My many designs and experiments.

[Safe Gardener]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the bold part

I was trying to say this: #1 Warm Daylight

Daylight Warm


#2 Warm Warm

Warm Warm

Or do you think all 4 in a row: Warm Warm Warm Warm

If that doesn't come out right on your screen the top two are just two rows or two staggered and the bottom one is just the 4 in a row.

Right now I have everything to build these two light (COB's, 30W drivers, screws, heat sinks, thermal grease, and all the wires/solder stuff) so for this build it's going to be 4 COB's and two drivers per heat sink. It's just the order/arrangement I'm unsure of. If I like how these go I'll be going with high quality everything for my next build(s).

I don't really have a grow area, right now I have some hot pepper seedlings on a heat mat under 46W of CFL in a closet. If I do peppers over the winter it would be in a 18ish" by 36ish" area with about 35" height.

 

[Killkingkong]

If that doesn't come out right on your screen the top two are just two rows or two staggered and the bottom one is just the 4 in a row.

Right now I have everything to build these two light (COB's, 30W drivers, screws, heat sinks, thermal grease, and all the wires/solder stuff) so for this build it's going to be 4 COB's and two drivers per heat sink. It's just the order/arrangement I'm unsure of. If I like how these go I'll be going with high quality everything for my next build(s).

I don't really have a grow area, right now I have some hot pepper seedlings on a heat mat under 46W of CFL in a closet. If I do peppers over the winter it would be in a 18ish" by 36ish" area with about 35" height.

Yeah, just put them in a row. that heatsink is way too big for those leds. They have smaller ones on ebay that would probably work better. I still say put all 8 LEDs on 1 heatsink and just save the other one for later. I'm pretty sure I can fit 4 more LEDs on that heatsink

 

[Safe Gardener]

I still say put all 8 LEDs on 1 heatsink and just save the other one for later. I'm pretty sure I can fit 4 more LEDs on that heatsink

I have 7 of the warm white COB's and 2 of the daytime ones. I'm going to put 6 and 3 30 watt drivers on one heatsink and the 2 daylights on PC cooler heatsinks I have. I'll put the 2 daylights in a different area and see how they do for veg only. Thanks for all the tips.

 

[Killkingkong]

I have 7 of the warm white COB's and 2 of the daytime ones. I'm going to put 6 and 3 30 watt drivers on one heatsink and the 2 daylights on PC cooler heatsinks I have. I'll put the 2 daylights in a different area and see how they do for veg only. Thanks for all the tips.

Use the last warm white on the heatsink too. Put 3 cobs in the middle and 2 on the sides. Run 3 LEDs with one of your 30w drivers. Good idea putting the cool whites on cpu heatsinks. these cheap cobs aren't nearly as powerful as quality ones, but you can buy a ton more of them for the same price. The trick is figuring out how many of these cheap LED equals the power of an expensive one. My next round that's coming up I'll be doing a quality vs quantity side by side grow. I put my 3 quality LEDs in 1 PC and I still have that fixture made of 10 cheap cobs in my big PC. 1 thing that won't make it a true side by side (besides the case sizes being slightly different and different strains being used) is that I'll have 2 cheap LEDs on the bottom of each case for underside lighting. Experimenting is cool and call, but I still want to grow as much weed as possible with these cases. Post pics when you have your fixture built.

 

[Killkingkong]

No plant updates this week, I'm still waiting for those new seeds to germ. I chopped what's left of that dirt weed. It appears it hermied. Looking through the buds there are a lot of "nanners" it seems. I have it drying, but I dunno what I'm gonna do with it. Maybe it's time for a smoke break until these new seeds are done. I've been buying bud from dealers again and I always feel like that's a waste of money.

Anyway, major changes to my cases so far, and a few more to come. I'm gonna order 6 more cheap LEDs to use as underside lighting in my medium and large PCs. I rearranged the LEDs in my medium and small cases today. I took all six of my cheap Lohas LEDs ($10.50/each) on amazon and put them all in my small PC. I had 3 of them in there last week but 3 of them on a 50w driver creates too much heat. Instead of using less power I added twice as many LEDs to lower the wattage per cob. For the 2 underside LEDs I actually made them detachable with a plug I have. When the underside lights are not plugged in the 4 LEDs on top are 12.5w/each. When I have the 2 underside lights plugged in the LEDs are ~8.33w/each. I made them detachable because I'm gonna be starting 2 plants in the cause and sexing them to find a female. After I get rid of 1 I should have enough space on the floor to add the underside lighting.

As I said in the last post I put all my quality LEDs into my medium PC. I'm waiting to buy the underside LEDs , but in the meantime, this will more than do.

Medium PC:



Small PC:

 

[Killkingkong]

Hey, so I'm back again. I tried starting a bunch of seeds that were given to me by a donor last year and killed so many seeds that I took a break before I killed everything. I got motivated again a few months ago and killed a bunch more seeds, but I did get 1 (Haze x Strawberry Dogshit) to sprout. I plan to do a lot with that 1 plant I got to sprout. I already took clones and sexed the mother plant (it's a girl). I plan on making feminized seeds with collidal silver that I made a few years ago and documented in this thread. I also want to take one of the clones and pollinate it with male bag seed. then take those children seeds (bagseed x (haze x strawberry dogshit)) I create and grow out another male and pollinate a haze x strawberry dogshit clone. Repeat that process a few times until the genetics barely contain bagseed but I get male/female seeds to go along with my feminized seeds. I don't know if this will create inbred plants, or if there's such a thing, but this is what I'm going to do regardless so I can make my own seeds.

During my hiatus I had the time to build all my cases to completion with the ideas that have been floating around in my head for years. I've mentioned underside lighting a few times in this thread before. well I added that to all my cases. But then I ended up taking the underside lights that I had in my smallest case and giving them to my gf to use in a rubbermaid grow box I made for her to use with fruits/herbs/veggies (she's not a smoker).

GF's Grow Box:

 

[Killkingkong]

So I made the switch from growing in coco to growing in dwc. I used sandwich meat containers for the bowls. I bought used air pumps from china for like ~$1.50 each on ebay. The air pumps didn't come with power supplies, but I have plenty of power supplies laying around so I just wired up my own. These little pumps are perfect for the size of my containers to create plenty of bubbles with proper sized air stones.

Seedling Stage


2 weeks later

 

[Killkingkong]

After a haircut


Clones Taken from haircut

 

[Killkingkong]

Clones After Rooting


Clones after a haircut and next to a clone I took a couple of days into flowering

 

[Killkingkong]

Mother plant 7 days into flowering


Mother Plant After being tied down

 

[Killkingkong]

Ok, so you're caught up plant wise. Originally I was going to toss the mother plant after sexing because the roots were already getting a little big in the container since that had vegged for like a month or so. Anyway I didn't keep track of the dates very well or take many pictures with the mother cause I thought I was going to toss it and I didn't know if it were male or female. But after I saw it was female and how beautiful it was I decided to keep it around and flower it through. so I think the mother plant is on about the 3rd, going into the 4th week of flowering, but I'm playing that by ear/sight. I'm going to take 2 clones and put them into my small and medium PCs. Right now the mother plant is flowering in my big PC. I also sectioned off a little area of my closet and put a light there so I can grow a few plants out and make feminized seeds. I plant on putting 5 hydro containers in this area, but they won't be dwc. I'm going to grow these plants using a method similar to dwc, but doesn't use pumps called kratky hydroponics. If you want to know more about this method go to youtube and search for "khang starr" or "mhpgardener" they have good videos on that method. I originally found out about it when my mom bought my dad an aerogarden gor xmas. that's when i decided to switch from coco to dwc. dwc forves oxygen to your plants by air stones and air pumps. kratky sends oxygen to your plants roots as it drinks was surrounding water in your container. The trick with kratky is if you have to refill the container with more water you can't fill it too high or you'll drown the roots. I use the kratky method to clone.

 

[MrBill-e]

Hi, excellent tread, it is so hard to get any consistent information about chinese cobs that I was starting to get frustrated. I'm planning on building a grow light based on cheap chinese electronics and was wondering if you could help me. I bought 8 100w 3000k cobs from aliexpress (at 55% off I paid $1.96 each), my plan is to buy 2 70w drivers and set up 2 circuits of 4 paralel conected leds to each driver.
I also want to get 2 additional full spectrum cobs (the orange ones you see on ebay) and run them both with a single 50w driver. The ideia behind this is to try to cover some diferent wavelenghts that could be missing on the warm white spectrum.
I'm planning on using this light on a 1.6x1.6 ft area. Could that be enought? What do you say?
thanks in advance

 

[Jellypowered]

Enjoyed the thread. I've grown all sorts of vegtables with the Kratky method, Peppers, lettuce, spinach, etc. It's dead simple and not much to go wrong unless you mix too hot or overfill on the refills.

 

[Killkingkong]

Hi, excellent tread, it is so hard to get any consistent information about chinese cobs that I was starting to get frustrated. I'm planning on building a grow light based on cheap chinese electronics and was wondering if you could help me. I bought 8 100w 3000k cobs from aliexpress (at 55% off I paid $1.96 each), my plan is to buy 2 70w drivers and set up 2 circuits of 4 paralel conected leds to each driver.
I also want to get 2 additional full spectrum cobs (the orange ones you see on ebay) and run them both with a single 50w driver. The ideia behind this is to try to cover some diferent wavelenghts that could be missing on the warm white spectrum.
I'm planning on using this light on a 1.6x1.6 ft area. Could that be enought? What do you say?
thanks in advance

What's the fan and heatsink situation? From the many experiments I've done I'd say put use all 8+ of those cheap LEDs on a single driver so it's more efficient. I don't know where you live but where I am it's starting to get hot where I am. Depending on how tall your box is (I know the LxW is 1.6x1.6 but you didn't mention that height which is more important) you may need a decent amount of fans for the summer. The most I've ever powered my big PC with 12 cheap LEDs with is 70w and that was cool to the touch, but I have 2 powerful fans blowing directly on them and my exhaust at the other end pulling heat from it.

if money is an issue the vendor I buy the cheap LEDs from on ebay sells a 10 pack for about $23 USD without a sale. I just got 8 3000k ones and 2 6000k ones delivered today. It took about 1 1/2 weeks. Here's also a heatsink that I have my eye on for future builds. New heatsink I want. And here's a link to the old big heatsink I bought. There's nothing wrong with the old heatsink, the new one is 2 for $28 USD though, so $8 more for 2 of them that are slightly smaller than the old one. Old heatsink I used.

I think it's time for me to sell these PCs and build a super duper version of the rubbermaid growbox i built for my GF. I can't really see myself spending $300+ on the expensive LEDs like the current design in my head, but if i can sell those 3 computer grow boxes for $1000+ all together then spending $300 on 20ish good quality LEDs won't be such a big deal. My GFs rubbermaid box is pretty much the same size as all of my computer grow boxes combines. I just wanted things to be stealthy cause I work out my home as a computer consultant and have customers coming over all the time, but at this point as long as the carbon filter works it's whatever

I actually built a dual spectrum e27 light bulb recently out of cheap china LEDs. I don't remember if i talked about how i make (design and assemble really) my own e27 light bulbs cause a cheap light bulb started to smoke on me from china one day. This light wasn't used on my plant but to light my room rather. Honestly though led lights are cheap enough in the US now that i'm probably better off just buying them from home depot, but the first LED lights I bought were premade and I know for a fact (sid by side comparisons) the lights I built with cheap 100w LED from china and with both cheap $1.5 drivers or cheap $3 dimmable drivers are superior than what cree sales at home depot. I just checked and I don't have the pics of any of the e27 bulbs i built. I'll post a tutorial for that. If i forget the tutorial someone remind me.

 

[Killkingkong]

Enjoyed the thread. I've grown all sorts of vegtables with the Kratky method, Peppers, lettuce, spinach, etc. It's dead simple and not much to go wrong unless you mix too hot or overfill on the refills.

Yeah, when I found out about kratky from watching youtube videos about gardening I was surprised I never heard about that method on here. I used kratky to start most of my real garden this year and also tested it out on weed while at it. after doing my own test I'll admit the extra oxygen in dwc does make a difference growth wise, but kratky definitely works, just don't drown the roots. DWC > Kratky > Coco(I add a decent amount of perlite to coco fyi) > Soil, but hey, that's just my opinion from actually using everyone one of those methods and seeing the results first hand. Right now I'm using kratky to make seeds. I've been spraying one of the kratky plants daily with collidal silver to turn it hermie and make feminized seeds, but i also started 2 bag seeds since I fucked up ALL the quality seeds my donor gave me except ONE which turned out to be a female lmao. GOD DAMN I sucked at started seeds. I fixed that problem by playing with veggie seeds, but I feel like things soured with the donor when I told him i fucked up a lot of the seeds lol. so Imma just make my own and leave them alone.

Kratky/Coco food:


Kratky Smoke (lettuce that's too weak for outside on the left)


Dual Spectrum e27 light

 

[Killkingkong]

The mother plant I had over grew my big PC, so I chopped it and put one of the clones in there. After seeing how much the mother plant stretch I know almost exactly what to expect from the clones.

Medium PC Day 14:


Small PC Day 7:


Big PC Day 14:


Closet DIY E27 Light for Seed Breeding (2 clones & 2 bagseeds) Day 14:

 

[Killkingkong]

Medium PC Day 22:


Small PC Day 15:


Large PC Day 22:


Closet Seed Project Day 14:

 

[Killkingkong]

Medium PC Day 28:


Small PC Day 21:


Big PC Day 28:


Closet Normal & Feminized Seed Project Day 21:

 

[Killkingkong]

So I keep lying to myself by saying I'm done spending money on this stuff. I bought 2 more high quality LEDs and 8 more low quality ones. I'm putting the 2 high quality LEDs in my medium PC with the rest of the good LEDs. I took out the 1 LED with a giant heatsink and now I plan to turn the giant heatsink high quality LED into a 30w e27 light bulb and putting that in my closet. I also plan on using 4 of the low quality LEDs to make a 30w e27 light bulb. I'm going to compare both of those lights and see with one is more effective in my closet. I keep fucking up the dates on my closet grow, but i started to flower those the same week that I did my medium and big PCs. The only grow box that is a week behind is my small PC.

I also pruned some fan leaves for the first time in my medium and big case. I try my best not to remove any fan leaves, but it was getting to the point where single fan leaves would block an entire led diode and none of the other parts of the plant could use that light. So I trimmed just enough fan leaves so that the light could penetrate the canopy fully.

Medium PC Day 35:


Small PC Day 28:


Big PC Day 35:


Closet Day 35:


LEDs For DIY e27 bulbs:

 

[Jellypowered]

So I keep lying to myself by saying I'm done spending money on this stuff

Isn't that always the case? lol. Great pics, Love your setups.

What kinda high end LED's are those?