Building Your Own LED Grow Light

Mighty_boosh

Mighty_boosh

Well-Known Member
ive been reading about people buying all the things to make your own

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6rUyp_Z-k

[video=youtube;3T6rUyp_Z-k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T6rUyp_Z-k[/video]

[video=youtube;yy62DdNpsqc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy62DdNpsqc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/video]


Just wondering if anyone has made any i have bought a 120w model but have yet to try it out i know how much it is to buy these but i want a few extra watts for flowering
any info of schematics would be helpful :-P
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Endur0xX

Endur0xX

Well-Known Member
Fuck yeah! hehe that was funny... 400$ for a 1000W? you made 10 of those panels!? how much time did you spend or are you going to spend to actually get it all together and in working order? Soon enough we'll have someone on this forum truly making the LEDs in america and selling them for a wicked price!!
 
SupraSPL

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
Its tricky getting top binned LEDs of the right wavelength for a fair price. Also hard to get efficient and affordable constant current drivers. Finally we have a hard time finding an easy method for mounting the LEDs that also allows for very high thermal transfer without electrical conductivity. If you can get all that sorted LEDs can really kick ass for vegging and for blooming I have seen yields of 3 grams/watt very impressive!
 
karr

karr

Well-Known Member
SupraSPL said:
Its tricky getting top binned LEDs of the right wavelength for a fair price. Also hard to get efficient and affordable constant current drivers. Finally we have a hard time finding an easy method for mounting the LEDs that also allows for very high thermal transfer without electrical conductivity. If you can get all that sorted LEDs can really kick ass for vegging and for blooming I have seen yields of 3 grams/watt very impressive!
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Thats pretty much what i was going to say.

Its difficult to find even 1w chips for $1 a watt, let alone the power supplies, and the case itself. In the end the bulk buy is the winner, but they are often very bulk, like 1k units. It really makes you wonder how companies are claiming Cree and bridgelux LEDs in units that are close to 1$ a watt. (considering most desirable Cree and bl lights are close to 5$ ea)

Honestly. I would wait a year or so for LEDs, the technology is here, it's just getting better so fast.

The next thing I see in the led world is the silicon chips instead of the composites of current. The silicon chip will drop prices in two ways. Firstly it's just cheaper to supply. Secondly the manufacturer process is easier and less exacting. To us the chip is a benefit because it lowers the heat and makes it easier to control, as well as expanding the mounting options.


That aside, has anyone found some good suppliers of LEDs? The people I like are almost always out of the 730nm i need. One literally has 2 in stock, hah what am i going to do with two?
 
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cubelite

Active Member
what are you guys looking at for cases? anything ive looked at that would be good for heat transfer is 100+...
 
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chicago9

Member
I've seen 10watt led's on ebay running at 10-12v 1a. 3 660, 3 630, 1 blue, 1 warm white gives you an 80watt array. Use thermal glue on a heat sink with a 12v computer fan running on the other side, or could have an array of small gpu fans over each chip. Only problem, how to power them? Havn't seen any constant current power supplies running at 1a, highest I've seen is at 700ma meaning at 20watts, you would only get 56 watts by using 3 of these power supplies. Besides being costly, it would be very bulky. There has to be a way to use 12v laptop chargers while restricting the current-
 
Mighty_boosh

Mighty_boosh

Well-Known Member
i just ended up buying a blackstar 240w flowering thought its not worth the time anyone used this model on its own?
 
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chicago9

Member
Further researching, found a UFO has a 90w (150w worth of chips) for 100 pounds. At that price, its not worth the fire risk by making your own. Looking forward to future price drops that will make it worth building your own.
 
Jogro

Jogro

Well-Known Member
chicago9 said:
Further researching, found a UFO has a 90w (150w worth of chips) for 100 pounds. At that price, its not worth the fire risk by making your own. Looking forward to future price drops that will make it worth building your own.
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The savings you anticipate may never actually materialize.

Thats because the more the price of LEDs drops, the less the commercial units are going to cost also.

Professional LED builders are always going to have a cost advantage in building just by pure economy of scale. They're buying panels and power supplies by the hundreds, and diodes by the thousand or tens of thousands, and they're always going to be able to get these things in bulk wholesale far cheaper than you can in small quantity retail.

My take on building your own, is that some things it pays to do that. . .some things it doesn't. You wouldn't try to build your own refrigerator to save a few bucks, would you?

Whether or not it makes sense to build your own LED panel depends largely on how cheap you can obtain the materials, and how much your time is worth.

If you're a savvy electronics builder and know your way around a soldering gun, you've already got all the tools and maybe some of the parts, then it may pay to build your own LED panel.
If you're trying to build something highly 'custom' for a very specific application (ie a funny shaped panel, a panel with a non-standard mount, etc), then it may pay to build your own.

But I think for most people, whatever small amount you *might* save on materials cost in building your own, you're still going to lose in the many hours its going to take you to research designs, source all the necessary parts, assemble them, and test them. When you're done, you'll have something with no warranty on parts, and virtually no resale value.

So, while it may be a "fun" project to mess around building your own panel, as a matter of cost-effectiveness, I don't think this is for most people.
 
Jogro

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Mighty_boosh said:
maybe i should have make one now This guys home made led He started like this http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=146324&page=10

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=139586
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I think this just proves my point. Compare the home-built light you just posted about:
#1cheesebuds The leds use 22W and the driver is about 85-86% effective, which means the whole led-system uses 25,6W.

Zlatorog Thanks man! I spent around $150 on the system, and I think it's worth every penny. I can run the whole system with the fans running really silently. The grow box is hidden inside a closet, and you can barely hear the fans when standing right in front of the closet and having the door open. Also, when running 50W of cfls in the same closet, I got heat problems unless having the door a little open.
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To this commercially available unit for $179:
http://hydroponicshut.com/pro-grow-90-watt-cree-mother-keeper-led-ufo-grow-light-hydroponics-hut.html

The pro-grow unit uses 85 watts, meaning for another $50, you'd be putting out over 250% more usable light with the professional unit.

Plus there is no hassle in building or testing it. You pay, it gets shipped to your door, you plug it in, and you're good to go. If it doesn't work right, its under warranty for three years.

So apart from the simple pride of having done it yourself, why are you going to spend quite a bit more money per watt output, plus your time and energy, just to build something that isn't quite as good as an off the shelf panel?
 
jubiare

jubiare

Active Member
Why bother with diy leds?

this is why, you DONT see comparable results with the commercial ones.. if you diy with better components results flies over imagination

(from a 280w diy led grow)

View attachment 2041891



 
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chicago9

Member
What confuses me is the power supply- all the constant current power strips run at most 40-50 watts. Would you have to have run several ones, or can you get away with something bigger and use a current limiter? What kind of heat sinks are you using?
 
Jogro

Jogro

Well-Known Member
jubiare said:
Why bother with diy leds?

this is why, you DONT see comparable results with the commercial ones.. if you diy with better components results flies over imagination

(from a 280w diy led grow)

View attachment 2041891
Click to expand...
Did you build the panel in question?
If so, how much did it cost you and how long did it take to build?
If not, how can you be sure the results really outperform current generation commercial units?

A significant issue here is that high quality LED diodes are expensive, literally a few dollars EACH if you're buying in small quantity (and assuming you can even find the ones you need. . .apparently even that isn't trivial). Even stipulating that you can get better results with a home-made panel than a commercially available one, that doesn't mean that building one yourself is going to be cost-effective or practical for someone without quite a bit of electronics assembly experience.
 
EleetDoja

EleetDoja

Member
I am using an Apollo 6 at the moment, getting fantastic results. I am purchasing a Helios 280 next week. Just to shed some more light on the grow for now. But I have been trying to learn how to make my own custom grow lights complete with heat sinks and 60 degree lenses. If anyone has any info or advice, please feel free to tell me all about it.
 
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budballer

Well-Known Member
SupraSPL said:
Its tricky getting top binned LEDs of the right wavelength for a fair price. Also hard to get efficient and affordable

constant current drivers. Finally we have a hard time finding an easy method for mounting the LEDs that also allows for very high thermal transfer without electrical conductivity. If you can get all that sorted LEDs can really kick ass for vegging and for blooming I have seen yields of 3 grams/watt very impressive!
Click to expand...
Can you link the 3g/watt grow you've seen? I'm curious about their grow method and light!
 
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viewer1020

Well-Known Member
chicago9 said:
I've seen 10watt led's on ebay running at 10-12v 1a. 3 660, 3 630, 1 blue, 1 warm white gives you an 80watt array. Use thermal glue on a heat sink with a 12v computer fan running on the other side, or could have an array of small gpu fans over each chip. Only problem, how to power them? Havn't seen any constant current power supplies running at 1a, highest I've seen is at 700ma meaning at 20watts, you would only get 56 watts by using 3 of these power supplies. Besides being costly, it would be very bulky. There has to be a way to use 12v laptop chargers while restricting the current-
Click to expand...
DIY constant current drivers:
http://bit.ly/pBJz04

You can drive LEDs at 1+ amps from a laptop power supply with these. If you've already bought the components (50+ of each) and are good with a soldering station, it costs about $1.20 plus 45 minutes work per driver.

Don't be fooled into thinking it's cheap, fast or easy - if you don't have the components or understanding yet, it is none of these.

I do recommend looking into this sort of setup if you find it interesting for its own sake, though.
 
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