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Moonlight globes can cost anything from R300 up to thousands. You can get such fancy ones that they actually simulate the phases of the moon in a 28 day cycle. I decided that a simple, inexpensive DIY was required, as all I wanted was the "effect" of moonlight in the tank after lights out.
See pic A (list of what is needed):
1) a few meters of rip cord
2) a 240v downlight lamp holder
3) a 50mm pipe 1/8th bend
4) a 50mm to 40mm reducer
5) a 50mm stop end
6) a LED down light globe. (240v, 1.5w)
7) Crimping ferrules
8) Heat shrink
9) a plug top
10) Marine silicon
11) Terry clip (40mm to fit the pipe)
From the list above you can assume pretty much 90% of the work. Connect the lamp holder to the rip cord using the crimping ferrules, slip the heat chrink over the ferrules, and using a lights, heat the heat shrink. This will shrink and insulate your join rather nicely.
See Pic B
I used the crimping ferrules rather than the chocolate block conenctors because I personally find this way of joining cables to be more effective, and secondly, the casing I made does not really allow space for the block connectors. If done correctly it also makes a waterproof connection, but this should not be relied upon. For a proper waterproof connection, use the proper splicing kits.
Before connecting the other end to the plug, drill a hole in the middle of the 50mm stop end, feed the wire through the plumbing fittings as shown below, and test your connections.
See Pic C
You will find that the LED down light globe fits in rather snugly into the fitting, and by using a little bit of glue (I used a product called Q-bond) you can glue the globe into the fitting. If you have a short piece of 50mm pipe, you can join the bend and the stop end using this, but because I bought my material from Builder's, the shortest length of pipe I could buy was 2m. As ou can see in the next picture... that would be a waste. Basically glue the 3 fittings together, and seal the joint with silicon.
See Pic D
I then siliconed the globe. (Due to the bend, you will find that the globe sits at a funny angle. So I basically siliconed the entire unit together so that the unit is THEORETICALLY waterproof. (Although I am not meaning to make it as such. (The only down side to this is you cannot just cimply change a globe, you would need to completely strip the unit down to change the globe. Altho the LED globe should give me years of use.)
I then simply pop-riveted the terry clip to the hood, attached the unit to this clip and voila...
See Pic E
The globe is only 1.5w... so minimal on the electrical bill. You can fiddle around with other types of fittings to get the angle of light you want, but the idea is there.
This entire unit cost me R 245.00 to make, and about an hour to assemble. I'd like to put a dimmer onto it, but without knowing if these globes are dimmable or not, I don't really want to go through th expense of buying a dimmer module, only to find it doesn't work.
Needless to day, this is the effect I have...
See Pic F
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