Do you want to grow something but you dont have money for LED? I have the answer.

M

m1100

Well-Known Member
hi, im going to talk about my experience with leds. i was a proud owner of a mars hydro sp3000 a few years ago and what amazed me is that it grew better plants than my 600w hps using only 300w at full cranck

im currently doing a micro grow and i dont have lots of money to invert in

but im getting awesome results with 8 household leds at 14w each. they give off 1300lm+ per led and have awesome full spectrum
.; 6 of them are 4000-4500k and 2 6500k.
total of 112w i hang them 30cm above my plants and they did not stretch a bit. i have the shortest internodal distance of all the lights i have tried,
they give off some heat but its very little. my temps range from 20 to 24c
and the price i got it all for is ridiculous like 3.50 euro for each bulb + a plastic distributor and some wire and a plug, a total of 35 bucks for 112 watts
i think this is the way to go if you want cheap grow but still use leds and the spectrum is fully custom. say you want a fixture for bloom; 3000 3500k led are perfect.
plus i feel like this household leds drive each chip to much higher wattage than growlights and that way i get more penetration. less life becouse leds are warmer. i think 8000 hours would be it. vs 20000 - 30000 of grow lights. plus my efficiency would range at 1.4 umol /joule but who cares with that little watts? its not like im a comercial grower caring for every 10% of loss

if there is interes i will do photos and a grow diary

show me some love ;P

blesss
 
Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
m1100 said:
hi, im going to talk about my experience with leds. i was a proud owner of a mars hydro sp3000 a few years ago and what amazed me is that it grew better plants than my 600w hps using only 300w at full cranck

im currently doing a micro grow and i dont have lots of money to invert in

but im getting awesome results with 8 household leds at 14w each. they give off 1300lm+ per led and have awesome full spectrum
.; 6 of them are 4000-4500k and 2 6500k.
total of 112w i hang them 30cm above my plants and they did not stretch a bit. i have the shortest internodal distance of all the lights i have tried,
they give off some heat but its very little. my temps range from 20 to 24c
and the price i got it all for is ridiculous like 3.50 euro for each bulb + a plastic distributor and some wire and a plug, a total of 35 bucks for 112 watts
i think this is the way to go if you want cheap grow but still use leds and the spectrum is fully custom. say you want a fixture for bloom; 3000 3500k led are perfect.
plus i feel like this household leds drive each chip to much higher wattage than growlights and that way i get more penetration. less life becouse leds are warmer. i think 8000 hours would be it. vs 20000 - 30000 of grow lights. plus my efficiency would range at 1.4 umol /joule but who cares with that little watts? its not like im a comercial grower caring for every 10% of loss

if there is interes i will do photos and a grow diary

show me some love ;P

blesss
Click to expand...
The nice thing about this type of grow is that you can mix in any type of light bulb in order to tweak the spectrum; try adding a little incandesant for flower. Or even a blurple light bulb, theres a few around aliexpress and other outlets.
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
Rocket Soul said:
The nice thing about this type of grow is that you can mix in any type of light bulb in order to tweak the spectrum; try adding a little incandesant for flower. Or even a blurple light bulb, theres a few around aliexpress and other outlets.
Click to expand...
i would not add a incandescent for flower because it would have to sit super close to the plants to be the same intensity as my leds, but i could add ir uv or simply a lot of 3000k for flower, see the biggest led manufacturers are adding 3000k leds for the reds and flo and 5000 or 6500k for the blues for veg and a par of ir uv or red or far red and calling it full spectrum. the full spectrum comes from those 3000k and 5000k the ir does nothing to par (heat) the uv is suppoused to inflict damage in the plant so it responds by creating prottection oils (trichomes) but with 4 uv leds idk man... aaand lastly far red and red add to the par measurments making the light more effective by ppfd measurments but the far red is only to promote stretch and bigger leafs

imo all gimmiks for your money xD

plants should be fine with only 3000k or 3500k as it alredy haves full spectrum and enough blue to keep things compact
if you want more compact add betwen 5 and 20% 6500k
thats it

ir is for heat so leaf temp surface.. somethink to think

i was thinking to blast my plants with 250w ir warming bulb (for chickens) at very short burst to help drive up leaf temps

may be 30 min for what would be the mid day ? sure it would be like a meter far from canopy . and would imitate high midday temps

bless
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
also with household leds they get pretty warm but the light emmited is not warm at all. the warmth is nice in winter plus im sure you all know but you have to remove the plastic diffuuuser and inside there are 14 smd chips driven at a watt per chip versus growlights that drive each chip with a lower wattage thus getting better eficiency lower heat and longer life.. if you are doing a microgrow and its winter it all wins using household lights

i will get on working on my grow diary soon

bless
 
Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
I do have money for top tier commercial LED grow lights, and could buy pretty much any one I want If I really wanted...

Screw in bulbs are so much better (and funner to play with!) though IMO, haha. Even If I won the mega lottery, I would still use them (to light my huge warehouses), because I must be a fool like that, lol.

I'd rather waste the huge chunk of money I saved by going with 1000s of watts worth of cheap SILs as my grow light fixtures, and instead put it towards fabricating some copper or aluminum water cooling plates (my latest invention I'm working on) for the bulbs to cool them off, and make them last way longer.. Possibly even modding the drivers by over-volting them for even higher output!
:fire:

SILWaterBlocks.jpg
SILWaterBlockV2.jpg

^ cheap aluminum tubing and 1/8" thick flat bar sections will be brazed together with alumaweld rods to make edge cooled water plates.
Aluminum heater core from the junkyard with a high static pressure fan as the radiator for each 40+ bulb 700+watt fixture. ;)
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
wow man i feel like you and i are on to something here.. and i think passive cooling would be better and cheaper. remember that we still want some heat in our grows and something that gets hot emmits ir i think we should aim for smd chip temperature of arround 60 degrees celsius
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
oh and i think you should not be aiming at a higher output but a lower output but more light sources, i think that the 14 w bulbs with 14 chips are the real deal 1 w per chip seems like the perfect power you would be getting like twice the penetration of a growlight chip but growlight exells in that it haves more light sources so always better

our design its kind of a mix between a cob and a quantum board
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
drop that sound let me ask you something. i will go in flower soon, should i buy a grow light 100w and add it to my contraption or should i get 200w more screw in leds and add that? im in a 2x3 so i think 300w its the peak lighting i can get in there
 
Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
My only main goal I was aiming for is to smoke whatever light\setup @Jjgrow420 is using with cheap walmart great value screw in bulbs (during the upcoming 2024 RIU ultimate grow-off comp!), even if I have to resort to desperate measures suck as liquid cooling them, haha.

I'll eventually be pumping the heat from the system right back down into temp controlled radiant floor coils btw, to radiate it back up through the canopy. I'll be experimenting with how to best transfer that heat LEDs already produce back into the plants somehow, without having to use extra IR bulbs and blasting heaters to warm the leaf surfaces, etc. I don't really live in a climate that warrants the use of LED lighting most of the year anyway, so it's all fun and games for me!
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
man i think that vivosun and their light + pc fan is a thing
have you seen grow light expos? they use tubing with holes blowing air in between bar style leds to get that warmth down to canopy
i think thats the way

passive cooling plus some fans or tubes with holes aimed down to get that leaf warm
plus aditonal air moovment its not a bad thing
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
and i think both you and the grower using grow lights have pros and cons.. its a whole word but if you beat him i would not be surprised :lol:
 
Drop That Sound

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
You might as well expand on what you already wired up. Sounds like you are happy with the current results already. The 14w bulbs are no joke! If you add too much, you can always unscrew a few bulbs right?
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
i did start with one 6500k 14w one 4500k 17w and 5 4000k 14w
now im running 2 6500k 14w and the rest same
im having amazing veg and super short internodals

so much so that i got the light further away (it was at 20cm now sits at 30) so that i can beggin to get a little stretch to fill up space
tomorrow i will link a grow diary and you will see my 4 ladies

i begun with 9 regular seeds and got 3 confirmed females and one is not showing any sex yet

they are in 18/6 now but i started with 20/4 for like 2 weeks
 
M

m1100

Well-Known Member
here it is

m1100 grow in a 2x3 DIY led cabinet

Here i show you my grow op in my room cabinet. the space is 60x90cm or 3x2 Got rid of the bulky heater fan (i was using only fan) and threw in a couple brushless 12v fans. I did the lights , they are 6x 14w regular 4000-4500k e27 led + 2x 17w 6500k. The cabinet is painted white. The...
www.rollitup.org
bless :weed:
 
turbobuzz

turbobuzz

Well-Known Member
m1100 said:
hi, im going to talk about my experience with leds. i was a proud owner of a mars hydro sp3000 a few years ago and what amazed me is that it grew better plants than my 600w hps using only 300w at full cranck

im currently doing a micro grow and i dont have lots of money to invert in

but im getting awesome results with 8 household leds at 14w each. they give off 1300lm+ per led and have awesome full spectrum
.; 6 of them are 4000-4500k and 2 6500k.
total of 112w i hang them 30cm above my plants and they did not stretch a bit. i have the shortest internodal distance of all the lights i have tried,
they give off some heat but its very little. my temps range from 20 to 24c
and the price i got it all for is ridiculous like 3.50 euro for each bulb + a plastic distributor and some wire and a plug, a total of 35 bucks for 112 watts
i think this is the way to go if you want cheap grow but still use leds and the spectrum is fully custom. say you want a fixture for bloom; 3000 3500k led are perfect.
plus i feel like this household leds drive each chip to much higher wattage than growlights and that way i get more penetration. less life becouse leds are warmer. i think 8000 hours would be it. vs 20000 - 30000 of grow lights. plus my efficiency would range at 1.4 umol /joule but who cares with that little watts? its not like im a comercial grower caring for every 10% of loss

if there is interes i will do photos and a grow diary

show me some love ;P

blesss
Click to expand...
I bought some LED’s at Lowe’s the other day for cheap, and they have a switch on them for different color settings. Seems like they ranged from 5000k to 2700k.
 
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