough to make the reservoirs glow, and it's really not worth the headache of wiring, etc. I have a pair of 5mm Darkside LEDs in my dual D5 pump top, and I can't see a pair of those fitting into that space nicely, unless you strip the tops of the wires (another option). The choice is yours, but it's not worth the hassle IMO. The strips will do nicely, trust me:

[Nate152]

Both your builds look awesome, I'm diggin' the green and purple that looks nice together.

He will be using the aqualis 880ml reservoirs as stand alone, will this help to get more in there? He wants the led's in the reservoirs too, maybe 3 5mm led's in each one?

[Bartacus]

That pic I posted above is the base of the 880ml version. You should be able to fit 3 in each, but it will look odd. If you check the pic above, you can see the 6 LED holes are set up in 2 halves of 3 holes each. If you put 3 LEDs, you can't space them evenly. But if you're willing to strip the heatshrink off the wires, you can easily do 4 like I did. Heck I did 4 (2 pairs of 2) even with heatshrink on the wires.

[Nate152]

All right that sounds good Bartacus. I think to keep it simple we'll just do 3 in each reservoir since we will be using the 3 way to 3 pin type 10s cable. I'm glad you answered because if it says it can hold 6 we'd be trying to get 6 of them in there sleeving/heatshrink and all.

But like you say if they don't fit we can strip the sleeving off.

Thanks for your help you guys are great !

[Bartacus]

Be prepared to curse those reservoirs. Also be sure to post up a build log with lots of pics. We love pics.

[Nate152]

Uh oh curse the reservoirs? Please fill me in.

[Bartacus]

Oh I just meant cramming the LEDs in there and screwing on the cover for the base will be painful. It's a nice piece of gear, no issues with it. If your friend has the ones with the waterfall effect, tell him not to get too excited about that. It's more like a dribble. QUALITY piece of kit though, those things.

[DazMode]

I guess it possible to cut sleeving off, so only bare wires will be inside reservoir body.