Building a Home Made LED

[PetFlora]

This, makes for a good learning experience.

Think about this.
At $37 a 15w bulb, this comes out to $2.47 a watt.
This is using top name leds.(maybe/probably not top bin)

It's easy enough to compare against any "grow led pimp"
Also as stated before HML costs are less than $2.50 a watt. (Closer to $2.00 a watt)
I think Petflora is paying like $5.00 per Chinese equivalent plugin led bulb.

Draw your own conclusion

I have found 7w Utilitech LEDs at Lowes/HD for $10 per (alas non removable dome). Cool Whites one day, WW another, but not on the same day. Drop in on my thread for today's pic updates. The LED lower buds were roughly 18" below the top until the light bar hanger snapped, Still they are golf ball size and very tight. Thank you supplemental light bar. It works so well, I added one to my HOT5 tent ~ 5 days ago, and am seeing nice results over the entire plants

 

[repuk]

repuk did i here this correctly your 4th week in flower ?????? is this from seed ??? just wondering.

Yes, 4th week from flower, the biggest ones (rear) are from seed. The two at the front are cuts.

This is their 5th week, will post pics tomorrow, things got out of hand after a week being unable to train them, I guess I'll detach the screens to ease the training and post a pic before and after.

repuk & 10:30 it would seem your observations continue to make a case for homogeneity?

It looks so!

also, i feel your pain. when i was scroggin if i went 3 days without looking at things, it was OUT OF CONTROL!

i found spending 20 mins a night tying down was much better than a couple of hours every 3 nights

I take note of that GP73LPC, thanks! I'd better train daily when I could...

They're growing like mad, though no signs of any frostiness yet, I'm hesitating between adding 60W of 3W deep reds (philips rebels 3W) or leaving this as it is to carry out the all-white "test" until the end. Or maybe add more WW, the ones posted by xmobotx seem to have a fair amount of deep red!

finding some interesting stuff w lumiled rebel ES leds availabl from future lighting on star pcb

Are you sure they have them with star pcb already? cannot find them...

 

[PetFlora]

I put in a few 15W cool white (6500k) screw-in LEDs from Home Depot to supplement my main panel for veg and early flower. Repuk and tenthirty got me thinking it might be worth it to switch them out for some warm white LEDs during the later part of flowering. I found these, which use CREE XP chips. Do you guys think it'd be worth spending the extra money?

Link: http://www.idealledlight.com/products.php?c=indoor&p=par30sw16&s=des

Apologies if this is too off-topic, happy to delete.

Worth a try but not at $90+. Go to www.ledwholesalers.com I have thought about getting one each CW/NW + 2 WW, but the price is prohibitive to me. Check out www.astirgrowled.com

 

[xmobotx]

Are you sure they have them with star pcb already? cannot find them...

i found them on future lighting

this one is the 2700k ^that 1 the 3000 i think the 3000 is the curve on the image i posted but they are VERY similar

 

[rives]

I really like the curve on those! God damn it, I've already got more lighting and lighting projects lined up then I have time to deal with, and I'm retired!

For anyone that might be interested, I decided to toss together a quick supplemental light to work with my VolksLED. I've been very impressed with how the cool white/660nm combination works for vegging, but I need a little more coverage. I decided to try the new LEDEngin 40 watt cool white in addition to a 10 watt LEDEngin 660 that I already have. This will give me the same ratio of white/red output that I'm currently running on the VolksLED.

The point of all of this is that when I tried to order the parts, Mouser was going to be out of stock on the chip for several weeks. I also wanted to order a Meanwell LPF-60D-54 driver for a power supply for it, but Mouser has historically been a little high on their Meanwell pricing. I found an outfit named onlinecomponents.com that had both parts in stock and the driver was 33% cheaper than Mouser. They had a couple of funky reviews, but I decided to try them anyhow. The parts shipped very quickly (I ordered on Friday morning and the driver was here on Monday afternoon, the chip is still in transit because it came from a different location), and at least the driver is genuine. So far, I am happy with the new supplier.

 

[vukman]

rives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by golly my friend...glad to 'see' you up and around already.. I hope you're feeling better. I hope I'm not giving anything up by saying that I know you suffer from pain issues like so many of us and yes, quite debilitating at times as well so please believe me when I say it's great to see that you're posting again.

Let me say that it's even better to see that you're up and at it with another project which I am waiting with baited breath to see in action!!!

Great stuff and damn glad to see you again.....

 

[rives]

Thanks, Vuk, I appreciate it. This isn't going to be much of a project at this point, more of a stopgap for some help needed in vegging out some Sour Bubble.

 

[repuk]

Here they go: 8th week of flowering.

I've been hesitating to add 60W of 660nm LEDs, as I felt, and the mate who gave me the clones confirmed that, that seems to lack something in its spectrum, the flowering being noticeably slower by almost 2 weeks.

But I decided to just let them finish with like it is, then do the second run with the additional 60W in 660nm.

They are superhealthy, the buds started to swell seriously, I had my share of culprit they didn't start to develop earlier: I had the blumats wimpy dialed and they were certainly starving for almost a week.

So for someone who is starting to conceive a all white LED lamp, add much more warm white in the ratio.

[/url]

 

[xmobotx]

werent you around 3:2 warm to cool? how far along are the pix?

*ed*oic now 24w;6n;4c ~4.8:2

 

[habeeb]

here's my light.

Thanks goes out to 10:30 and vukman, with a super special thanks to rives.. ( without them, I couldn't have done this.. I learned everything in 2 weeks how to build a lamp from them... )

-6 inch width , 20 inch length "heatsink"
-theoretical 69 watts ( need to get another kill-a-watt ) 7 xm-l Cool white / 9 xm-l netural white ( running theoretical 4.312 watts each chip )
-pure veg lamp ( goal was to build a lamp to cover a seedling tray / super high performance / pure veg purpose ( moms / seedlings / clones / youngsters / sexing plants... ) )
-bar doesn't even get warm, with 70 cubic feet of air a minute on it , ( fans are not even audible noctua fans )
-first time doing it, and it was fun.. I'm hooked, and already planning another..
-going to be building a box to house drivers / dimmers / connectors soon ( a junction for all the wires to hide / and have it looking more pro then DIY

 

[tenthirty]

Good job!!

I know the hardest part was getting the education and the nerve to drop all the money.
At least it was for me.

Let's see it doing it's magic!

 

[xmobotx]

here's my light.

Thanks goes out to 10:30 and vukman, with a super special thanks to rives.. ( without them, I couldn't have done this.. I learned everything in 2 weeks how to build a lamp from them... )

-6 inch width , 20 inch length "heatsink"
-theoretical 69 watts ( need to get another kill-a-watt ) 7 xm-l Cool white / 9 xm-l netural white ( running theoretical 4.312 watts each chip )
-pure veg lamp ( goal was to build a lamp to cover a seedling tray / super high performance / pure veg purpose ( moms / seedlings / clones / youngsters / sexing plants... ) )
-bar doesn't even get warm, with 70 cubic feet of air a minute on it , ( fans are not even audible noctua fans )
-first time doing it, and it was fun.. I'm hooked, and already planning another..
-going to be building a box to house drivers / dimmers / connectors soon ( a junction for all the wires to hide / and have it looking more pro then DIY

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=29215&pictureid=989518&thumb=1]View Image[/url] [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=29215&pictureid=989519&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

thats a nice clean looking build there

i bet it really 'shines' as a veg light

 

[PetFlora]

I would stagger the 2 rows on Habeeb's DIY panel for more continuous coverage

 

[luvdemshrooms]

Some of you may remember my first 12 XML prototype.

Alas, during tuning of the power supply, a 36Ω resistor was used instead of a 3.6K. Bad things happened and 10 XML's went "poof".

Well, as I was assembling some lights for a customer, it dawned on me that I was trying to reinvent the wheel. We ALREADY make a 115v light. I took 15 of the and mounted them between two aluminum channels to heat sink the transistors. As the MX6S Cree's are on a 3oz copper plane on the PCB, no additional heat sinking is needed.

245 watts. 2 amps total. 210 Cree MX6S running at 40mA.

After being on for hours you can set your finger on an LED, and leave it there.

 

[luvdemshrooms]

Ackkk! Hit the image limit.

Here's the rest.

 

[luvdemshrooms]

140 Neutral White (4750K)

70 Cool White (6500K)

Each "small" panel has 14 LED's. As the panels are easy to swap out, I can replace the Cools with Warm for the flowering room. I kept the panels pure, only 1 color temp per panel. However, any configuration of the panels (cool, warm, neutral) can be assembled.

 

[habeeb]

^ love the bar..

thing look pro.


well done

 

[xmobotx]

lol - get the impression that may be because it is pro

a reasonable source for PCBs that support multiple SMT LEDs could be pretty valuable to us DIY'rs

wouldnt mind seeing them spread out a little more tho

 

[luvdemshrooms]

wouldnt mind seeing them spread out a little more tho

It's a 4ft unit. Why would I spread them out more?

 

[xmobotx]

not on your unit ~on PCBs available for purchase {from diode to diode}

all the multi diode PCBs i have seen have the diodes clustered up tight ~they could be an inch or 2 or even 4 apart and still be effective

and; they have all been super expensive

*edit* BTW; luvdemshrooms your unit is in fact very attractive ~nice and pro and bright too

all i am doing is speculating that a PCB which enabled us DIYers to spread 'em out a little would be nice

similarly; a unit {PCB} which enabled one to use combinations of spectrum to achieve a single balanced point source would be desirable {on a single PCB}