DIY leds Discussion Thread for all your how tos and doubts and anything related

[Neferhotep]

Never thought I'd be asking how to build a fancy household type incandescent\halogen "grow" light,

Don't worry mate, incandescent is the latest and hottest technology!
But wouldn't it be better to go HPS straight away?

what makes you think that a halogen will do this better than an incandescent?

It's not my idea. I would opt for heating the grow room, probably with central heating, like i do myself.

 

[greyfader]

I’m using 750-1,500W of heater right now.

Turning the heat up in the whole place to ~78° F helps maintain temperature. In deep winter the 1,500W heater will be running non-stop. If I can get IR to do that at half the operational cost?

Sure!

so, in the first place, you should get some insulation. this will give you control over the rate of energy loss.

have you thought about substituting incandescent bulbs for the heater during the lights-on period? maybe a combination of more led and incandescent?

they hatch chickens with incandescent bulbs.

but i have never grown in a tent so maybe tent growers have other considerations.

i once built a hexagonal veg chamber using 6 sheets of 2" foam board standing on end for the sides and 2 sheets for the roof.

i vegged 6 plants in it with a single 1000 watt hps in the center. i had an ac to keep temps from getting too high but since it was set at 88f it didn't run continuously.

it was in a large uninsulated metal building and worked great in subzero temperatures.

 

[greyfader]

Don't worry mate, incandescent is the latest and hottest technology!
But wouldn't it be better to go HPS straight away?

no, because using hps with led just duplicates certain parts of the spectrum below 600nm at a much greater expense. incandescent is far more effective at supplementing beyond 600nm than hps.

here is a generic comparison of led and hps spectrums. the second set of graphs shows an incandescent compared to other sources including the sun.

you can readily see the obvious greater output of the incandescent in the ranges past 600 nm.

 

[Aristoned]

so, in the first place, you should get some insulation. this will give you control over the rate of energy loss.

have you thought about substituting incandescent bulbs for the heater during the lights-on period? maybe a combination of more led and incandescent?

they hatch chickens with incandescent bulbs.

but i have never grown in a tent so maybe tent growers have other considerations.

i once built a hexagonal veg chamber using 6 sheets of 2" foam board standing on end for the sides and 2 sheets for the roof.

i vegged 6 plants in it with a single 1000 watt hps in the center. i had an ac to keep temps from getting too high but since it was set at 88f it didn't run continuously.

it was in a large uninsulated metal building and worked great in subzero temperatures.

I have been reading everything you guys have been discussing.

The incandescent bulbs would make for a better “heater” in my opinion. I could use them on a program that only runs during the lights-on period. They would only operate to increase temperatures (first light, every so often during the light cycle, deep winter would cause them to be on non-stop I am sure) but the heat energy would be accompanied by photons in the flowering spectrum.

I would imagine having a few of them mounted a the very top near the sides pointed slightly inward would work well. Perhaps the corners at the tops would be better.

Either way, incandescent bulbs are a go.

Insulation doesn’t mean much in this location, the winters are brutal and the summers are easy. Even if I didn’t have this going on I would have my heaters running along-side the central heat to keep everything warm enough for me.

 

[Neferhotep]

no, because using hps with led ...

Not both. HPS only.

 

[Drop That Sound]

I'm gonna go ahead & get a few bulk packs of the 10w halogens (both 2800k and 3000k versions to try out) and a cheap 140 or 160w electronic "halogen" transformer specifically made just for them. Extra blue sounds good too.

Might add a dimmer later to play with dialing in color temps, which could actually prove to be useful. I'm over thinking how low tech this is for sure. I don't need those fancy universal electronic ballasts with built in dimmers that can power both halogen and LED, but suppose that could be a nice option if i wanted to plug in small led modules into the same G4 type sockets in the future..

Its mostly gonna be a veg light anyway, and could end up replacing my 4' 8 lamp t-5, which I do rely on for extra heat most the year btw, but some of the ballast are crapping out finally.

Figure having a built in halogen or incandescent leaf heater would be nice bonus, especially if I can rig up the dimmer to a digital microcontroller and run programmed cycles, etc.

I'm using 24x 10-12w daylight SIL bulbs with this new fixture. I do want stretchier plants if possible, which suits my grow style. I also air layer during the veg cycle for huge clones, and need the extra warmth.

 

[Aristoned]

@greyfader day white sounds blue to me.

However, this is exactly what I need!

Cheers!

 

[Drop That Sound]

Aristoned, what you really want is a heat recovery ventilator (basically a cross flow heat exchanger core with dual input and outputs)) installed to the exhaust on your tent, so it recycles anywhere from 50-90% of the heat the LEDs produce and shoots it back through the intake and keeps it in the tent, but also ventilates with fresh air at the same time.

 

[Neferhotep]

@Drop That Sound for stretchier plants I think you need less blue so maybe you better go with normal incandescent like Greyfader wrote.
And dimming them would go nicely with a variac. Lamps also last longer with a variac.

cross flow

Cross flow is a waste of money. Get the real stuff; get counter flow.

 

[Aristoned]

@greyfader we need to talk incandescent spectrum.

@Drop That Sound I don’t mind the extra heat and humidity from the tent. I do mind having to heat up everything else to keep that warm.

@Neferhotep variac.? Variable control?

 

[Aristoned]

$9 for 2,000 hours of infrared.

2400k @ 99 CRI

 

[Drop That Sound]

$9 for 2,000 hours of infrared.

2400k @ 99 CRI

I bought the general electric version of that same 125w heat lamp at the hardware store recently, because my turtles basking platform light went out.. and I hate spending "premium" prices at the pet stores for the same type of bulbs... It was like $15 too, such a rip off. Might as well of got the "reptile" version at the pet store. Was literally the only incandescent light in the entire store too, otherwise I usually get the 65w versions in 3 packs, but they stopped selling those finally thanks to LED taking over..

It lasted 3 days and burned out.
That's one thing I hat about incandescent bulbs (and being a reptile owner), is hearing the busted filaments rattling around.. Sometimes you get lucky and get your moneys worth, or even more than the listed amount of hours.. The mini halogens with smaller coils look better IMO, but then again all my halogen tube shop lamps are burned out right now too..

Luckily, I went to the building salvage/re-store, and found a whole box of the the right 65w kind for a 50 cents a piece the next day, all brand new.. I'm stocked up good now.

Thank goodness people are still at least donating huge boxes of older light bulbs, enough to keep me supplied for life from my local stores that re sell them.

 

[Neferhotep]

variac? Variable control?

Yes. It's a variable transformer.
The thing with incandescent is the nature of the lamp; it must get incredibly hot to emit light. The same high temp will kill it sooner or later.
A 120 volt lamp driven at 110 or 100 volt will last much longer.
One way to dim it is with a "dimmer" but these have a very ugly waveform that can also kill. A variac always has a nice sinus.

12 volt lamps can be dimmed with a variac and a magnetic 12 volt adapter behind it.

Now I don't want ya all to go shopping and buy heaps of stuff. These are only ideas. I will admit however that I have heaps of stuff myself

 

[Drop That Sound]

I can safely power the 12v incandescent or halogen bulbs with a DC supply right? Won't it actually produce more stable flicker free light anyway?

 

[Neferhotep]

I never tried a DC supply on a incandescent lamp. But it shouldn't be a problem. In theory it should produce less flicker but incandescent doesn't flicker anyway does it? It's too slow to flicker.

 

[Drop That Sound]

I never tried a DC supply on a incandescent lamp. But it shouldn't be a problem. In theory it should produce less flicker but incandescent doesn't flicker anyway does it? It's too slow to flicker.

 

[Drop That Sound]

I've plugged in regular household incandescent bulbs into my automotive drop lights that clip to the battery terminals plenty of times..
Anyway, I'm not sure it matters much anyway with lower voltage bulbs like I plan on trying out, as they already claim to have low flicker, probably due to being low voltage already..

EDIT:

 

[jonesfam7715]

Stripping down this vividgro led has been a bitch, I started off grinding down a side of the reflectors so I can grab it with channel locks and rip em off. I was destroying the optics and old led boards, seemed like a waste even though I'll never use em. Anyways figured out a way to save everything

Can't really tell the brand of leds they look quite old but still in perfect condition, I was considering replacing the diodes on these boards, ain't happening. The boards are shit, the copper trace ain't right the thermal solder pad is almost non existent just a sliver on the board all the copper trace is dedicated to the anode and cathode pads, like you would want for midpower diodes. You dont see mcpcb for led with isolated thermal pads made this way anymore, probably because it'll run hot as fuck.

When I realized how much work was gonna go into taking this thing apart I decided to only strip half down for now. I rigged up the other half to run on 1 driver and hung it up to see how well it works. It's not bad but I bet it would do better without optics.

 

[Aristoned]

@Neferhotep I could not find a data sheet on these yet. What do you think about using both at the same time? I’m looking to reduce the heating footprint for the LED array. I cannot run the Vero’s any harder until she starts blooming more.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Watch out for high wattage infrared lmap solutions theyre likely to cause stretch, especially when combined with low levels of visible light. This is why i like low watt halogen spot solutions (well in theory, havent tried yet): directs radiation downwards and are fairly easily controllable.
Cermic heater worked well for a friend of mine, even after light out. No extra stretch but somewhat pricey