Building a Home Made LED

[tenthirty]

Well, I just couldn't help myself and put the new DYI luminaire in it's new home.
So while a 1 hour temp test is going on I snapped some pics for your viewing enjoyment.


First and second shots are right next to a pro-grow 260.



I would note that diode for diode using the by gosh and by golley method.
The DYI LEDs are at least twice as bright as the pro-grow. Also at certain angles the light is so white that can appear transparent next to the other ones.
Your brain doesn't see the color so you don't see the light directly like the red and HPS orange. Really weird.
The lateral sweet spot at its current height is about 11"
It looks like the sweet spot is about a 90 degree cone, just like the data sheet said it would be.
I would say the light is about 12" above the tops.

Time for some temp reading. On the ends we're at 91-92f and in the center we're at 94-95f. This is just with the existing air circulation fans going and ambient temp of 78f and 55%rh.
I couldn't have asked for more. (more light less watts.....wish in one hand)



Now the little girls,

This group is 17 days into flower. I use herb.iq if that matters.





This group is at day 51.



Please excuse the less than healthy plant. I have been battling root aphids for about 3 months. I lost half of my mommies before I figured it out and eradicated the little fuckers.
Also the more mature ones are my first run with Veg&Bloom. So I cooked them a little bit.
The clones that made up both these runs were not the best due to my uninvited guests and my lack of good breeding stock, but that is getting fixed. Another month and we'll have an abundance of cloning material.

The younger ones just received their bottom up trim, so it will take a while for the canopy to fill in again.

By the way, what we have here is 2 3x3 flood and drain tables ala 4" rockwool cubes, 30-40 day rotation real consistent structure and morphology, high enough numbers so there is a good sample, but small enough that the individual doesn't get lost.
So changes are pretty easy to track.

Well now that I threw this thing together on a semi-educated whim...........

What is the next step?

 

[hempfield]

The DYI LEDs are at least twice as bright as the pro-grow. Also at certain angles the light is so white that can appear transparent next to the other ones.
Your brain doesn't see the color so you don't see the light directly like the red and HPS orange. Really weird.

I think this is due the polarization of the light .

 

[repuk]

repuk, 2 of those in parallel should be tits. My starter/cloner tent is 2 X 4; the other foot has equipment in it anyway Hope you will keep me posted. Do you plan on starting a thread?

Yep, just for the sake of all-NW experiment, though I have been tempted to mix NW and WW lately... but will stick to the all-NW.

As tenthirty says this is a work in progress so I can do one crop all NW, next one with mixed NW and WW, which has a fair amount of ~660nm and see the difference.

tenthirty that temps are great! So with enough airflow in the cab a properly sized heatsink can run passive-only, yikes!

I think I'm not going to use any optics. The only ones that make me wonder are those "magnifier" type HGL uses, but dunno if it's just marketing hype or true measurements.

Will be very interesting to see if there are any diferences in the clones growing patterns under the different grow lights before rotation!! A time lapse webcam or similar would be great!

 

[PetFlora]

Sailor has me on board with mixing WW+ NW+ CW in a 2:2:1 ratio

 

[tenthirty]

Sailor has me on board with mixing WW+ NW+ CW in a 2:2:1 ratio

I hate to say this now, but I was leaning that way too, but after examining the datasheets and the comments by Knna and gang,
I settled on just the NW partly because I couldn't come up with a pattern on the heat sink that made me happy.
Logistically speaking (in hindsight)
Each led produces a cone of about 90 degrees, so in my situation there are 2 or 3 chips directly illuminating a group of 4 plants.
I couldn't see how I could mix 3 different whites and a red evenly
across the 4 plants within the design constraints of the heat sink.

I can't fault sailors proofs, but I can disagree with some of his assumptions. (At this point, I believe wider bandwidth is better, thus all 3 whites)

("Emerson effect" "resonance")
IMHO, There is going to be a number of sweet spot to produce
different chemicals and amino acids etc.....Multiple Emerson effect locations. (If only we could play chopsticks with light and have the plant give us a review)

Out on a limb here.
There is also going to be the math that should be able to proof this concept.

Now if you went with a 4' wide hs, you could pull this off just dandy!

I hope you journal it.

 

[vukman]

I hate to say this now, but I was leaning that way too, but after examining the datasheets and the comments by Knna and gang,
I settled on just the NW partly because I couldn't come up with a pattern on the heat sink that made me happy.
Logistically speaking (in hindsight)
Each led produces a cone of about 90 degrees, so in my situation there are 2 or 3 chips directly illuminating a group of 4 plants.
I couldn't see how I could mix 3 different whites and a red evenly
across the 4 plants within the design constraints of the heat sink.

I can't fault sailors proofs, but I can disagree with some of his assumptions. (At this point, I believe wider bandwidth is better, thus all 3 whites)

("Emerson effect" "resonance")
IMHO, There is going to be a number of sweet spot to produce
different chemicals and amino acids etc.....Multiple Emerson effect locations. (If only we could play chopsticks with light and have the plant give us a review)

Out on a limb here.
There is also going to be the math that should be able to proof this concept.

Now if you went with a 4' wide hs, you could pull this off just dandy!

I hope you journal it.

Heya tenthirty:

You are doing some amazing work here my friend. I really like the fact that you are taking a lot of 'variables' into consideration especially the 'Emerson effect'......keep up the great work and keep us posted!!!!!!! BRAVO!!!!!!!

 

[PetFlora]

Many of you know I run 3 separate systems; 2 are under my 8 bulb HO T 5

My 3rd system is in its' own 2 X 4 X 6 tent. In it I have my DIY Bubbler. Since my ufo 90 is not a vg light I start seedlings/clones under cfls then introduce the ufo once the leaf sets develop. The cfs (some cool white, some warm) are screwed into a 4 bulb vanity fixture.

Last year I bought one warm led (probably 3-5 watts) with a flat top, but did not put it in this fixture. Fast forward to my increased understanding of mixing cw/nw/ww, a week ago I spotted 2 day light 3.5w leds with a dome (@ $15) with the purpose of comparing them to the 13/23w cfls.

Now the 2 remaining plants here were the runts of the 8 seedlings. Both had 3 nodes. Putting the nw/ww/nw into use, nothing much changed until I added the ufo back in. Within days these plants have taken off, and are as big as the 4 plants in my hpa system.

I am excited to see how well these do under ~ 60 led watts

Will post a pic later

 

[repuk]

Sailor has me on board with mixing WW+ NW+ CW in a 2:2:1 ratio

The more i look at the datasheet and clorophyl/absorption charts, the more I'm thinking in that same ratio, using XM-L's.

Emerson effect is exactly the claims of HGL in terms of their X2 optics advantage... Better PAR due to more bandwidth at canopy level. Truth? Bullshit? Who knows, but usually the best lens in terms of Chromatic aberration is no lens, or rather complex lenses.

However as always there's the point of diminishing returns.

I seriously thinking on making two 10 XM-L lights with 4 WW 4NW 2CW each, it sounds like a sweet spot, convenient (2 LPC-60-1750 drivers) and simple to setup.

 

[Aeroguerilla]

man gotta love these LEDS. im setting up an offgrid year round perpetual veggie grow off solar power with some LEDS. cant fuckin wait! free food year round... keep up the good work

 

[vukman]

What we really need is one of those damn high end CSI units. The unit which you can dial in any wave length you want. I know it's a single colour at a time unit but still, it would solve a few questions which have been tossed around as to 630 vs 660nm. I'm still liking the idea of the 'Emmerson Effect' there. I mean even if what is being said has merits to it and C3 plants uptake ChA (Chlorophyll A) on a lower wave length, the Emmerson effect would push that up to 660-670 anyway.
As I also believe fully that any LED light should have white light in it as well. Whether it's CW, NW or WW, it's still covering the 'colours' which are not the old stand-bys of red and blue.
Love this field and truly like that fact that it's still a very open field as opposed to HID. If you say anything out of the norm with HID's look out for the flood of flaming and derogatory comments where as here.......everything is interesting and everyone's opinion is taking into consideration......

Gotta give that the big <<<<thumbs up....

 

[PetFlora]

If you're uncomfortable buying a kit that might have the wrong spectrum blends check this out.

Newer low watt leds (without globe) that screw into regular light sockets that are very close to cw/nw/ww. I am using them in a cheap 4 bulb vanity fixture to supplement my ufo 90 which is R:B 90:10. I found a source for 3-7 watt bulbs in various temps. Literally less than half the price from distributors (or big box) + greater selection + free shipping

I bought the cool white 7.5w from Lowes @ $15. The globe is probably restricting watts available. I ordered similar watt bulbs without globe between $6-8 from www.chinabuye.com Will take 2-4 weeks, but Im in no hurry

View attachment 184024 View attachment 184025

 

[medmaker420]

Petflora

Those screw ins would be a perfect way for cfl growers to start testing out leds. Man in my cfl days I had so many screw in sockets rigged up to power strips, I still have cfl's from my beginning growing days to use throughout my house as I bought TOO MANY lol.

I have got to try out some of those screw in bulb led types in a micro grow or something. Some of the common leds have a pretty decent spectrum which is great to see actually.

 

[tenthirty]

Update time!!

Well this weekend considering I already had my tools spread all over the place I decided to fix my blue lab meter.(30 bucks in displays) Now this is a really tough and time consuming soldering job.

Here is the board with the displays already cut out. There is no way that I would try to desolder these thing intact.


Old displays on top, new displays on the bottom.


All installed.


About 2 hours form start to finish including a small bowl of bubble hash.

Now let's recap where we are.
We built a led fixture out of readily available parts, almost a one stop shop. The build was quick and easy and required very little skill. What is required is a good soldering iron!! The $10 cheapies from radio shack just won't do.

So the fixture is about 90w and illuminates about a 1' x 3' swath of table. I'm running 2 3x3 table side by side, so all things being equal,
We should be able to cover 1 table with 3 of these things.

What I have is about 100sq ft total area for growing, divided into 5 separate stages of growth. Let me show you.

Clone area.


Mommie location #1
Note the little clone to the right front. See the difference in size.
All 4 of the plants came from the same clone run. The difference is the waterfarm plants were put in the waterfarms under 4 PLL lights 2 days before the pic was taken. Hmmmm.
The plant in the back right is the original mommie and is about a year old and came from G.O.D (Garden of Dreams). The strain is Alien Dawg and I must say it's really good.


Here is mommie location #2 in 8 waterfarms.
I lost half of these to root aphids last month. Die little bastards die!!!
So I've been replacing them over time. By the way the root aphids came with fungus gnats and root rot, so it was a very sorry sight and I was chasing my tail for about 3 months. I'll tell ya that I have a really hard time being at one with the plant. The techie stuff comes as second nature, but I can kill a plant with the best of them.


Now here is a pic of the one clone that had a 3' long root ager 14 days in the cloner. All the rest were barely past the rapid rooter.
How can I get all of them to do that???


Last but not least is the preveg location right next to the mommies.
(nice way to propagate root aphids)


You've seen the flowering location in a previous post and I'm out of image uploads.

Well, considering that the cost of each 90w fixture is about $250 and I need 3 of these to cover a 3x3 table.
I believe that I want to work on the first 4 weeks of 12/12 table and start considering what the next fixture will look like. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Also secondarily I would like input on what can be done to improve the cloning location and preveg. I'm thinking butterfly effect here.

There are 2 plants that are exhibiting something really strange (at least to me) and I'm out of pic....

To be continued................................

 

[tenthirty]

Ok, on to the plants.

This plant is one of the 2 problem children. I took several pics with the point and shoot and this is the best one. (I'm going to have to get out the big camera, but I'm a lazy stoner slacker)


Note the light yellow spots on the leaves at the vein locations.
First, in person it's not yellow but bright white, and on top of that it's fluorescing! I
mean that if you put your hand over the leaf and shade it it goes away. I found this out using the jewelers loupe.
Also these leaves are kind of thick and have a kind of rough leathery texture with fine little hairs. (all under the loupe) Both problem children are under the new home made led.
Here is another not so good picture.


Now lets compare against another top that is still under the same fixture.


By the way, this is my second run with V&B so I'm still a ways off from dialing it in.

Any ideas?????

 

[repuk]

Could it be bleaching from the LEDs???

 

[hempfield]

The pictures are very fuzzy but it seems to me like thrips damage. Din you took a closer inspection of the leaf using the loupe/scope ? If there are very small black dots (thrips poop) then you know who is the enemy.

I noticed myself that the white/silver spots made by thrips on the leaves looks kind of strange on the pinkish light of my DIY LED panel.

 

[vukman]

tenthirty...can you get a better picture please...it is kind of hard to see what is going on there...Appears to be spotting around the veins but not clear. If yes, there was a similar case of that a few days ago in the 'infirmary' forum...hope that helps...A lot of people were talking about variegation or something like that...but as to the causes of it, I just do not remember,,, you're not the only 'stoner slacker' here ya know........

 

[PetFlora]

1030 Go to my finished journal. It has a flawless clone/starter tech I developed

 

[PetFlora]

IMHO the sooner you dump the RW the better. It stays too wet, a great environment for root problems. Check out www.brotherhoodproducts.com He has a floating raft http://www.brotherhoodproducts.com/v2/kontiki.html and a 7" tray http://www.brotherhoodproducts.com/v2/ultima.html.

Load that tray with a bunch of Sunleaves air stones + the raft + a combination of hydroton/small lava rock and your troubles should be over.

I too am using V+B. I run ~ 200ppm until I get 2-3rd node then 300 for another 2-3 nodes then 400. When I pushed to 500, within 7 days the plants sexed without changing the light times! Max during mid-flower was 800 in my hpa system and 1100 in my F & D

 

[tenthirty]

Here we are again,

First I have a very special gastronomical delight. One of the rarest delicacies on the planet.
Yum!!

I like to call this one ""root aphid fliers ala T5"
View attachment 184502 .
Baked to a white crispy patina.

Now down to business.
I got out the big gun and snapped some pics just before lights on.
Due to popular request, here are some better pics of the 2 problem children. Note the leaves and central bud and of course the white spots.
I did raise the light 1.5" and I moved one of them to under one of the pro grows.
I think we have a winner with variegation. (a type of bleaching)

Any other ideas?

Now for the obligatory bud porn.
Day 58 and 23 respectively.


Next........
Now here is a shot of the intervienal chlorosis.
I'm starting to think that this could be a N deficiency.
Hmmm, or maybe something else.
Well first the pic then a hypothesis.

Now this pic was taken with lights on, so it shows a little more yellow than it really is, thus the N def.
Now I have a bunch of plants in the same tray and the same medium.
This behavior is only showing up under the pro grows.
The plants under the home made led are pretty much perfect green, other than the 2 problem children and that is only on the top cola.
Now to be honest, I am a pretty crappy grower (consistently) by any measurement, I don't get multi pound harvest and I average at about .5-.7 gpw or 10 to 15g per sog plant.

So here is what I'm thinking.
The home made led uses mainly white diodes that have a smooth pretty curve and just a touch of far red at about greater than 10:1 ratio. So the light curve is pretty smooth and linear.
The pro grows use many small multi colored diodes, thus causing peaks and valleys in the spectral curve.
I may be way off on this, but then again..............
The written explanation would be very long and involve multiple disciplines and makes my eyes glaze over.

Last thought, well second to last thought for now.

The bud development on the plants under the home made led are markedly bigger and more developed than the pro grow plants after 3 light cycles
This is a good sigh, and the HML (Home made led) plants are showing no signs of mag or N deficiencies.

Ok, last thought. I have pretty much dreamed my way through what the next fixture is going to look like and will give the specs later when I put the thing to paper.

Petflora, I have no trouble cloning at all 100% almost every time.
I've been doing sog for quite a while. With the clones, I just want them to explode with roots and I more or less have to use rapid rooters. I have run aero cloners as well as a heath robinson style flooded tube octagon. Where I am located there is a very high bacterial load in the air and any water culture will get infected pretty easily and as you know, bacteria is a real bitch.

The rockwool cubes are absolutely perfect for my lazy stoner ass.
I already clean my share of media and I hate it. Also the rockwool cubes allow me to move the plants around and inspect the roots.
If you ever had root aphids, this is a must!! and it's very nice to be able to see the bottom of the cubes to judge root development.
As far as watering goes, once a day ore every 2 days is plenty and I run the timers by hand, that gives me time to be at one with the little ladies.
It sure is handy to pick each plant up for it's sog trimming and hold it over a trash can so's not to get bits of leaf in the flood table, and by the way all of the rw cubes sit on grates to facilitate drainage.

As far as a medium goes, my lazy stoner ass loves rw cubes.
There are a few tricks to using rw cubes in e&f and I can outline that if anyone is interested.

Considering I'm on a roll,

Most, if not all of the led tests I've seen are with relatively small numbers of plants.
From my experience with cloning, even if the mother is very consistent, each clone is an individual.(ain't that a bitch)
What this means, is you either have to do a lot of runs, or run a lot of individuals right next to each other to get some sort of median or standard deviation.
And we're not even talking about introducing a control group!

Time for a joint.

Happy trails..................