PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
Then at Christmas time I expect to see a nicely decorated tree, lol.
Buddies, side-light and under-canopy LEDs
- Thread starter Prawn Connery
- Start date
coreywebster
Well-Known Member
Anyone ever feel like they really should of returned that phone call...…
Grow Lights Australia
Well-Known Member
Red light district here we come!
Grow Lights Australia
Well-Known Member
I take it Teknik offered you some and you politely declined? tsk, tskAnyone ever feel like they really should of returned that phone call...…
coreywebster
Well-Known Member
I take it Teknik offered you some and you politely declined? tsk, tsk
He reached out via led1k, could of been about something else, anyway I just read the messaged , replied and put it to the back of my mind and failed to reach back out....
Shame on me,
I would of felt rude chasing it up when these came out.
Bignutes
Well-Known Member
The same thing happened to me, oh well have to configure something myself when I get around to it.
Mikenike
Well-Known Member
Finally getting around to it. With just the reds, 1in away from a single diode I’m reading about 85ppfd, when there’s two rows next to each other, like how you would stick it on the tent walls, I’m getting 100ppfd 2in away. Haven’t measured the white or mixed strings yet but should be fun
Humple
Well-Known Member
Man... I really, REALLY need to get my red Buddies up. Already wired and running, but the tent/main fixture aren't ready yet. Always so much shit to do... Soon! Really wanted to put mine above the canopy with the main light, but Corona put a damper on my plans to get some hardware for mounting, so I'm either going to copy Prawn and stick them on the tent walls, or get really creative and MacGyver this shit with random shit from around the house.
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Buddies Rock the Casbah!
So after a bit of playing around with my clone boxes, I found the perfect hack: 10 Buddies (half a string) per box. Originally I had all 20 Buddies in there for a total of 15W, but even though it worked (I struck most of the clones), the heat in summer was telling. There was also a shitload of light in there that the clones didn't need, so I re-evaluated and decided to cut a string in half and wire up two cloning boxes and connect them both to the same driver.
This is the result. 7W of 4000K CRI95 light and just enough warmth to make them happy in winter (which is now) and not too oppressive in summer. It is an ideal amount of light in the region of 100-200 PPFD (as measured by my light meter at different levels below the lights).
The best thing about this? The possibility of a "stealth cloner" where the entire box is painted black on the outside and white on the inside, with all the light inside and none escaping (you would need something over the vents to let air in/out without any light escaping). I love this idea!
If anyone is wondering about the dodgy double-sided tape, I just bought a reel of the stuff so that I could play around with my Buddies and obviously that is not the original 3M tape that comes with them.
So after a bit of playing around with my clone boxes, I found the perfect hack: 10 Buddies (half a string) per box. Originally I had all 20 Buddies in there for a total of 15W, but even though it worked (I struck most of the clones), the heat in summer was telling. There was also a shitload of light in there that the clones didn't need, so I re-evaluated and decided to cut a string in half and wire up two cloning boxes and connect them both to the same driver.
This is the result. 7W of 4000K CRI95 light and just enough warmth to make them happy in winter (which is now) and not too oppressive in summer. It is an ideal amount of light in the region of 100-200 PPFD (as measured by my light meter at different levels below the lights).
The best thing about this? The possibility of a "stealth cloner" where the entire box is painted black on the outside and white on the inside, with all the light inside and none escaping (you would need something over the vents to let air in/out without any light escaping). I love this idea!
If anyone is wondering about the dodgy double-sided tape, I just bought a reel of the stuff so that I could play around with my Buddies and obviously that is not the original 3M tape that comes with them.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
This is what im doing seedling autos, but im going to throw in a couple of red buddies fo' shizzle...
grotbags
Well-Known Member
im sure i read once that a bit of red is good for root production, i built a few clone lights out 6500K + a few 660nm but didnt really see a difference compared to just 3000k + 5000k mix.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Also for autos i dont wanna put any breaks on them, theyll end up on my terrace
Mikenike
Well-Known Member
The 4000k diodes got the same Ppfd reading as the reds. About 100 ppfd 2in away while in two rows. With the light meter right up and touching the diode I read 2500 ppfd haha but they’re damn cool even after an hour of being on
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
My usual cloning lamp is a simple warm white E27 LED fixture. It did a surprisingly good job of cloning, and was 3500K at CRI85.
The Buddies 4000K are not dis-similar with a more even spectrum and a bit more blue, green and a nice red shift past 620nm
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Grow Lights Australia
Well-Known Member
Glad they got there in the end. What driver did you end up using with those?
Grow Lights Australia
Well-Known Member
Hey mate, busy as always I see. How is that replacement double sided tape holding up? Do you have those running off the same driver? I'm always amazed at the ideas people come up with!
I've had a bit of an update from LED Teknik. Far Red buddies (730nm), CRI95 4000K and PC Red (660nm) will be here in three weeks if all goes to plan. Maybe sooner but everything seems to be taking time these days.
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I used the stuff you recommended – bought a reel from Bunnings – and it seems to be OK. I don't like the fact only one side has non-stick paper on it, as you can't sit there and cut it up in preparation. Also – as you can see – I didn't take much care in replacing the 3M stickers and some of them have started to peel, but we'll see how most of them go after a bit of use.
I used one of the Osram 30W drivers Teknik sent over to you that you passed on to me (I'm using the 60W driver for the tent and I'm about to replace that with a 120W Osram driver). I'm only running 15W on the 30W driver and it didn't like it when I cut one of the Buddies in half and connected only 7W to it, as it stated buzzing under load. Once I connected the other half it was fine. You guys might want to think about a suitable driver if growers are going to start using Buddies for cloning, like I'm doing. I reckon it's a great idea and a cheap 24V 15W driver would do the trick for both small and larger cloning boxes.
I used one of the Osram 30W drivers Teknik sent over to you that you passed on to me (I'm using the 60W driver for the tent and I'm about to replace that with a 120W Osram driver). I'm only running 15W on the 30W driver and it didn't like it when I cut one of the Buddies in half and connected only 7W to it, as it stated buzzing under load. Once I connected the other half it was fine. You guys might want to think about a suitable driver if growers are going to start using Buddies for cloning, like I'm doing. I reckon it's a great idea and a cheap 24V 15W driver would do the trick for both small and larger cloning boxes.
Mikenike
Well-Known Member
Thanks I’m in week 3 of flower so I gotta get these baby’s up ASAP. I went with two xlg-75 drivers just so I can keep the red and whites separated
Humple
Well-Known Member
A Meanwell HDR-15-24 would fit perfectly. I'm using an HDR-30-24 for my two red strings. Nice little driver, with acceptable efficiency (89%). Cheap too! (I paid $15 for the 30w.)
Only "problem" I have with it is that it's designed for rail-mounting, so I'm going to have to get creative to secure it in its final location. But that's not such a big deal.