custom made LED system. need electrical help.

Ok so after reading about LEDs and seeing that they actually do work I decided I wanted to see if I could rig up a cheap light of my own rather than buying one. Just for one or 2 plants in a confined space.

I went out and bought a bunch of 5mm reds, 5 mm blues and some cheap 8mm whites. Now for a power supply I only had one capable of 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 7 and 12 volt but only 500 mA. So im able to light up a couple and test some circuits.

The leds I bought did not come with any information really so im not sure about adding up power requirements. So if anyone wants to share some information with my or discuss similar projects in this thread that would be great.

say i look at a chart on this site

http://www.pcboard.ca/kits/leds/5mm.html

i could make assumptions on my leds based on the colour and diameter. So for example if i had 5, 2 volt leds, 20 mA how what kind of power supply would that need?

I am studying electronics. Only a year deep so I am far from an expert... The different colors have their own requirement correct? It would be sweat to make a homemade circuitboard and then I guess you would have to build a circuit that has the correct amps and volts going through the correct led's. If they didn't come with datasheets, contact the manufacturer and ask them.

Did you do any research on buying lights? Any advice on where to go?

I like parallax.com for IC's and components. But I don't think they are the spot for grow lights. I must admit I haven't looked.

You need to buy led's that already have heat sink and lens mounted then you can run them in series and power each series with a 100 watt driver.

You can find good sources on the internet for top quality LED's that are high output that will give you a better result and save you the trouble of fooling with a circuit board.

my bigger 8mm ones came in a package so they give a wattage of 3.5 - 4.5 and say 8000 to 10000 mcd, not sure what mcd is. I probably wont be using any breadboards. My plan is to drill holes in lexan, ad a bead of glue and simply solder them together, ill create some kind of reflector. When i find a bigger power supply somewhere tommorow ill solder 50-100 put a clone under there and see if it gets any growth. Maybe ill realize its nuts to try to make my own but im having fun so fuck it.