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| The 48" LED fixtures underway |
Nearly all of the components for the lighting build have arrived (LEDgroupbuy.com managed to ship the 48" MakersLED heat sinks, but forgot to send the 24" ones), so we've started building. After much trial and error, we figured out how best to evenly space the stars on the heat sinks (pro tip: cut a block of wood or a piece of copper sprue to exactly the length between adjacent stars, and use it as a spacer), so the second assembly went much quicker than the first.
Even though attaching the stars to the heat sinks before soldering them (or even tinning them) isn't recommended, I'm confident that the way-oversized-for-the-project soldering station that I bought on Amazon should still be able to heat the pads faster than the sink can wick the heat away. If not, I guess I get to assemble it all over again. But, since it gets over 100 every evening this month, the work bench in the garage is no place to spend an evening soldering.