Metal halides can equal FIRE!!!

Just to advise those avid DIY'ers out there to leave plenty of room above their fixtures to the hood :-[

I was rudely woken by the better half this morning at 03:00 hrs to GET UP THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!! >

Now i am not the easiest of people to get up in the mornings, especially that early, but once i smelt the smoke then i was up like a shot! with the fish the first thing on my mind............

Got down stairs through the very thick smoke to find the hood billowing and i do mean BILLOWING with smoke

 

bummer
did it damage the house at all, or just the tank.

 

Sorry pressed enter by mistake...

Well any way the first thing i did was disconect the electrics, open the window and bodily threw the smoking remains of the hood out.....

Now i had left an inch above the light fitting and there were three muffin fans in the hood to cool everything down.....

Now some of you may be asking what my lights were doing on at that time of the morning.... but you have just as much of a clue as i have... i can only think the cat had something to do with it!!!!


Well anyway the fish lived through it happily enough without any ill effects, so all i have lost is a hood (great excuse for my dad to build me the ultimate one when i have thought up some plans!!) and quite a bit of sleep...

Please take heed to this as i would hate anyone else having to go through it..

I was just glad the hood was a treated melamide that smoked and did not catch fire... the next one will all be of aluminium if i can think of a decent plan for its construction (any ideas would be greatly received)

Levi.

 

Sorry to read about the fire....glad everything is safe except for the hood!! As for some ideas for a new hood, here is a photo of my light assembly....the first pic is the whole fixture made of extruded aluminum with metal reflectors;

the second pic is a closeup of the side with the fan...the bulb configuration is the same on the other side;

the third pic is of the end closeup that shows how the glass covers slide into the housing (note the molded depression in the end cap to hold the glass in place).

 

2nd pic...

 

3rd pic...

Let me know if you need another shot for ideas....

P2B

 

WOW hope everyone is ok

I am a big DIYer, so when i built my MH hood i kept a close eye on the hood to make sure the hood did not get too hot. My bulbs are 400 watt each at about 3 inches away from the aluminum hood, without a fan they got so hot i could barely touch them but as soon as i put a fan on it it cooled right down, now its just warm to the touch

the reason i chose aluminum is because it's light and easy to work with otherwise i probably would have gone with stainless steel as it is a very poor heat conductor which would not heat up very fast or easily.

I had all the room in the world as my system is built into the wall so all the uglyness is in my fish room ;D . but for an enclosed hood as i understand you have it would be more difficult. What i thought of for another system that i'm setting up would be to go with an aluminum reflector and put fire resistant insulation around the refleactor, the same stuff as they put around heating ducts and a good fan. just an idea



good luck


Peter

 

[smiley=shocked2.gif] Oh Shoot!

Glad you didn't burn down the house!

 

Geologeek That is one hell of a way to get woken up !!! I am glad everyone is ok and that your fish are ok also!! 8)

Plan2Build that is almost the same light I have except mine has 2-110 VHO's and 2-400w Mogul Base MH and my fans are on the outside other than that it is the same light.............. John

 

Wow!!! Good save Geo!!

For those of you that do use wood..if paint the fixture with epoxy paint it would have a hard time burning. Nasty stuff but epoxy paint will not burn. If you paint a brass fitting with epoxy and put a torch on it you can handle the fitting and they do not even feel hot!! DON"T DO THIS AT HOME!! with or without parental supervision!!

Drew