DIY 140w led grow cabinet

[hopesluck]

Hello everyone, today i finally get to use my new light that i built about a month back. winter time is settling in so let the season begin!

i am using a 140w-150w vero 18 cobs running at 28.6w each. '
i'm growing 3 phatxfruity and 2 random strains.

the led light


the girls first arrival in the 12/12 room.


2nd week in


3rd week into flowering


the temps usually stay around the same

 

[hopesluck]

close up on the 3rd week into flowering

 

[hopesluck]

i'm growing in 3 gallon pots using 75% supersoil and just peat base with sand on top to keep the moisture in. i am also running GO box nutes to supplement for later. they're getting fed at 6.7ph with 1000ppm right now to boost them into flowering.

 

[ReikoX]

Nice, love me some LEDs. Pulling up a seat.

 

[hopesluck]

well i can only seem to find a couple growers using vero series instead of cxa series. so i'm contributing to the vero side so everyone can see results.

 

[Buddah Watcha]

Nice broda, what size is your cab??

Keep us updated, girls looks good!

Peace BW!

 

[hopesluck]

Nice broda, what size is your cab??

Keep us updated, girls looks good!

Peace BW!

its 3 1/2'x 2 1/2'x 4 1/4'
i'll be posting weekly or if i get reaally excited, haha.

 

[TexMex McDirt]

Nice work hopesluck. I'm trying to learn all I can about the COB LEDs. So please allow me to pepper you with a few questions. How many COBs are you running? What drivers, and how many, are you using?

Grow looks great man.

Happy farming!
Tex

 

[chronosync]

niiice

strain?
soil/coco?
size pots?
nutes?
topped once?

i'm curious, thats just about the size of my tent.

good luck, looks great so far.

 

[hopesluck]

Nice work hopesluck. I'm trying to learn all I can about the COB LEDs. So please allow me to pepper you with a few questions. How many COBs are you running? What drivers, and how many, are you using?

Grow looks great man.

Happy farming!
Tex

well this is the post i did about building my light! Enjoy
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=313468

 

[hopesluck]

niiice

strain?
soil/coco?
size pots?
nutes?
topped once?

i'm curious, thats just about the size of my tent.

good luck, looks great so far.

i'm running 3 phatxfruity and 2 random strains. the 2 random are the middle and bottom right of the overhead pictures. im running 75% supersoil in 3 gal pots with general organics taking over in the last 3 weeks before flush ( i hope the supersoil holds up that long). i did feed them when i first put them in the 12/12 room to feed the microbes and boost them into flowering. i topped the 3 phatxfruity once and one plant i had to top 3 times.
i also stripped the bottoms of the plants off. They were stretching due to the lower branches not getting light, these girls are very bushy in my opinion.

 

[TexMex McDirt]

well this is the post i did about building my light! Enjoy
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=313468

Thanks for that walk thru on the build, great info and detail. Reading data sheets and spreadsheets is great and all, but seeing a build like that helps me immensely. I am planning a new COB build with vero's too. Leaning towards 8 vero 13s, should give about 15k lumen which would be ok for a new 16"X24" cab I'm going to build too. I think more smaller COBs will work well in a smaller space.

Thanks man! Happy Farming!
Tex

 

[hopesluck]

Thanks for that walk thru on the build, great info and detail. Reading data sheets and spreadsheets is great and all, but seeing a build like that helps me immensely. I am planning a new COB build with vero's too. Leaning towards 8 vero 13s, should give about 15k lumen which would be ok for a new 16"X24" cab I'm going to build too. I think more smaller COBs will work well in a smaller space.

Thanks man! Happy Farming!
Tex

if you're going to do a scrog or lst then yea i would choose the smaller cobs for it but my plants are currently almost 2' tall and the pots are 1' in height so i'm running out of room quickly and the vero 18s penetrate easily.
i tried to go into detail about the build to give an idea of how much it'll cost. also choose an efficient driver, the better the efficiency less heat it'll create. dont go all chinese drivers because i went through 3 of them before i said fuck it and bought a meanwell. also doing led bar lights instead of the square design does much better since all the veros beam angles are 110-120 degree. my single bar actually covers the whole area with ease but i do lose lumens this way.

 

[hopesluck]

quick update on the girls. i watered with plain water with a ph of 6.7
slowly rising the ph to 7.0 at the last 2 weeks.


the girls are doing very well and loving that light.


i dont think they can pray any harder.

 

[hopesluck]

sorry for the late updates but the holidays have been crazy. anyways the girls have dried out one time since the last post and have them back up and going again. the light is only getting up to 80 degrees while the ambient around it is in the 70s.

here are some night shots of the 3 plants that are further along in flowering.







still feeding them around 1000ppm for the next 2 weeks then going with 1400ppm and flushing the last 2 weeks.

 

[TexMex McDirt]

Lookin' great hopesluck. I got my Vero18 COBs and driver, still waiting on the heatsink and the time to start building my new digs. I pretty much ripped off your light, except a bit smaller for my smaller cab. Can't wait to start. Thanks for your posts. Keep up the good work!

Mahalo!
Tex

 

[hopesluck]

Lookin' great hopesluck. I got my Vero18 COBs and driver, still waiting on the heatsink and the time to start building my new digs. I pretty much ripped off your light, except a bit smaller for my smaller cab. Can't wait to start. Thanks for your posts. Keep up the good work!

Mahalo!
Tex

thanks man, you'll definitely like them. i love mine, my heatsink actually isnt warm at all with 4 fans running on them plus is nearly silent, you can just hear the wind blowing through the heatsink. i spent a lot of time researching and researching. this was the most efficient setup i could come up with without spending $200 more lol.

 

[LakeEffect]

very nice build here and in your other thread. I really like the minimal heat on your design.
Bookmarked your threads for when I do my own DIY light.
I went with the cheapo units online just to try out LEDs and they spike the heat in my cabinet more than I was imagining (24x32x60)

 

[hopesluck]

very nice build here and in your other thread. I really like the minimal heat on your design.
Bookmarked your threads for when I do my own DIY light.
I went with the cheapo units online just to try out LEDs and they spike the heat in my cabinet more than I was imagining (24x32x60)

thanks for dropping by lakeEffect, i was shooting for a heatsink but all the ones for leds are cheaply made with holes predrilled so i found heatsinkusa. i must say they're probably the best you'll find. the only thing they could so to make them better is to make them out of copper, lol.

but the led driver i am using is 94% efficient so it doesnt get as hot as a 86% efficiency would.
the cheapo leds will spike the heat since they're not that efficient as well. i'd say cut the heat you're experiencing at least in half to compare.

 

[hopesluck]

the girls are looking good, no problems except some nute burn and i'm two weeks away from the one girl to be harvested, she was ahead of the rest by a week.

phatxfruity-she has really fat buds.


nanner in red circle, at least i'll have some fem seeds! woohoo.


overhead view of the girls


phatxfruity#2- she is 3 weeks away from harvest, 1300ppm for her last feed.

this is the one with the nanner, she is about 5 weeks from harvest. idk what strain but obviously a sativa dominate due to the long flowering since they all went in the same time except the phatxfruity#1


all in all the girls are doing fantastic and i am pretty pleased with the light so far. now to see if the hardware holds up. it is pretty cheap to replace these leds at $15 each with the connectors. i'm going for a vero 29 setup a few months from now when i get some money back in my pocket, haha.