DIY Reflector help

[Hairy_Harold]

I am wondering if someone can outline some of the measurements of there reflectors single bulb or double welcome. My brother is a stainless steel fabricator and was hoping he could make me up a DIY reflector. He builds commercial kitchen appliances such as ranges, splashbacks, benches, cold cases and such.

I am wondering the angles of the bends in the actual reflector/lens?

The position of the bulb/s in relation to these bends, distance between the bulb and where it's attached

The length between these bends?

I hope this actually makes sense and any help is greatly appreciated.

[gzeiger]

The optimal reflector is a half ellipse with the center of the bulb at the focus. A version constructed with flat pieces of metal should attempt to approximate that as closely as possible, so far as your equipment allows. Angle measurements won't do you any good, it's the relationship between angle and length that's important.

\_/ and \______/ show the same angle, but would perform very differently in reflecting light...

[ccCapt]

Here ya go. Step by step here. 125 reef build

[Hairy_Harold]

Originally Posted by gzeiger

The optimal reflector is a half ellipse with the center of the bulb at the focus. A version constructed with flat pieces of metal should attempt to approximate that as closely as possible, so far as your equipment allows. Angle measurements won't do you any good, it's the relationship between angle and length that's important.

\_/ and \______/ show the same angle, but would perform very differently in reflecting light...

Generally angles will help I am trying to take tangents from a parabolic curve/lens to focus the light from a fluro tube which I am lead to believe reflectors would be based on. The reflector will be at first for a 3ft tank and upscaled for a 6ft which a wider focus will be needed for. I am thinking that having 2 standard single fluro tube lights with these reflectors on there outside to focus undirected light towards the water. There would be no needs to have ends on the reflector as light wouldn't radiate at 180 degrees to the tube. This will all be made up from mirror finish stainless steel sheet which will be free for me