Wow, that first setup is wild looking, definitly mad lighting scientist meets Frankenstein's monster, lol. But when I first thought of going with water cooled blocks, it's kinda what I thought my entire grow room would look like if I used water blocks, which is what eventually led me to the idea of aluminum tubing instead. Man, I'll bet those solid aluminium blocks aren't cheap either, and roger that on the cost of all the fittings ;?D
Yeah that last build is more along the lines of what I'm thinking of. A 6" x 2" x 1/4" piece 48" long runs $61.20 (free shipping on orders over $125) on eBay,
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But I'm thinking of cutting the ends of each tube to taper the ends to fit a 1/2" Threaded Half Coupling Aluminum 6061-T Schedule 40 Pipe Fitting, and then having a shop weld it together (I weld, but don't have a gas-fed mig welder). Btw, these run $1.78 a piece, also on eBay
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I also bought some 1" x 2" angle aluminium, a 42" length cost $6.25 (same guy I bought the tubing from). This will be used for mounting the driver as well as a couple of pieces welded at each end for hanger brackets - probably only use half of this per fixture, so figure $3.13. Total for the parts comes to around $68 minus the welding cost. I use a local shop quite a bit, so they usually give me a good deal so if I have two of these made up I think the cost will be around $30 per fixture at most.