Rocket Soul
Well-known member
As the title says, post your builds here if you'd like to show them off, even better with some harvest results. You can give as much or as little info on the build as you like but more is always better, especially if it explains why and how you built it in the way you did 
Ill start with my Bridgelux lights:
These are made from 2 separate alu sheets of 3mm, 40x65cm for an approx 1.5x0.6m spread (basicly a 5'x2') joined together at the back by alu T profile.
Each side sheet contains:
- 16x Blux eb gen3 2 foot strips, connected in 4 parallel string with 4 strips in series each. This is done to make connections easier (and even so we had to tape up that rats nest of wires in the middle and on the sides ) A note on these strips: they kinda suck working with. Flimsy and easy to break connectors that wont take 1mm stranded wire. But the 0.75mm wouldnt work neither as it was too soft for pushin connectors. So manually resizing every wire going into the strips from 1mm stranded down to .75mm was not something i enjoyed very much. Theres 4 of these lights and i ended up having to resize wire 288 times before finished.
- strips are 2700k 90cri, at the time this was the only strip from a reliable manufacturer that offered this spectrum which has been my love since we started with the Vesta strips. Its probably the reddest white diodes youll find around with almost 50% output in reds and far reds. The diode count for 2 sheets is around 3500.
- one xlg150M driver per sheet for 300w per light, not a great driver match i noticed later on but it works.
- then the monos, here not wired or soldered yet: 2 strings of various reds and blues. Tried to achieve wide band coverage from 365-400nm and 660/680/730. Output is close to 50-50 over reds and blues. 4 strings in total for the 2 sheets.
The monos come in custom 4up ledstars (avoid all the soldering and mounting or at least 4x less work with this). Strings run down the side of the board and then turns back thru the middle gap so that each string takes one of those middle diodes, making it 5x4 diodes per string, 2 string per sheet and 4 strings per light. Its kinda like an "exotic blurple", i know some of you are frowning but its not yesteryears blurple, all diode choices are targeted based on plant centric action spectrum and such. Anyways each string has a voltage of approx 55V, and runs at nominal 350nm when turned up full power, using a xlg240H driver for the 3 lights ive got up. So approx 40w per sheet/80w per light. With separate dimmers you can control balance between white and blurple pretty well.
For results id have to refer to Piechos nice photo session: https://www.icmag.com/posts/18660809/
The tricome density talks for itself, though we didnt get the big buds we were after on the first run of these new strains, it was our mistake to not account for quicker flower cycle of these new genetics. We were 10-14 days to late on light and nute ramp up on these, but the other 9 week cut turned out nice and chunky. The smell and high was excellent but its worth noting that some of our other tuned up lights dont get the same quality boost at least not in my nose, seems like the choice of white diode matters some aswell as what you add to it.
Ill start with my Bridgelux lights:
These are made from 2 separate alu sheets of 3mm, 40x65cm for an approx 1.5x0.6m spread (basicly a 5'x2') joined together at the back by alu T profile.
Each side sheet contains:
- 16x Blux eb gen3 2 foot strips, connected in 4 parallel string with 4 strips in series each. This is done to make connections easier (and even so we had to tape up that rats nest of wires in the middle and on the sides
) A note on these strips: they kinda suck working with. Flimsy and easy to break connectors that wont take 1mm stranded wire. But the 0.75mm wouldnt work neither as it was too soft for pushin connectors. So manually resizing every wire going into the strips from 1mm stranded down to .75mm was not something i enjoyed very much. Theres 4 of these lights and i ended up having to resize wire 288 times before finished.- strips are 2700k 90cri, at the time this was the only strip from a reliable manufacturer that offered this spectrum which has been my love since we started with the Vesta strips. Its probably the reddest white diodes youll find around with almost 50% output in reds and far reds. The diode count for 2 sheets is around 3500.
- one xlg150M driver per sheet for 300w per light, not a great driver match i noticed later on but it works.
- then the monos, here not wired or soldered yet: 2 strings of various reds and blues. Tried to achieve wide band coverage from 365-400nm and 660/680/730. Output is close to 50-50 over reds and blues. 4 strings in total for the 2 sheets.
The monos come in custom 4up ledstars (avoid all the soldering and mounting or at least 4x less work with this). Strings run down the side of the board and then turns back thru the middle gap so that each string takes one of those middle diodes, making it 5x4 diodes per string, 2 string per sheet and 4 strings per light. Its kinda like an "exotic blurple", i know some of you are frowning but its not yesteryears blurple, all diode choices are targeted based on plant centric action spectrum and such. Anyways each string has a voltage of approx 55V, and runs at nominal 350nm when turned up full power, using a xlg240H driver for the 3 lights ive got up. So approx 40w per sheet/80w per light. With separate dimmers you can control balance between white and blurple pretty well.
For results id have to refer to Piechos nice photo session: https://www.icmag.com/posts/18660809/
The tricome density talks for itself, though we didnt get the big buds we were after on the first run of these new strains, it was our mistake to not account for quicker flower cycle of these new genetics. We were 10-14 days to late on light and nute ramp up on these, but the other 9 week cut turned out nice and chunky. The smell and high was excellent but its worth noting that some of our other tuned up lights dont get the same quality boost at least not in my nose, seems like the choice of white diode matters some aswell as what you add to it.
.
. Checked the dates and lolled; by may 2020 i was also stuck inside building lights, after being thru all other covid pastimes. It was much better than baking, drinking cheap whiskey and nursing my last little bit of smoke i had available 
you got me hooked! Now I have to take some time and translate your report 
