ToeSloth
Member
Sooooo
I started this up a little afternoon and figured I had thought about how I was going to do this installation. I know this will be a little long so I will say up front everything went well with the install and I like the light. The shimmer is taking some getting used to and I think that it may be more pronounced due to it being so close to the water as it is mounted in the hood. I have it set for acclimation mode for 4 weeks and I have the max at the end of the 4 weeks set to 65% I believe.
A few others had gone this route and I don't have the links handy but a quick search will show you at least two other installs. The one that I did I don't believe had any pictures to match so this post will fix that for sure!
The first 4 or 5 pics are of the hood as it is taken apart and cleaned, only thing of note is if you aren't electrically inclined like me I wouldn't have much of a clue on how to put this all back together if I had to. At this point I would have to buy another new hood if I wanted to go back to the default. One of the screws holding the ballast was rusted and I used a small amount of WD-40 to fix that issue and then used some non-ammonia spray to clean the hood itself.
The image below shows the light sitting where I want to mount it, one thing I will point out now that I had not seen mentioned anywhere before, this will not mount flush do to the lipped down area that goes back the sump area on the tank when it is normally attached to the tank. I was also worried about the 4 mount points being raised up higher than the industrial strength Velcro would be.
All the rest of the shots are blow by blow of how I used the Velcro specifically to mount the light. I know this isn't the most secure method but I do think this is viable solution for me even long term with this tank as long as you are using the lens cover in the hood as I am still.
The shot below is a shot to show you how the Velcro filled in the gaps even in the areas that were uneven. I pressed the top of the hood and the underside of the fixture together to create nice contact points. I also made sure that I cleaned the surface very well before mounting the light.
Last shot is just all the mess I made on my floor!
Oh and after all this - I sent an email to EcoTech last night and asked what the G3 model support that was mentioned in the firmware update and I get back at the close of business a link to the new Radion G3 and Pro that were announced today...
http://reefbuilders.com/2014/01/09/radion-g3-pro-leds/
I started this up a little afternoon and figured I had thought about how I was going to do this installation. I know this will be a little long so I will say up front everything went well with the install and I like the light. The shimmer is taking some getting used to and I think that it may be more pronounced due to it being so close to the water as it is mounted in the hood. I have it set for acclimation mode for 4 weeks and I have the max at the end of the 4 weeks set to 65% I believe.
A few others had gone this route and I don't have the links handy but a quick search will show you at least two other installs. The one that I did I don't believe had any pictures to match so this post will fix that for sure!
The first 4 or 5 pics are of the hood as it is taken apart and cleaned, only thing of note is if you aren't electrically inclined like me I wouldn't have much of a clue on how to put this all back together if I had to. At this point I would have to buy another new hood if I wanted to go back to the default. One of the screws holding the ballast was rusted and I used a small amount of WD-40 to fix that issue and then used some non-ammonia spray to clean the hood itself.
The image below shows the light sitting where I want to mount it, one thing I will point out now that I had not seen mentioned anywhere before, this will not mount flush do to the lipped down area that goes back the sump area on the tank when it is normally attached to the tank. I was also worried about the 4 mount points being raised up higher than the industrial strength Velcro would be.
All the rest of the shots are blow by blow of how I used the Velcro specifically to mount the light. I know this isn't the most secure method but I do think this is viable solution for me even long term with this tank as long as you are using the lens cover in the hood as I am still.
The shot below is a shot to show you how the Velcro filled in the gaps even in the areas that were uneven. I pressed the top of the hood and the underside of the fixture together to create nice contact points. I also made sure that I cleaned the surface very well before mounting the light.
Last shot is just all the mess I made on my floor!
Oh and after all this - I sent an email to EcoTech last night and asked what the G3 model support that was mentioned in the firmware update and I get back at the close of business a link to the new Radion G3 and Pro that were announced today...
http://reefbuilders.com/2014/01/09/radion-g3-pro-leds/
