DIY LED tower

I am new to this site, been a indoor grower since 1/1/1999, and only recently I switched from HPS to LED lighting.
Heat issues on my grow system made me think of LED rather than a 400w HPS lamp that I originally used.
This is a octagon made with heat sink that is 1/4" think with 1" cooling fins. I have 16 LED's mounted one each panel for a total of 126 LED's.
The idea is this tower will provide the vegy spectrum and the floral spectrum I feel the plant needs.
I feel the lower half is used during vegy stage and the upper half with lower half in floral stage.
10 different color's a, Blue, Roy Blue, WW, CW, NW, Turq., Violate, Red, Deep Red, and Far Red.
I have 11 Inventronic drivers as the power source for the tower. Each one has a ON/OFF power switch and I will have dimming control on 11 of the drivers. I got in a rush in ordering and got a non dimmable driver, but do wonder if their is a way I can get some dimming control on it.
I also got in a rush and ordered 10 of these 10k pot's, which now I realize are not what I needed, well after some reading here I may might be able to use 5 of them, but need some help figuring it out.
I do have 5 correct sized pot's ordered and soon will get them installed.
I will have spent near $1600.00 on this project, and if I did the math correctly, this tower is 623watts when all is turned on at full throttle, but I did not design it to all be on at the same time..

Awesome. Let's see it lit up

I forgot this part, my grow area is only 42" wide x 37" deep x say 60" tall. A cabinet in the garage with a upper shelf that is where the drivers are mounted. There are 2 negative wire harness and 2 positive wire harness that go up to the driver's.
My idea is that I keep the heat of the drivers out of the grow room area and there is 115vac 5" fan mounted at the base of the tower to push air across the heat sink which is ducted out of the grow room area.

That's a very interesting design. With all the heat going directly through the chimney your heat issues should be gone. Have you drawn first light yet?

Nice!

Where have i seen this design? Hmmmm
Either eay very impressive,

guod said:

Click to expand...

nothing like having and amusement park ride in your living room............better have them all "buckled" in tight!lol, no way could you run this bare bulb===== glass grenade.

I always wondered on the volksgarden how much plant matter/pollen/water/etc gets onto the light source???

I did see that horizontal design after I started this project. The tower stands vertical on top of a DWC tub that has a frame work to hold a screen that is 2 ft tall by 6 ft long. 3 plant site grow that covers 12sq ft of vertical SCROC area.

Mr. Flux, yes I have powered it up. Each driver individually as I was testing the dimming abilities. I screwed that up a bit and am currently getting it all corrected. The good news all the LED's and driver's work.

guod said:

Click to expand...

I wouldn't put that lettuce on my MacChicken. Over thinking is a disorder.

no need for Chicken...

this is pic of the system when I used a 400watt HPS inside a pyrex tube, plants grow and trained on the outside of the screen and I poked the bud sites inward starting about the 7 day into flowering stage. Now it will be with the LED tower.

Looking good realhigh!

Your spectrum with the adjustability reminds of the radiant L4A....http://radiantledgrowthsystems.com/product/l4a/

$1600 is a lot but the only company with a light for sale like that is hgl...and I wouldn't touch them with a 10' pole.

Might be perfect as is and give you all kinds of good results. Or you can optimize the spectrum in the future and change colors up...at least the power is in your hands and your not a slave to a led company.

$1600 for 623w...$2.57w . In a cylinder design, with individual spectrum control, high quality drivers and leds, ...I don't even want to know what a led company would charge for that.

Got a link for the drivers datasheet that are giving you a hard time?
See if we can figure this out..I just had a similar problem

http://www.inventronics-co.com/upload/EUC-036SxxxDT(ST)_2013041202583970311.PDF

This is the link for the blues, but the other driver data sheets show the same info and words involving the dimmer.
The dimming info is on the 2nd to last page.

I need to correct myself.....there is 623 watts total available to use in the system, but if I am correct in math I will be currently using just under 450watts of the 623watts. Again I do not plan it to be used all at the same time, and at best I figure 50 to 200 watts in vegy stage as plants grow and 200 to 300 watts used in floral stage. Who knows what really will happen as I only planned things out on paper and in my mind.

Okay, no dimmer wired into the circuit, heck the warm white is bright stuff, for sure need the dimmer's on them.

Pretty interesting, like to see it in action.

It took me a bit longer getting the new potentiometers, still one to come via mail, and it is not in the GrowRoom yet, but here she is all lite up.

Pretty sweet!

Will be interesting being able to manipulate the light as it grows the trellis. Then hittem' with the warmer colors in flower..nuts!?

Specs on those drivers would probably be able to run a few cxa3070 if you ever felt the need

Hard to organize that many wires for sure..the loom going in is nice. Maybe run a gfci at the plug for a little added insurance

Crazy design here !
I have been thinking of it but never had the opportunity to try it.
hope it will prove to be efficient

I have each plug into a "power bank" is what I call it. It was used for computers and it has a main power switch that supplies power to 5 outlets, each of those have a power switch that has a breaker (fused) along with the main power switch. Some would say over kill, but I figured it was just safety and better than a power strip.

Should be a good addition for all those drivers.

Just ordered a auto fire extinguisher. Been meaning to get one for a long time...finally found a decent price. Really should of had one from my hid days. With all this DIY I got going on I already feel better knowing I got some real fire protection finally

only1realhigh said:

I have each plug into a "power bank" is what I call it. It was used for computers and it has a main power switch that supplies power to 5 outlets, each of those have a power switch that has a breaker (fused) along with the main power switch. Some would say over kill, but I figured it was just safety and better than a power strip.

Click to expand...

That's straight up AWESOME, and boy do I have the place to run a couple more just like what you made!

Have a look through the thread in my Sig line link and tell me what you think?

I'm not just blowing smoke, either; you tell me what you'd charge to build two more just like what you got. My pockets are all but bottomless for the perfect lighting solution...