Mad's DIY LED PC Grow #1

Really should be called 60w LED grow. Skip to page 3 for final light arrangement. 3 lights each on its own timer, morn, day, and eve. Until then thread should be called Gilligan tries a dangerous new hobby without enough know how and The Proffesor warns of impending doom.

Made my first LED growlight, a cheap 10w full spectrum chip is all that's in the case so far. I stuck the chip onto the bottom of a micro Tin lunchbox with thermal paste and magnets. Might as well have been an Altoids tin, it's that small. There is a fan in the lights box with some heat sinks. Drilled air vents on the top and two sides. This light was easy to hang with wires and 2 very strong magnets. Good magnets are expensive, but I had a bunch sticking around.

I put the LED driver on the outside of the case to lower temps. In general is this ok? Its DC current at this point which means it looses power the longer the wires?

Going to add 2 more of these chips on a second light soon, and thinking of getting 3 more for 60w total. I have a bunch of 3w leds I could use also. (Waiting for other chips to come from China)

Will also be testing out a new seed I got when a friends unknown Gsus OGx hermied and hit a Blue Dream clone. G13 in there somewhere supposedly. Was strong n tasty, but I've only ever had parent plant outdoors.

Seeds are cracking in a cup of water now.

Thinking to put 6 in 12/12, unless you all convince me otherwise. (Just veg and choose strongest female to LST then flip?)

Peace! And thank GOD for Cannabis. I would have thrown myself into a volcano ages ago if I had to deal with my 20+ years of chronic back pain without it. I'm definitely someone whose life has been saved by this plant.

Made another light with 8x3w leds. 6 Deep red and 2 blue. 34w in case so far. How do you calculate the actual Draw of Leds?

My experiment idea is to have this light come on for 2 hours, then a brighter full spectrum light with some warm white also in the mix for 8 hours, then a third light with mostly red for the last 2 hours. Wishing the PC case was bigger to get more exaggerated light angles for this.

2 more lights to build. Maybe I will upgrade the 10w FS one somehow. Have 2 more 10w FS chips. A 40w light with those 3 and 1 warm white is what I'm thinking, for the 8 hour one.

Put 6 cracked seeds tails down 1/4 way into Fox Farm OF soil.

Look how quick it grew. Just kidding. That's the clone of my latest bomb digdigdigdig from my regular veg area. Just trying not to waste light while I test the lights out.

Gotta work on light proofing it better before 12/12.

Peace!

Using what I already have laying around, these 28w bulbs would be an easy way to get some IR, and UV into the mix.

Modifying them to move the drivers outside the box, and to create a little extra headroom.

These 2 28w + 1 10w and maybe even 2 green 3w's, for my mid day sun light? I'm guessing, the green in the 1 10w FS might be enough to make a difference in that spectrum?

Cool, it came with a candy inside, hehehe

Peace!

It was easy to pop the PCB out by hitting the screwdriver with a hammer, right here.

And tapping here to remove this metal ring.

Wow, says "Dark Energy" on the driver. he he he

L and N on a LED driver stands for Live and what?

& maybe I'll add this 9.5w warm white bulb to my "mid day sun" light.

Anyhow, just been fun watching my family scratch their heads, "Why are you taking apart LED bulbs?"

Peace!

Simple 47w layout, 28w FS, 9.5w Warm White, 9.5w Cool White. What is this by the way? Half of the drivers? Hopefully the part I took off with the capacitor is the part that gets hottest. Would like to wire this so it all plugs in with one plug. So far my fans are separate plugs.

Maybe I'll finally improve my soldering skills with this new hobby.

There is a symbol with this shape, "Banner Of Peace". Wish I had a way to have it rotate on a motor. Whole other can o worms.

I have 3 composting worm colonies, also. Gotta harvest castings for first time. Been keeping them for about a year now in 5 gallon buckets.

Peace!

Guess I'm not making much more headroom this way, after adding a fan. If I can find my dremels cutting disks. I gave up trying to cut down the heat sinks fins with a hack saw. I'm an old man!

When I get paid I will order some more solder, and some Kapton tape.

Ha! Here's an idea to make more headroom on my 3rd light, the evening time one. Since I want it at an extreme angle, why not mount the fan onto the side instead of the tops of the heat sinks fins? This heat sink has some tall fins eh?

I used Reds, Blues, 1 Royal blue. This is also going to be a test to see if I can power these 9 3w's with the driver from one of those 28x1w's bulbs. Should work eh? Probably get back to this more when I get a day off from work.

Peace!

Good morning little Dream Hazies! Please don't be alarmed, you can live on this strange planet with many different small, multi-colored, suns that behave strangely! Hope it rains hard soon so I can get you some of the good water. Welcome to DellStinko! 18hrs veg

Have you decided on a final wattage for the case?

Are you going to try to lightproof the case?

MadR1 said:

And tapping here to remove this metal ring.

Wow, says "Dark Energy" on the driver. he he he

L and N on a LED driver stands for Live and what?

Click to expand...

N and L stand for Neutral and Load.

Awesome!
I'm in for a ringside seat, sorry I missed it before now.

Thanks for posting all this. I Hadn't thought of remote ballasting these boogers, and dang if it just might be the ticket for the cabinet I'm building. Thanks a heap!

Keep Being Awesome!

One died. Replaced it with another one that popped up. The 6th hadn't popped out of the dirt yet. Probably the tap water I let sit for a few days and then ph adjusted to 6-7, not good enough.

My soil growing skills aren't usually as successful as when I grow hempy bucket style in coco. Been liking the effects of soil grows more though. The taste is still great. I like making SIP's in 5 gallon buckets. Thinking of making the plastic tray I have in there into a small one. Should be taller maybe for more soil. Shoot for a quart sized amount of medium?

Cool Douglas! Yeah the goal of posting this thread is to share any innovation that may occur, or lack of. Document my new hobby. I really only know some basics about electronics.

For people new at this, like me, if your lights are flashing like mine we're a few rounds in... Is the driver dimmable? I connected those two extra wires that are meant to go to a potentiometer, and then they got full power. "Egon I thought you said never to cross the streams?"

Plan to finish wiring other 2 lights tomorrow.

Had just enough solder to wire up the evening light. Wired to the "Dark Energy", driver that came from 28w 1w array grow bulb, was not enough to power 9 3w LED's. Took one out of my Series circuit and now it works. Without having the specs to the driver what could I do but guess. iPad picture didn't do it justice, looked very red in workshed. Also, I need to be more careful. I melted a couple led lenses with the soldering iron. That's one way to experiment with different beam angles.

Does this light really need a fan, that's a lot of heat sink. The grow bulb didn't have a fan, can't I keep this passive at this scale?

I keep thinking I need to double my watts all around, cause 90w's of LED is only the same as 45w's of HPS? I have a 300w Mar's Hydro light, for example, that says it can replace a 150w HPS. I want to shoot for 90w's in the PC case, so 180w's LED?

Peace!

Thanks ReikoX

Load is the black wire, small plug on the AC plug? On some lights it can be very dangerous to mess that part up?

blynx said:

Have you decided on a final wattage for the case?

Are you going to try to lightproof the case?

Click to expand...

180 watts hopefully. Yeah, would like to light proof it. Black plastic and magnets? Guess I should see what folks have been doin for that, cause the PC exhaust fan and passive intake vent in the front are an issue.

Just gonna throw it out there, take a breather first and think about things if possible.

First if you don't know what the specs are with your drivers/ballast measure them with a multimeter should be your first step also read up on some electrical theory.

Also if your overdrawing on the ballast or over driving your led chips you can and will start a fire, so you better make sure they are correctly suited.

Also your dealing with AC voltage on one side, it can and will kill you if things go wrong, so cover your terminal or connection points.

And 180w is total overkill in a pc case and your plants wont stand the heat generated especially if your heatsinks are internal they are gonna be crispy plants as you wont be able to cool it enough, but i doubt you'll actually be running at that wattage for various reasons that seem obvious but i guess not if you don't have that basic understanding.

As for how to measure your wattage again basic electrical theory which you should know so your gonna have to measure your current and voltage of the dc side of your circuit to figure out that side or go grab a wattmeter for the ac side.

Im not trying to be harsh here but seriously take a breather and do some reading no sense in burning down your house or killing yourself or someone in the resulting inferno or electrical hazards

I know your excited to jump in but you have to thinks about things a little first for your own sake.

Thanks Mr.Sparkle! What I need to consider for sure. Yes it's apparent to me I'm not ready to experiment with such things. My lights are most likely not getting the correct power, at least the latest one, cause it's not getting hot or even very warm without a fan. The second light I made is much brighter when I put my hands underneath them, same amount of LED's. Sure seems like I'm under-driving them. Won't attempt to bump up the power. I can step back and learn to use my multimeter with a bunch of the old school LED's. The kids still like it when I bust those out. Will be more fun, anyhow, if I can bring some kinda knowledge to it that would enable other applications like custom disco light shows or something. I'll continue to grow with my factory made LED's, and the DIY gear I made following experienced tuts on YouTube and here. Someday I'll most likely attempt fixing one of those when a light or zener thingy blows out.

Here is my best idea, for a greener product, since I'm not ready to design it myself yet. The box design of most grow lights is such that when a light blows out the average person will need to send it to a repair technician. How about modularizing the LED's/COB's, so that they can be unplugged and maybe even taken off the light without a screwdriver... magnets? Some kinda clip on design? Such that you would only have to send away for a small part, possibly even without any grow down-time. Better for the environment. O.K. They want you just to chuck it and buy a new one? My idea is out there now, in case I fail my electronics class or get hit by a bus tomorrow. At least I did what I could to improve things.

I have experience making Cigar Box guitars. I thought Tin lunch boxes would be the DIY fad that I somehow helped get going... Lunchbox Lights!

Cool, no more crazy experiments, shots in the dark. Will hit the books again before making anymore DIY lights.

So, I'm leaving it at 58w's then, will flip to 12/12 in a couple of weeks and see what happens.

(I wrapped the small driver back up in the insulating wrapper, put that into a plastic electronics box. It's just outside the exhaust fan. Nothing is getting very hot, or even close to hot.) It's on the concrete floor of a basement room that stays locked so no animals or children can knock it over. I get it that I'm lucky I had this much fun with electricity without causing an accident.

One is a One-leaf mutant! I looked close, doesn't look eaten by a bug. They are S1's.

Peace!

Concerning my regular grow...

Meanwhile, I wait for my Dutch Treat X Jillybean, I did breeding, to dry.

My first harvest after switching my grow tent from a 400w HPS to a 600w and 2 300w Mars Hydro lights, plus 14 or so 5000k and 2400k 9.5w Led bulbs. I have the lights come on in three different groups at a changing angle progressive like the sun from one side of the tent to the other. Light footprint is only about 4 5 gallon buckets.