Make your own moon lights for less than $1

corrado007 · 06-02-2007, 01:29 AM

I wanted some moon lights for my 60gal so I decided to try to make a set. It’s a VERY basic project if you are a DIY sort of person. Simply put, it’s just 2 LEDs (light emitting diodes) powered by an old cell phone charger. If you’re a DIY type of person like me you don’t throw any old electronics away. Since almost all of us get new cell phones every year or two when the newest gadgets are added to them we’re left with a box full of old cell phones or at least the extra chargers if you sold the phone on eBay. Assuming you’re this type of person, you also most likely have all of the necessary materials sitting around perhaps with the exception of a few ultra bright LEDs which should cost less than a buck. Since the project was a success I decided to do a write-up and therefore went back and recreated some steps for pictures so please excuse any steps I didn’t take photos of as I didn’t want to do the entire project twice.

Requirements for this project:
1) Basic knowledge on how to solder.
2) Being a pack-rat so you happen to have an old cell phone charger lying around.

Tools/materials needed:
1) Wire cutters/strippers
2) Soldering iron with solder
3) Heat shrink tubing & a lighter (or electrical tape)
4) Rubber grommets
5) Drill and bits
6) 2 ultra bright LEDs (rated at ~ 2.5 - 3 volts)(white, blue, or which ever color you want, I used white)
7) An old AC (wall plug) cell phone charger with an approximate 5 volt DC output.
8) Extra wire, depending on how long you need the cord to be.
9) Ridged wire or coat hanger (just a few inches)

You can see that this one has a 4.6 volt output.

Procedure:
1) Read each step in it’s entirety before doing the step to ensure that you understand it so you don’t break something (light bulbs) or have to undo something.
2) Gather all your materials and tools
3) The first step is the only step where it’s up to you to be a little creative because most aquarium light fixtures are designed slightly differently. Unplug your light fixture and put it on a stable surface. Locate a safe place to drill into your fixture from the outside into the reflector/bulb “chamber” (if your bulbs have a clear plastic shield over them you’ll want to remove it for this). You will most likely want to drill from the back since this hole is where your moon light power cord will be coming out. While ensuring that you don’t drill through any wires/ballasts in the fixture, drill a hole large enough to pass the wire and a coat hanger through. (you should remove your bulb(s) at this point because they’re expensive). Also be sure that the place you’re drilling will allow enough room for the LEDs to not bump into/interfere with the bulbs when they are reinstalled.

Here's where I drilled my hole. You can refer back to this pic for later steps too.

4) Now remove any sharp burs from the metal/plastic casing of your light fixture and insert the grommets in the newly drilled hole, one for each layer of material you had to drill through (this depends on your light fixture, I needed 2)
5) While heating the soldering iron, cut off the plug from the cell phone charger at the end that plugs into the phone so you’re left with the wall charger with a few feet of wire still attached to it.
6) Slide the wire from the AC adapter through the new hole(s) which should now have insulating rubber grommets installed in them. You will be passing the cut end of the wire from the outside to the inside (where the LEDs will be).
7) Split and strip the two wires and slide heat shrink tubing over them before soldering the LEDs.
8) Solder the LEDs to each other attaching the anode of one to the cathode of the other (negative to positive); this is called wiring in series. When done you have two LEDs soldered together with one free anode and one free cathode (negative & positive). Put heat shrink tubing on the leads that you just soldered between the two LEDs and shrink it with the lighter or neatly wrap the exposed joint with electrical tape.

Here are the two LEDs in series.

9) Now solder the two wires from the charger (which you already stripped and slipped heat shrink tubing over them past the bare/stripped portion) to the two remaining leads of the LEDs making sure to attach the positive output of the charger to the anode (positive) side of the LEDs and the negative wire from the charger to the cathode (negative) side of the LEDs.

Here are the LEDs with heat shrink tubing and being soldered to the charger wires.

10) Before shrinking the heat shrink tubing, plug in the adapter to see that the LEDs light up.
11) Assuming they light up, unplug the adapter, slide the heat shrink tubing over the exposed soldered joints, and use the lighter to heat and shrink the tubing in order to insulate the wires.
12) At this point you should have NO bear wires or LED leads showing. They should have all been insulated with either heat shrink tubing or electrical tape.
13) Next, slide a length of coat hanger or stiff wire through the same hole as the wires to add support for them so the LEDs don’t just flop around in the reflector/bulb area. I put some heat shrink tubing over my coat hanger before I slid it through the hole in order to insulate it and give it a nicer appearance.
14) You can tape or zip tie the LEDs to the coat hanger and position them in the middle of the fixture so they point at the reflector.

Here are the LEDs positioned in the fixture and attached to the coat hanger.

15) You will want to take the end of the coat hanger which is sticking out of the back/outside of the fixture and bend it to a right angle, trimming off excess more than an inch long (here's where you can look back at that earlier pic of the back of the fixture). This can now be used as a handle to swivel the LEDs inside to achieve the desired lighting effect (depending on how they are aimed at the reflector they will illuminate the tank differently). I also put heat shrink on the “handle” to give it a better appearance.
16) Now you can put back together any part of the fixture you took apart and reinstall your bulbs.

Here are the bulbs installed and the LEDs on.

17) You’re done! Just plug your new moon lights in and enjoy. I chose to put mine on a timer opposite my tank light photo period so there’s always some light on.

New moon lights plugged into a timer.

Notes: LEDs draw very little power and therefore are no strain at all on the charger. I keep mine plugged in all the time and the moon lights run for 12 hours a day (when ever the main lights are off) and the charger never even gets warm. Seems to be totally safe and just those two little LEDs give a fairly dramatic lunar effect when it’s dark in the room. The picture I have posted doesn’t do them justice since light was coming in through the blinds and I couldn’t choose the perfect setting on my camera to capture the effect.

lcstorc · 06-02-2007, 10:18 AM

You certainly get credit for being creative.
Sounds like an interresting project.

evallarta1 · 06-02-2007, 12:05 PM

Great write up! Ive worked with LEDs before and one thing I would recommend is test everything first. Put the whole circuit together (without solder) and make sure it works. Its really easy to get the LEDs confused and put negative to negative, or positive to positive. Or even put it backwards and then have the circuit not work. Then you have to unsolder them (PITA) and start all over.

BigAl07 · 06-02-2007, 01:04 PM

Sounds like a VERY simple project!! I wonder how you could adapt this to some type of water proof tube so to make a submersible light for a FUGE or something!!

Allen

kimoy · 06-02-2007, 02:07 PM

great DIY project. well done. karma to you.

InLimbo87 · 06-02-2007, 03:24 PM

Yes very nice project. I was actually pondering what I was going to do for moonlights for my new tank, now I have an easy and cheap solution. Thanks!!!

InLimbo87 · 06-02-2007, 03:25 PM

One quick question though, where did you buy the led's from??

bbl_nk · 06-02-2007, 04:34 PM

You should be able to pick those LEDs from RadioShack or some other type of electronic geek store that has components. They also come in a variety of colors now as well.

Great post and AWESOME idea with the cell phone charger. I think I have about 5-6 in the garage I'm going to dig out and give it a shot. I'm planning on a wood hood enclosure and am thinking about experimenting with different colors across the length of the tank (maybe a red/white/blue look).

Now I have another project to add to the DIY list

MUCH karma my friend. When I start my experiement, I'll be sure to post the results!

Snelly40 · 06-02-2007, 06:04 PM

Nice!!!

corrado007 · 06-02-2007, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InLimbo87

One quick question though, where did you buy the led's from??

As bbl_nk said, you should be able to get them at Radio Shack in various colors. I actually bought mine on eBay some time back. I got them from an auction like this eBay: NEW 30X 5mm BRIGHTEST WHITE LED LAMP 55,000mcd +30 Resi (item 250122325371 end time Jun-02-07 17:30:00 PDT) where you get 30 or so of them for $15 shipped. I use them for all sorts of projects now and again since I have so many left over from what ever project I bought them for. Like the example auction said, they came with resistors so they can be used with higher voltage but if you simply wire them in series this also allows them to be used with higher voltage and eliminates the need for resistors which heat up quite a bit. By the way, you can of course find them in all colors on eBay as well. Good luck!

reefer3 · 06-03-2007, 11:28 AM

I'm going to give this a try, but I was woundering if I could tap into the wires and run more bulbs off of the charger or is that too much. I'm want to do about 4 bulbs.

corrado007 · 06-03-2007, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reefer3

I'm going to give this a try, but I was woundering if I could tap into the wires and run more bulbs off of the charger or is that too much. I'm want to do about 4 bulbs.

Typically LEDs need about 2.5 - 3 volts which is why you wire them in series so the load drawn by the two combine is 5 - 6 volts which is the output of the charger. If you were to wire more than 2 onto the circuit I believe they would become dim. You may be able to solder two LEDs in parallel, and another set the same way and finally wire those two sets in series but I'm not sure, I'd have to play around with it. The other option would be to find a higher output AC adapter from some other old gadget that puts out around 12volts. That size adapter isn't uncommon. HTH

reefer3 · 06-03-2007, 12:34 PM

Ok Thanks for the info. I do have a old home phone charger that I think is 12 volt I and I have a old power wheels charger that I think is 12 volt I may give that a try. Thanks again.

corrado007 · 06-03-2007, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reefer3

Ok Thanks for the info. I do have a old home phone charger that I think is 12 volt I and I have a old power wheels charger that I think is 12 volt I may give that a try. Thanks again.

Hey reefer3, you actually got me wondering about it and I didn't want to instruct you incorrectly so I went out to my garage and tried it out. I used another 4.6v Motorola charger and took four 5 volt (quite common as well) LEDs iwired n parallel and it powered them just fine. You could do 4,6,8, or how ever many LEDs you want (to an extent) if you wire them in parallel . I was using 2.5 volt LEDs in the initial write-up so I put them in series so that the 4.6 volt output of the charger would be a good match for their voltage needs (4.6v charger & 2 2.5 volt LEDs in series for 5 volts). I really all depends on the voltage rating of the LEDs you use and the charger you have. You'll need to play with it a bit. If you want around 4 LEDs you may want to just get four 5volt ones from radio shack and wire them in parallel assuming you're using a 4.6 volt charger as I did. HTH

reefer3 · 06-03-2007, 01:25 PM

Thanks. I'm leaving in amin and I'll stop by radio shak and pick some up and giver her a shot.

06-02-2007, 01:29 AM	#1 (permalink)
corrado007 Plate Coral Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Sacramento, Ca. Posts: 764 View Gallery Karma Komment	Make your own moon lights for less than $1 I wanted some moon lights for my 60gal so I decided to try to make a set. It’s a VERY basic project if you are a DIY sort of person. Simply put, it’s just 2 LEDs (light emitting diodes) powered by an old cell phone charger. If you’re a DIY type of person like me you don’t throw any old electronics away. Since almost all of us get new cell phones every year or two when the newest gadgets are added to them we’re left with a box full of old cell phones or at least the extra chargers if you sold the phone on eBay. Assuming you’re this type of person, you also most likely have all of the necessary materials sitting around perhaps with the exception of a few ultra bright LEDs which should cost less than a buck. Since the project was a success I decided to do a write-up and therefore went back and recreated some steps for pictures so please excuse any steps I didn’t take photos of as I didn’t want to do the entire project twice. Requirements for this project: 1) Basic knowledge on how to solder. 2) Being a pack-rat so you happen to have an old cell phone charger lying around. Tools/materials needed: 1) Wire cutters/strippers 2) Soldering iron with solder 3) Heat shrink tubing & a lighter (or electrical tape) 4) Rubber grommets 5) Drill and bits 6) 2 ultra bright LEDs (rated at ~ 2.5 - 3 volts)(white, blue, or which ever color you want, I used white) 7) An old AC (wall plug) cell phone charger with an approximate 5 volt DC output. 8) Extra wire, depending on how long you need the cord to be. 9) Ridged wire or coat hanger (just a few inches) You can see that this one has a 4.6 volt output. Procedure: 1) Read each step in it’s entirety before doing the step to ensure that you understand it so you don’t break something (light bulbs) or have to undo something. 2) Gather all your materials and tools 3) The first step is the only step where it’s up to you to be a little creative because most aquarium light fixtures are designed slightly differently. Unplug your light fixture and put it on a stable surface. Locate a safe place to drill into your fixture from the outside into the reflector/bulb “chamber” (if your bulbs have a clear plastic shield over them you’ll want to remove it for this). You will most likely want to drill from the back since this hole is where your moon light power cord will be coming out. While ensuring that you don’t drill through any wires/ballasts in the fixture, drill a hole large enough to pass the wire and a coat hanger through. (you should remove your bulb(s) at this point because they’re expensive). Also be sure that the place you’re drilling will allow enough room for the LEDs to not bump into/interfere with the bulbs when they are reinstalled. Here's where I drilled my hole. You can refer back to this pic for later steps too. 4) Now remove any sharp burs from the metal/plastic casing of your light fixture and insert the grommets in the newly drilled hole, one for each layer of material you had to drill through (this depends on your light fixture, I needed 2) 5) While heating the soldering iron, cut off the plug from the cell phone charger at the end that plugs into the phone so you’re left with the wall charger with a few feet of wire still attached to it. 6) Slide the wire from the AC adapter through the new hole(s) which should now have insulating rubber grommets installed in them. You will be passing the cut end of the wire from the outside to the inside (where the LEDs will be). 7) Split and strip the two wires and slide heat shrink tubing over them before soldering the LEDs. 8) Solder the LEDs to each other attaching the anode of one to the cathode of the other (negative to positive); this is called wiring in series. When done you have two LEDs soldered together with one free anode and one free cathode (negative & positive). Put heat shrink tubing on the leads that you just soldered between the two LEDs and shrink it with the lighter or neatly wrap the exposed joint with electrical tape. Here are the two LEDs in series. 9) Now solder the two wires from the charger (which you already stripped and slipped heat shrink tubing over them past the bare/stripped portion) to the two remaining leads of the LEDs making sure to attach the positive output of the charger to the anode (positive) side of the LEDs and the negative wire from the charger to the cathode (negative) side of the LEDs. Here are the LEDs with heat shrink tubing and being soldered to the charger wires. 10) Before shrinking the heat shrink tubing, plug in the adapter to see that the LEDs light up. 11) Assuming they light up, unplug the adapter, slide the heat shrink tubing over the exposed soldered joints, and use the lighter to heat and shrink the tubing in order to insulate the wires. 12) At this point you should have NO bear wires or LED leads showing. They should have all been insulated with either heat shrink tubing or electrical tape. 13) Next, slide a length of coat hanger or stiff wire through the same hole as the wires to add support for them so the LEDs don’t just flop around in the reflector/bulb area. I put some heat shrink tubing over my coat hanger before I slid it through the hole in order to insulate it and give it a nicer appearance. 14) You can tape or zip tie the LEDs to the coat hanger and position them in the middle of the fixture so they point at the reflector. Here are the LEDs positioned in the fixture and attached to the coat hanger. 15) You will want to take the end of the coat hanger which is sticking out of the back/outside of the fixture and bend it to a right angle, trimming off excess more than an inch long (here's where you can look back at that earlier pic of the back of the fixture). This can now be used as a handle to swivel the LEDs inside to achieve the desired lighting effect (depending on how they are aimed at the reflector they will illuminate the tank differently). I also put heat shrink on the “handle” to give it a better appearance. 16) Now you can put back together any part of the fixture you took apart and reinstall your bulbs. Here are the bulbs installed and the LEDs on. 17) You’re done! Just plug your new moon lights in and enjoy. I chose to put mine on a timer opposite my tank light photo period so there’s always some light on. New moon lights plugged into a timer. Notes: LEDs draw very little power and therefore are no strain at all on the charger. I keep mine plugged in all the time and the moon lights run for 12 hours a day (when ever the main lights are off) and the charger never even gets warm. Seems to be totally safe and just those two little LEDs give a fairly dramatic lunar effect when it’s dark in the room. The picture I have posted doesn’t do them justice since light was coming in through the blinds and I couldn’t choose the perfect setting on my camera to capture the effect. __________________ Justin _________________________________ Please watch out for motorcycles (look twice, it could save a life). 90gal mixed reef w/40gal sump/fuge, ATO, Octopus NW-200 Skimmer, 2x 250W 12k Reeflux MH & 220W VHO actinics, Koralia #4 & #3, Mag 9.5 return, Aquacontroller jr., LR & LS, and community fish (Yellow Assessor, Bluespot Jawfish, paired Yellow Watchman Goby & Red Striped Pistol Shrimp, paired O Clowns, 1 Green Chromis, Yellow Clown Goby, Scooter Blenny, and a Red Head Solon Fairy Wrasse). updated 7/11/09 Here's my 90gal Chronicle (Lots of pictures and DIY)

06-02-2007, 10:18 AM	#2 (permalink)
lcstorc Sunshine Reefer Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Cocoa Fl Posts: 26,433 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 You certainly get credit for being creative. Sounds like an interresting project. __________________ Peace LYNN Lynn and Franks saltwater adventure Lynn's 20g clown tank Lynn's 90g of sunshine Lynn's frag tank experiment A reef tank is like a race car. The faster you go the harder you crash.

06-02-2007, 12:05 PM	#3 (permalink)
evallarta1 Limpet Join Date: May 2007 Location: Collinsville, Il Posts: 144 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Great write up! Ive worked with LEDs before and one thing I would recommend is test everything first. Put the whole circuit together (without solder) and make sure it works. Its really easy to get the LEDs confused and put negative to negative, or positive to positive. Or even put it backwards and then have the circuit not work. Then you have to unsolder them (PITA) and start all over.

06-02-2007, 01:04 PM	#4 (permalink)
BigAl07 Do I look as lost as I am Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Waynesville, North Carolina Posts: 21,549 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Sounds like a VERY simple project!! I wonder how you could adapt this to some type of water proof tube so to make a submersible light for a FUGE or something!! Allen __________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ *Live Rock Rubble will do the SAME thing as Bio-Balls and is NOT a suitable replacement for BIO-BALLS in a Reef System! It's ALL gotta go!!* Nitrate (NO3) reduction is directly proportional to percentage of Water Change. Allen's home-made formula...currentNO3-((%WC.01)currentNO3)=finalNO3 (thanks Luukosian) This means if you change 50% of your total water volume (That's EVERYTHING) you'll get a net reduction of (NO3) somewhere around 50%. Ask me about how to increase your REEF budget without going without FOOD!!* Big Al's 10g Julie's (BigAl's Gal) 6g NanoCube Gone but not forgotten BigAl's Slow 90g Tank Chronicle Allens OFFICE 12g Nano-Reef

06-02-2007, 02:07 PM	#5 (permalink)
kimoy Sea Pen Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 338 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 great DIY project. well done. karma to you. __________________ 1.20 G pico RR with 2 megaflow kits, aqua c EV180 with mag12, 2x250 DE 12k halides with 2x54 T5 actinic+, 30G phlenum fuge with chaeto, iwaki 55rlt return pump connected to a sea swirl, 4 tunze 6025 inside the main tank for water circulation (2 are modded) 3 Koralias PH(2 #4's and 1 #3) sps,lps,zoas,softies,pink tip BTA tangs - yellow, unicorn, blue hippo, palini and RS Purple Blue Spot Jaw Fish red lyretail anthias pair of spotted mandarin goby wrasse - yellow corris scribble rabbit fish Clown Fish -3 percula high fin shrimp goby clean up crew - various snails and crabs, red linkia star And a 30G AGA softies with clown & diamond head goby

06-02-2007, 03:24 PM	#6 (permalink)
InLimbo87 Elegance coral Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Orlando Posts: 1,002 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Yes very nice project. I was actually pondering what I was going to do for moonlights for my new tank, now I have an easy and cheap solution. Thanks!!! __________________ We are forever responsible for that which we tame... Oceanic 33g Cube Tank Thread ~Ian~

06-02-2007, 03:25 PM	#7 (permalink)
InLimbo87 Elegance coral Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Orlando Posts: 1,002 View Gallery Karma Komment Add yours!	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 One quick question though, where did you buy the led's from?? __________________ We are forever responsible for that which we tame... Oceanic 33g Cube Tank Thread ~Ian~

06-02-2007, 04:34 PM	#8 (permalink)
bbl_nk Tunicate Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 20 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 You should be able to pick those LEDs from RadioShack or some other type of electronic geek store that has components. They also come in a variety of colors now as well. Great post and AWESOME idea with the cell phone charger. I think I have about 5-6 in the garage I'm going to dig out and give it a shot. I'm planning on a wood hood enclosure and am thinking about experimenting with different colors across the length of the tank (maybe a red/white/blue look). Now I have another project to add to the DIY list MUCH karma my friend. When I start my experiement, I'll be sure to post the results! __________________ New 75 gal. for Christmas 2006 dry and in the garage, stand half built, stocking up on equipment so far: MarineLand T5-48 Deluxe Light (2x54 w daylight/2x54 w actinic) 2 Powerheads from last tank 250w Heater Need a skimmer, fuge and rock Head full of knowledge from ReefSanctuary.com

06-02-2007, 06:04 PM	#9 (permalink)
Snelly40 Manta Ray Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Charlotte, NC Posts: 3,098 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Nice!!! __________________ Snelly's 90gal Reef-O-Rama *Member-"Crabs Are Evil" Society*

06-03-2007, 11:28 AM	#11 (permalink)
reefer3 Limpet Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Illinois Posts: 133 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 I'm going to give this a try, but I was woundering if I could tap into the wires and run more bulbs off of the charger or is that too much. I'm want to do about 4 bulbs.

06-03-2007, 12:34 PM	#13 (permalink)
reefer3 Limpet Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Illinois Posts: 133 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Ok Thanks for the info. I do have a old home phone charger that I think is 12 volt I and I have a old power wheels charger that I think is 12 volt I may give that a try. Thanks again.

06-03-2007, 01:25 PM	#15 (permalink)
reefer3 Limpet Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Illinois Posts: 133 View Gallery Karma Komment	Re: Make your own moon lights for less than $1 Thanks. I'm leaving in amin and I'll stop by radio shak and pick some up and giver her a shot.

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