Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

Terpene · Nov 22, 2015

I don't know about Blynx, but I sure have! I just got finished taking the top foot of growth off all my plants in veg. My stems are doubling in thickness weekly and I am completely overgrowing my space. Its great to see such happy plants, but I am going to have to revise my planting schedule because I don't have any room! :biggrin:

blynx · Nov 25, 2015

Here's the 11" x 11" cab after five weeks of flowering.

Gorilla Glue #4

Day 35 Flower

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GMT · Nov 25, 2015

B&Q in the UK have Phillips and daill bulbs in for UK readers. 1500 lumens at 2700k for a tenner (bayonet fitting B22).

MicroRoy · Nov 26, 2015

blynx said:
Here's the 11" x 11" cab after five weeks of flowering.

Gorilla Glue #4

Day 35 Flower

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That looks tight.

Chloemobile · Nov 26, 2015

I made the change too. Are the bases on yours extremely hot to the touch Terp/Blynx?

blynx · Nov 26, 2015

Chloemobile said:
I made the change too. Are the bases on yours extremely hot to the touch Terp/Blynx?

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Nice!

While I haven't measured temps, they get hot, but I would guess no hotter than the ballast in a CFL.

Good ventilation helps. A fan blowing at ballast level would help cool them even more I would guess.

Chloemobile · Nov 26, 2015

I have great ventilation but I think to be able to have the lights anywhere besides right next to the ventilation it would have to be with your suggestion of having a fan blowing on the ballasts. They are just about as hot as a CFL ballast, I tested one out and forgot how warm they do get. Probably something to be said here about building your own to get enough heats sink action to dissipate the heat.

Interestingly enough it was a lot easier to cool the 150 HPS because it was 1 bulb and I could put it directly below the ventilation. I was probably losing half the light with no reflector though.

5 x 14.5 w 1500 lumen bulbs after tax was like $38
5 x sockets $12.
Wire and wood I had laying around.

So $50 for 7500 lumens and 72.5 watts of LED.

Not as heat or cost efficient as building an LED panel but an improvement over CFL's for sure, which is the goal!

blynx · Nov 26, 2015

From the prices I'm seeing on the DYI COB builds, I think $50 is a lot less than the cost those are running. The basic build DION just posted for a PC was $100.

Chloemobile · Nov 26, 2015

I was looking at/considering one build which was a single CXA3070 z4 bin for 32.00 an Alpine 11 fan heat sink for 12.00 and then a 1.4 amp driver for 12.00. A little more expensive but more lumens per watt and probably less heat.

Terpene · Nov 26, 2015

Chloemobile said:
I made the change too. Are the bases on yours extremely hot to the touch Terp/Blynx?

blynx said:
While I haven't measured temps, they get hot, but I would guess no hotter than the ballast in a CFL.

blynx said:
From the prices I'm seeing on the DYI COB builds, I think $50 is a lot less than the cost those are running. The basic build DION just posted for a PC was $100.

Yeah, the bases get quite warm but I am not worried about it in the least. They're about 3/4 as warm as a 23w CFL, so my temps have actually gone down since I switched.

I never understood the COB crowd. Yes, they work, but I don't like 1) reinventing the wheel to light my plants and 2) always seem to have so many added costs (as Blynx pointed out). Call me a lazy stoner, but simple is best.

TexMex McDirt · Nov 27, 2015

Something I have been thinking about is figuring out a fixture that sort of sits on top of my flower cab. So that there are round openings in the top of the cab for each bulb to sink into, but keeping the bulb on the outside, above the cab. Sort of the same concept as remote ballast. I think this would be easier with these LED bulbs than with CFLs, just by the nature of how the LED bulbs sort of shoot light down from the bulb. I don't see any reason you need to have the whole led bulb in the cab. I have not brainstormed this enough to figure it out yet. But I am toying with the thought. Might be worth playing with.

Cheers!
Tex

ReikoX · Nov 27, 2015

blynx said:
From the prices I'm seeing on the DYI COB builds, I think $50 is a lot less than the cost those are running. The basic build DION just posted for a PC was $100.

I'm building this now. That $100 dosnt even consider shipping and I already spent more money to get it working right. This is way cheaper.

Terpene said:
Yeah, the bases get quite warm but I am not worried about it in the least. They're about 3/4 as warm as a 23w CFL, so my temps have actually gone down since I switched.

I never understood the COB crowd. Yes, they work, but I don't like 1) reinventing the wheel to light my plants and 2) always seem to have so many added costs (as Blynx pointed out). Call me a lazy stoner, but simple is best.

So far I'm not too impressed with my COBs. I haven't grown with them yet, but they are much more work and money than these. I think the advantage of COBs is that you can remote the ballast and reduce head room.

TexMex McDirt said:
Something I have been thinking about is figuring out a fixture that sort of sits on top of my flower cab. So that there are round openings in the top of the cab for each bulb to sink into, but keeping the bulb on the outside, above the cab. Sort of the same concept as remote ballast. I think this would be easier with these LED bulbs than with CFLs, just by the nature of how the LED bulbs sort of shoot light down from the bulb. I don't see any reason you need to have the whole led bulb in the cab. I have not brainstormed this enough to figure it out yet. But I am toying with the thought. Might be worth playing with.

Cheers!
Tex

Check out the recessed lighting retrofit kits. They are pretty much made for this. I am working on a cab that utilizes this exact concept. So far I can keep it < 10* ambient pushing through carbon with a single PC fan. Basically a box with four recessed LEDs and a fan in the middle. I posted a picture of it a few pages back. Maybe that can help you brainstorm.

GoeRilla · Nov 27, 2015

I know that this thread is about bulbs but it seems to me that it would be better to glue some led strips to the sealing of the cabinet. Cheaper also i think.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-5...t-waterproof-300Led-Flexible/32466267680.html

They can be cut in smaller length to fit the cabinet and powered with a simple 12V adapter.

Rilla.

Killkingkong · Nov 27, 2015

I don't really want to add more to the clutter of LED info, but I've played with a lot of screw in LEDs and cobs. Those screw in lights are great as far as ease of use. With cobs you can change the power your individual cobs use pretty easily and either go for efficiency or max out the power before heat is an issue.

If you don't mind buying and waiting for parts from china you can build a 5 cob 50w system for around $40. I started playing around with cobs a while back when I saw Bueno's thread. I didn't buy crees, but i similar expensive brands from mouser for about 55/chip after shipping and taxes. Then I started playing around with cheap 100w cobs. The trick is to run them much lower than 100w, they become much more powerful. I find that 10-20w is ideal to passive cool a cob.

here's a ebay part list that comes out to slightly less than $40. after shipping, no taxes.
5 x cobs http://www.ebay.com/itm/221871109445?var=520765568881
1 x 50w Driver http://www.ebay.com/itm/371467401301?var=640523835495
5 x 60x60mm heatsink http://www.ebay.com/itm/181111443753

blynx · Nov 28, 2015

GoeRilla said:
I know that this thread is about bulbs but it seems to me that it would be better to glue some led strips to the sealing of the cabinet. Cheaper also i think.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-5...t-waterproof-300Led-Flexible/32466267680.html

They can be cut in smaller length to fit the cabinet and powered with a simple 12V adapter.

Rilla.

There is a thread here with these in use. The person lined the walls of a bucket with them. I thought I remembered him saying they weren't that great.

blynx · Nov 28, 2015

I've been vegging a plant in my scrog cab. She's ready for flowering.

C99 x Shire (SSSDH)

Day 20 Veg

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Here's what the CFLs look like mounted in the cab

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I usually run 172w of CFL in this cab (3 x 42w + 2 x 23w).

I've done many runs in this cab. I've run this strain in this cab multiple times.

I'm going to flower this girl under LEDs this round. Based on the measurements I got from the LEDs, I'm going go for it and try flowering with only 60w of LEDs.

I removed the CFLs and got it setup for LEDs.

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Let's get her flowering!

blynx · Nov 28, 2015

Here's the scrog cab on its first day of flowering under the 60w of LEDs. I also trained her a little before throwing her back into the cab.

C99 x Shire (SSSDH)

Day 00 Flower

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blynx · Nov 29, 2015

Here's the scrog cab after five days of flowering.

C99 x Shire (SSSDH)

Day 05 Flower

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blynx · Nov 30, 2015

Here's the scrog cab after a little over a week of flowering.

C99 x Shire (SSSDH)

Day 09 Flower

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She's getting a little unruly. Looks like it's time for some training.

blynx · Nov 30, 2015

Here's what she looks like after some training.

C99 x Shire (SSSDH)

Day 09 Flower

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Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

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