Cheapo DIY Chinese LED grow. 200w

[thatguy69]

do you thing the fact that the leds are clooser? maybe placed twice as close ? that it would be more efficient? also note that these leds have ZERO uv light i think and they say uv is benifitial.
i would like to see a cmh grow with these 30w leds placed around and on the walls and see the gram per watt/lumes yield. im tihnking that may be the future :O

 

[thatguy69]

also i found the 45mil leds were better then the 30mil and thinner. im personally not sod on the red and blue leds. they sell red and blue clfs why not use those? i say white light is better
i would like to hear other opinions about the leds being placed closer

 

[patrikantonius]

that guy says white light is better

 

[Gastanker]

from my calculation 1000w hps has 192000 lumes. you would need a light with 200 lumes per electrical watt to be more efficient. the most efficient one i found like his leds were 83-100 lumes per watt and the 30w one being the smallest. i was thinking of useing the leds for side wall lighting ??? i guess leds are a long way off but i guess the heat factor is that its about with these.http://luckysunny.en.alibaba.com/product/594014986-213868769/30W_COB_LED_round.html

You've got to keep in mind that plants don't see lumen. What's so great about LEDs is that a much larger portion of the light emitted it usable by the plants compared to HIDs. These are simplified numbers but think of it like this: 1000w HIDs emit 192,000 lumen but of which only 25% is usable to plants. Again plants don't see lumen but we'll use that number to compare so here the plants are really only receiving 48,000 'lumen' of usable radiation. Now 1000w of LED might only put out 100lumen/w (100,000) but ~65% of the light is usable by plants so in reality the LEDs are delivering more usable light per watt - here 65,000 compared to the 48,000 of the HIDs. If you want to look this up look for PAR comparisons of LEDs versus HIDs. PAR is what plants see versus lumen being what humans see.

do you thing the fact that the leds are clooser? maybe placed twice as close ? that it would be more efficient? also note that these leds have ZERO uv light i think and they say uv is benifitial.
i would like to see a cmh grow with these 30w leds placed around and on the walls and see the gram per watt/lumes yield. im tihnking that may be the future :O

This is a huge reason LEDs can be more efficient. Same reason CFLs can technically be more efficient as well. If you get the lights close enough you're just loosing so much less light over distance compared to HIDs. Light intensity declines extremely quickly over distance so this can have a huge effect on how much usable radiation the plants are receiving. UV is definitely beneficial and has been shown to drastically increase THC content in several scientific papers. They do make UV LEDs but they are new tech and don't work all that amazingly just yet. After testing these as is I plan on adding my typical UV panels that I normally grow with to supplement the U.

also i found the 45mil leds were better then the 30mil and thinner. im personally not sod on the red and blue leds. they sell red and blue clfs why not use those? i say white light is better
i would like to hear other opinions about the leds being placed closer

I like white light but it has been demonstrated by many universities that red and blue light to grow plants well. We don't use colored CFLs because they don't emit colored light... Colored CFLs emit white light that is then sent through a filter which is very very different than emitting colored light of a particular spectrum. So a red LED emits all of its light between 655 and 660 nm which is red light. A colored CFL emits all of its light in white of which only a percentage is red light. After the white light goes through a filter only the small portion of red is let through the filter which means just a portion of the total light emitted is received by the plant.

You're dead on about the placement though. It's essentially the same as CFL and T5 growing; 600w of CFLs can grow great bud if you keep them close close close but if you were to place 600w of CFL at the same distance from your plants as you would keep a 600w HID then you're plants wouldn't grow well at all.

 

[atb]

It was really easy. I would say the most difficult part is determining which side rail is the positive and which is the negative.

Here's a list of everything I purchased:
1x 100w cool white array - http://www.ebay.com/itm/300639533243?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
1x 100w warm white array - http://www.ebay.com/itm/330660077325?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
2x 100w constant current drivers - http://www.ebay.com/itm/330660091340?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
2x 5.88" x 6" heat syncs - If I were to do it again I would go with slightly larger. And keep in mind that heatsyncs vary tremendously, for instance these are ~3x the weight of other similar sized syncs - http://www.heatsinkusa.com/5-886/
1x Artic Silver 5 99% silver thermal compound - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2216879
4" fan
2x $0.89 extension cords

Tools I used and other small stuff I had on hand:
Solder gun and solder
Screw driver and screws
Drill and drill bits
Electrical heat shrink, electrical tape, or wire nuts.

I'm pretty sure that covers everything. I added a reflector I had laying around and cut up some 24oz aluminum cans for reflectors but I wouldn't say that's necessary

Just for anyone that wnats to know you can get the combo led driver + led for $50 (100w) you can probably add the other led for $15 if you message them and you save some $30

 

[thatguy69]

http://www.epistar.com.tw/_english/04_pr/02_detail.php?SID=30


also i just made a tread

 

[polyarcturus]

wheres the updates gatanker hows the ladys?

i chopped my purp bagseen it was 59.4 wet so really shity yeild oh well

anyways ive got to slow down for a while doing massive downgrades and the room and my ladys look like shit, but il get some shot of the bud when its dry especilaly that bagseed kush its tool on it own very fruity smell in the last week after having almost no smell the whole time but tons and tons of tricombs.

 

[badassledsystems]

Gastanker,
I've found several vendors that offer 100W 660nm leds. Do you think there would be an advantage of making a home made light that has 4 100W 660nm leds instead of 4 100W warm/cool white leds? I already have a large powerful heatsink with 5 120mm 120V server fans mounted to keep them cool enough. If I build the powerful 660nm light, I'll add 3 20W 430nm to add some blue spectrum. I know a lot of this LED stuff is guesswork and experimentation but what's your thoughts on the high powered red vs. high powered white like you've built?

 

[Gastanker]

wheres the updates gatanker hows the ladys?

i chopped my purp bagseen it was 59.4 wet so really shity yeild oh well

anyways ive got to slow down for a while doing massive downgrades and the room and my ladys look like shit, but il get some shot of the bud when its dry especilaly that bagseed kush its tool on it own very fruity smell in the last week after having almost no smell the whole time but tons and tons of tricombs.

I'll try and get an update tomorrow. Right now they look ok but not super amazing - they're just small. They look healthy and all that just small and I can't tell if it was the overdose of alfalfa PGRs, the LEDs, or my inexperience with LEDs. Right now they plants are also dealing with high high temps. Ambient temps are >100 and I'm not going to be running an AC for the ladies so they'll just have to deal with it.

Gastanker,
I've found several vendors that offer 100W 660nm leds. Do you think there would be an advantage of making a home made light that has 4 100W 660nm leds instead of 4 100W warm/cool white leds? I already have a large powerful heatsink with 5 120mm 120V server fans mounted to keep them cool enough. If I build the powerful 660nm light, I'll add 3 20W 430nm to add some blue spectrum. I know a lot of this LED stuff is guesswork and experimentation but what's your thoughts on the high powered red vs. high powered white like you've built?

Rasser is currently fooling around with the 660nm arrays. I personally am into the broad spectrum and doing it cheap which is why I chose white but I see no reason the reds wouldn't work. They are a bit more expensive and seem to be slightly newer tech of which some require special drivers but I can't imagine them not working well.

 

[polyarcturus]

put the final update in my thead bud porn

 

[Gastanker]

So I failed on the update. Preoccupied with fishing and then I ended up picking up a new aquarium today. Damn craigslist and it's cheap cheap cheap stuff Made it back to the house just as lights off hit but I do have a casualty to report The dutch treat missed her watering by a half day and in this heat that meant instant goner. Poor dutch treat. On a lighter note, I received a package from Europe with some free beans to test out.

Literally a half a day:

The background will be removed or replaced with plain black. For some reason I can't stand printed backgrounds. This is going to be mud bottom native California bio-type with locally caught fish

And some free autos to fuck around with:

 

[Chronikool]

Gutted man! Chuck her in the aquarium and add to the mud! Have you (or anybody) tried the 'Royal Queen Seeds' line before? I have the 'Special Kush #1' and 'Special Queen #1' from them which i have yet to try...

 

[Gastanker]

Gutted man! Chuck her in the aquarium and add to the mud! Have you (or anybody) tried the 'Royal Queen Seeds' line before? I have the 'Special Kush #1' and 'Special Queen #1' from them which i have yet to try...

They seem like cool people but I haven't tried their gear yet. I'm a bit skeptical to be honest; for no reason whatsoever though.

 

[IlovePlants]

My Auto Northern Lights from them was pretty decent on the potency side and damn tasty, all though the yeild was small, you would need to do a sea of green to get decent production. I've never really considered ruderalis anything but a hobby plant, seriously though you should check out Rasser's new all red led array, its in his Multiblog for all. I think one 20 watt red between two 50 watt 2700k would sustain excellent growth during any cycle; veg or flowering. Eh, just putting out there. I'm building one next month
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

 

[Gastanker]

My Auto Northern Lights from them was pretty decent on the potency side and damn tasty, all though the yeild was small, you would need to do a sea of green to get decent production. I've never really considered ruderalis anything but a hobby plant, seriously though you should check out Rasser's new all red led array, its in his Multiblog for all. I think one 20 watt red between two 50 watt 2700k would sustain excellent growth during any cycle; veg or flowering. Eh, just putting out there. I'm building one next month
Sincerely,
ILovePlants

Oh I've been following it. My initial plan was to run a few of those between my white arrays but my supplier told me off. Still considering adding some 3w reds or some arrays to my panels though. Perhaps once I burn out on my new fish tank I'll work on that

 

[Gastanker]

I'm not too impressed so far but at least they are keeping me occupied. I'm running ~260w atm. I'm getting curious as to how much a UV bulb or two would help frost things up.

 

[polyarcturus]

IMO more light is always better the source matters but multiples sources differently designed sources are better.

light combos IMO always give the best results HID and LEF and Flouro all combined in a perfect spectrum is the way to go.

 

[FranJan]

Hey Gastanker. Something tells me you don't have the spectral data for those LEDs, do you? If you can find out anything about them, (factory where they came from, model numbers, whatever), maybe we can find the spectral data for them. I was on Mouser.com looking up the spectral data of other white arrays and many were either lousy or very poor for growing. Cree makes some of these I found out and while very bright, the spectrums were way off for growing. You're probably using arrays with very poor efficacy and/or off target spectrums. The red spectrums could be very low in output and are peaking at 650nm, which means you're getting little 660 and almost no 630, and in my opinion that makes it very tough for flowering when using LEDs. You might even have an array that is made of a bunch of blue LEDs that just have a yellow phosphor coated on them which will give you white light, but not at spectrums which are very good for growing, or at least flowering. Who knows maybe it's something else, but that data will help you figure that out. I say all this because to me when I look at those pictures I see plants too small for the wattage and your skill level, so something is off, so I bet it's the LED's ability to flower.

Good Luck Gas and +1 on the UVB idea .

 

[polyarcturus]

i agree franjan but i didnt want to call it out like that he seemed pretty confidant in thier ability perhaps he has not fine tuned the parameters of his grow to utilize the leds properly but shittly made leds may be the cause the truth is he would have to get a better array to compare to his current ones.
im not the one to say the LED is broken i think it is more your style of growing your used to bigger plants and perhaps you are over feeding. and doing things that would require more light than you are currently providing.

on a side note despite the fact they are small, they are quite dense with lots of nodes and possible branching i personally see this as a case of needs more light this is the best these will do alone.

 

[Gastanker]

By all means they could be just really shitty LEDs. these are supposedly the spectral graphs and supposedly these are 90-110 lumen/w but I personally wouldn't take either of the claims at face value.

I have been dealing with very high temps and did feed them some nasty tea but at the same time I've grown in high heat before and in small containers and both with HIDs and CFLs have had much larger more impressive looking plants. They seem to veg quite well but it could be very possible that they'll end up hanging over my aquariums.