My Fish Tank by Lam Nguyen

Multifacet Reflector

The shape of my reflector is show bellow. I called it multifacet just because it sound cool. I not sure what it actually called .

To create a reflector with 4ft long a shape like that I would need a way to form a piece of thin metal sheet of 4ft long into that shape. Well, as usual, after many session of brain storming and mind melt, I finally come up with a thin sheet metal forming device, appratus? Jig? You decide.

If you're interest in building this 4ft long reflector then here is how you'll do that. You would need a table saw for this one. I have a table saw but my friend has a much newer and much better table saw than mind so I have it cut at his home. You'll need 2 pieces of 4 inches by 1 inch by 4ft long pine wood. The table saw angle should be set at 11.5 degree. Try to make the cut as smooth as possible (watch your figures). Next, screw wood screw every 6 inches lengthwise as show in the above picture. Now I have a form or a die. Next, you need to get a thin sheet metal. I got this from Menard store. The thin metal is a roll of aluminum sheet metal that home builder use it for soffit and fascia. Next, you need to cut the sheet metal to 46 inches long piece. You need to have 1 inch clearance on each end. Next, you need to determine the width of the sheet metal. To do this you need to decide how the reflector would be. See the picture below.

Measure the length of each marker. This task is easy to do if you have Visio software. It has actual measurement build in. Then draw all the markers on paper and tape those markers on each end of the sheet metal. See picture above. Once the width and the markers have been determined and taped on to the sheet metal, the next step is to form the sheet metal using the die.

Align the top and bottom die to the first marker. Next use a hammer and the other free hand, you would put your weight on that free hand and push the die down while strike a sharp blow on the top die. The die will sink and the sheet metal will form a nice straight form. Make sure you continue to strike 3 or 4 more sharp blows along the length of the die to form the sheet metal completely. Then move on to the next marker until the reflector take shape.

The next thing to do is to add the reflecting material to the reflector. I can only think of 2 materials that are available and affordable. One is plastic mirror. You can have the local plastic shop to cut strips of plastic mirror to length and width. Then just hot glue or epoxies it on to the reflector. The second material is Mylar sheet. Mylar sheet sold on the Internet actually are expensive. But if you go to Walmart or any out door store, you can find a Mylar blanket for 2 bucks. Now you will need a roll of two side tape from Menard and tape along the leght of the reflector.

Now this is where thing can get hairy. You can cut the Mylar reflector to 46 inches long and roll it lengthwise and start to try to unroll the Mylar from the outside of the reflector and roll to the other side of the reflector and hope it would stick nicely. I tried the spray on adhesive myself but it didn't go well when I tried to roll the Mylar on, they crumble up and tear and stick badly. Then I tried the 2 side tape. That would work ok if you cut the sheet into 3 pieces and try one at a time. Any way once you have the reflector done then hurry put a light on and see the different in the intensity of the light. The tank will be much brighter. There are a lot more lights that did penetrate the water with the reflector than without the reflector and that achieved with only 2-40W rather than 4-40W.

Now if your're still not satisfied with the light intensity of this multifacet fluorescent reflector then you can knot your lighting system up a bit more with a more advance reflector, the true parabolic reflector. Ahh....yes the true parabolic reflector the holy grail of all reflectors. If you want to design the true parabolic reflector here is how I did it.

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