I did diy from rapid too (before it was cool, haha), if I was to do it over, I would buy ai's. My fixture works great, but it's 1) ugly, 2) a huge pain in the as to build, 3) no warranty if something goes wrong, 4) doesn't hold value for shit (no one will pay much for my redneck fixture if I decide to sell it), 5) it's not easily upgradable (I'd have to rewire everything to change any of it), 6) did I mention it was a pain in the ass to make and it's still kinda ugly looking?

I would seriously think about buying a fixture, but if your just doing it for a bio cube it probably makes sense to diy it so everything fits in the hood and looks "stock".

Good luck!

so i guess just go with the basic and don't do no crazy red or anything. Thinking about going with the plug and play. Would this make it easier to change if i wanted to add reds?

I added two red leds to one of my fixtures and in my opinion it looked terrible and I had to redo it. Corals don't use red or green leds.

Posted By adampottebaum on 01/29/2012 07:30 PM
I did diy from rapid too (before it was cool, haha), if I was to do it over, I would buy ai's. My fixture works great, but it's 1) ugly, 2) a huge pain in the as to build, 3) no warranty if something goes wrong, 4) doesn't hold value for shit (no one will pay much for my redneck fixture if I decide to sell it), 5) it's not easily upgradable (I'd have to rewire everything to change any of it), 6) did I mention it was a pain in the ass to make and it's still kinda ugly looking?

I would seriously think about buying a fixture, but if your just doing it for a bio cube it probably makes sense to diy it so everything fits in the hood and looks "stock".

Good luck!

I respectfully disagree. Mine looks great, and I'm not really worried about anything going wrong. I'm not interested in selling it. It was a HUGE pain in the ass to build these things, and I cheated a little bit with the burquist thermal pads. But all said and done it's fantastic! and it cost me 1/2 of what it would have to put AI's over my tanks.

I think the ratio of rb/blue/red/green/white that I have is perfect! Dialed in, it looks almost identical to my MH's....except the colors are exploiding in my mind like I'm on an acid trip! hahahaha This light is awesome!

I didn't think the DIY was a pain in the ass at all, actually quite enjoyable! Not worried about warranty because everything is easily repaired and with such a simple system diagnosing a issue would be a snap and no single component is very expensive at all. I guess it just depends what you are comfortable with! My experience with Rapid LED was a good one....I would recommend.