IP66 LED Fixtures -> Mind = Blown

Have you been looking for a simple solution for LED lighting that doesn't cost a damn fortune? I recently stumbled upon LED IP66 fixtures, which are designed to replace outdoor MH / HPS floods. They cost roughly $1 per watt and are available just about anywhere. I picked mine up on Amazon already wired up with 3 prong cords.

They come in just about any wattage you can think of between 10w and 400w. I bought a 50w and a 30w for testing, and sure enough, the 50w is every bit as bright with about half the penetration as my 240w Blackstar with 3w chips. The 30w makes great light also, but requires being quite a bit closer to the fixture.

Here's a lighting penetration comparison in umol from my sweep-style light meter.
As a reference, the meter shows >2000 in July sun at noon and 1000 is outdoors is bright shade. For veg anything between 400-1000 works great. Flowering likes anything between 700-1500 but anything over 1700 tends to bleach the plants.


There are also models that are purple / pink that are made specifically for growing. You can run warm white, cool white (cheaper than warm white units) but the plants don't seem to mind, thats for sure.

So heres a shot of the 50w over (and probably a little too close to) the plants during testing in flowering.





And heres the 30w sitting next to my 240w Blackstar. Its not hitting with the same intensity as the 50w at the distance from the plant its at, but its going in my new veg cabinet along with 3 more of them.



In terms of heat output, the aluminum casing gets about CFL warmth on the 30w and around the heat of a warm tea kettle on the 50w.

Got my veg armoire assembled. Its a stacking unit which has two 2x4 growing areas. The bottom area will be for seedlings and small veg while the taller, top area will be large veg.

Here's a shot of the two 50w units in the large veg area. They have a 120mm pc fan above each for ventilation.



Small veg is the same story, but with three 30w units. Again, two pc fans supply enough air for the fixtures. All of the lights are about 1.5-2x as bright as my previous CFL arrays.

This is relevant to my interests....


Are you using these for veg only?
How far would you say the 50w penetrates?

I like them ... till they fail after 1.5-3 years

Nice lights for smaller areas / veg areas ...

So far the only led lights still working great are custom DIY made for me

Sometimes some more work with DIY ... or a USA company pays off in the long term ...

staank said:

This is relevant to my interests....


Are you using these for veg only?
How far would you say the 50w penetrates?

Click to expand...

I've used them in both veg and flower, though in flower I think 75w units would be a better choice (more penetration / coverage).

Based on what I've seen, a 20w unit should have the same penetration as any CFL array I've created. The penetration on the 30w is about 30%-40% better than CFLs and the 50w units have about 2.5x the penetration of CFLs. To give you an idea, that section of the cabinet with the two 50w units is four feet tall.

sold out on amazon!

Never sold out...
maybe out of stock...
but never sold out.

I just picked up a supposedly 50W light.

How are you liking your lights so far, Terpene?

They love it! Its never been so easy to veg.

Top half (twin 50w units for large veg)


Bottom half (30w unit for seedlings / teens)

looking good ...keep us updated ..wonder how long they will last???... theres no built in fan right??seems like they might not last long without a fan??.. price is cheap enough to just replace anyhow I guess .. I have paid more for just an hid bulb which gets changed out 6 months to a year....yeehaw...I haven't been able to find a unit over 50watts yet in my searches..????

I picked up my Mars 2 900w (450w draw) New on ebay for $251 free shipping.
that comes to $.56/draw watts. Those lights are intriguing for stealth grows tho.

You can get Cree 18w PAR38 spots (27deg) and floods (47deg) at Home Depot for $24. They have a 10-year warranty and use XBD or XTE diodes. Around 90-100 lumens per watt. (CFLs are 60-70).

I'm flowering a large plant under them right now:


It's getting 18 to 20w per sq ft. I wanted to do more like 30w, but the plant turned out to be much larger than I planned for. It's using about a 3x3 space. I was anticipating 2x2. So, I have 5 spots on top, 2 floods on the side and 7 small 9.5w Cree "lightbulbs" on the sides. That's 21w/sq ft.

I vegged under a Blackstar 135w ufo (85w actual) and four 9.5w Cree lightbulbs.

There's some expense setting up these bulbs. Sockets cost $5 each. But, it's nice to be able to replace bulbs with a trip to Home Depot instead of dealing with proprietary fixtures, replacing modules, etc.

^^^I've seen those lights at wally world. Nice lookin lady. ^^^

Boyd Crowder said:

I picked up my Mars 2 900w (450w draw) New on ebay for $251 free shipping.
that comes to $.56/draw watts. Those lights are intriguing for stealth grows tho.

Click to expand...

Now I gotta do some more looking...
'specially if that price point is the norm.

az2000 said:

You can get Cree 18w PAR38 spots (27deg) and floods (47deg) at Home Depot for $24.

View Image

Click to expand...

Its funny, I actually considered reusing my CFL spider lights and switching the CFLs with LED units like you're talking about. Ultimately I decided against it because they:
A) are too tall. fixture + bulb meant that you're sacrificing 8-10 inches off the ceiling of the cabinet.
B) are lower wattage at a higher price (30w for $25 instead of 18w for $24).

I am glad to see that someone has used them. I knew it would work, but I had a great deal of trouble finding examples of the 3000k bulbs being used for veg. Hows the heat per LED bulb compare to a 23-26w CFL unit? I'd imagine they are similar as they're all individually packaged?

Its my understanding that most leds font put off UV light tto support plant life. How can u tell these put out UV? Im interested in this cause my led guy thru work is wanting to make me a custom grow light but need some help on what kind of chips or diodes to put in this fixture, i gotta go led in the summer as its hotter than death valley. Who is the led guru who can point me in the right direction??? Id love to have a bad ass custom fixture for my room in the summer... Who can help a fellow IC'r

Terpene said:

A) are too tall. fixture + bulb meant that you're sacrificing 8-10 inches off the ceiling of the cabinet.

Click to expand...

You're right that traditional lightbulb profiles are taller than typical panels. However, you have the opportunity to aim them at 45-degrees around the top. For example, I'm growing under this fixture:



It lets me extend the lights out to the edge and point them back in. (I documented how I made this on RIU, in my blog/grow journal there.). This fixture wouldn't be suitable for a short space. But, it gives you an idea.

If low-profile is a priority I would look at SMD-5730 LED strip lights. They're 100-110 lumens/watt. 12 volts (use an inexpensive power supply.). You can attach them to a sheet of metal and create mini panels all around the plant (and from the top).

On AliExpress you can find lightbulbs made with these strip lights. Some come with a GU10 base which is a slightly lower profile. You can buy GU10 bases on eBay inexpensively. (Caveat: the Ali sellers will say a lightbulb is 9, 12, 18w. But, they all consume 3-4 watts. With the 18w you get more SMD5730 chips driven at a lower current, but overall the same current. Not a bad deal. You just have to plan accordingly. Nothing on the product pages say they consume only this much.).

Terpene said:

B) are lower wattage at a higher price (30w for $25 instead of 18w for $24).

Click to expand...

But, you get 25-30% more lumens per watt. CFLs are heat factories. So, like everything in life, there is a tradeoff between initial investment and long-term costs. (If you need to heat your grow space, CFLs might add value. But, strictly as light, unless it's a one-time grow, LED will be the better value. Especially the Cree lights with 10-year warranty.).

Terpene said:

Hows the heat per LED bulb compare to a 23-26w CFL unit? I'd imagine they are similar as they're all individually packaged?

Click to expand...

They run cooler than CFL. For example, a leaf can be right up against a 60w equiv (9.5w bulb) without burning. At least no burning for more than a couple hours. The heatsink around the base gets about as hot as a CFL.

As I said, 25-30% more lumens per watt should mean less heat. If the CFL uses a watt to produce 65 lumens, and the LED produces 100 lumens with that same watt, the CFL must be producing something else with that watt. (Assuming the light quality is the same, one isn't producing more infrared or something.).

LOL man, do we think alike or what?? This is what my CFL spiders looked like:

Good thread, Terpene. Timely for me, too. I was just setting up a new grow and looking for LED for vegging.

LOL! I've used the custom cfl setups too. Nothing wrong there. I can vouch from experience that LEDs can be simply stunning at keeping seedlings from stretching and these 50Ws should do the trick for me cheaply.

Thanks Claude, the 50w units will require a PC fan to vent the heat they produce if you're putting them in an enclosed container. (You can hang them in a grow room on chains without fans, but the fins on the back do get a little warm.) I used a hole saw to cut two 5 inch holes over the lights, then mounted the 120mm pc fans over the openings with mesh screens. This way the fans draw air over the fixture continuously and keep fins on the back of the fixture cool.

The 30w unit in the lower half doesn't get as warm as the 50w units, so instead of directly above, the extraction vents are mounted at the upper rear of the cabinet, similar to any CFL ventilation setup you've ever seen. Though I did put some upturned 90 degree PVC elbows over the fan openings. They are mounted about a 1/2 inch from the ceiling, so only the hottest air which has risen to the top of the cabinet is extracted - and it doubles as a light trap. Here's a shot:



Here's what large veg (twin 50w units) looks like right now:


Since I have to sleep next to the armoire, the fans I used (both top and bottom, 4 total) are Silenx Effizio EFX 12-12. The produce 12db each according to the packaging, in reality that means that they are virtually silent.

>They are mounted about a 1/2 inch from the ceiling, so only the hottest air which has risen to the top of the cabinet is extracted - and it doubles as a light trap. Here's a shot:

Perfect.

I've got some PC fans and some fans from my old 180 watt Blackstar UFO. It served me well for 4 years but the humidity & dust finally caught up to her.

I do like the white light. It makes watching the plants more enjoyable.

Thanks again.

well I love your bottom quotes..

thing I notice, is the WW looks to produce the same growth as the CW or is it just me?

I've noticed the same thing that in veg, it seems anything you throw at them they like, but I settled on a 4,000k spectrum... this was due to red and blue led units seem to grow very very good veg plants, so is it the blue or red in the unit I wondered... I have come to believe plants in veg also like red.. also like the higher Cri in WW usually, but I guess mine are NW then? not sure been out of the game to long with spectrum, but very interesting pics as it might lead us to NW or WW leaning in veg... I know they say blue in veg, but I'm not so sure yet I buy this testing my different panels I built...