My Lighting Project - Will a Custom LED Panel Work?

Cuttings2Colas said:

Just by reading that one thread (101 Already Asked Questions) and the links it provides, you can be confidently successful in growing a healthy crop. If you're like me, it'll lead to having 10 windows open at once until 3 in the morning... damn.

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I know exactly what you mean! I've been doing that every night for the past week, plus all day today (it's my day off from work).

Thanks for the info. I'll have to go check out ledz.com. Is that where you get a breadboard too? I don't know anything about those but I'll go check it out right now!

turtleblood said:

I know exactly what you mean! I've been doing that every night for the past week, plus all day today (it's my day off from work).

Thanks for the info. I'll have to go check out ledz.com. Is that where you get a breadboard too? I don't know anything about those but I'll go check it out right now!

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Breadboards -
Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard
Here's a link to buy them: http://www.cir.com/parts/bredbord/bredbord.htm

Again, I don't suggest anybody build something like this until I do a test. I should have some sort of results within a month... at least a good idea how it'll do in veg. There's a chance it'll just be way too hot, and I'll have to take it all apart.

Until then, let's just continue our discussion on light... it's been really educational.

C2C

Cuttings2Colas said:

In this chart, we can compare the two. The solitary white line is the "Plant Sensitivity Curve," and the colored in area is what the human eye sees.

The current LED grow lights on the market talk about this, but it doesn't appear most of them have done any research. They say, "The plants only use the blue & red spectrum," or "Blue is used more during vegetative growth and Red is used more during flowering." Both of these statements are somewhat true, but severely misled.

Plants use all colors. Think of the light color as availability of nutrients. In their vegetative cycle, plants use more light from purple to blue to almost green. "Blue Spectrum" doesn't do it justice. In the flower cycle, plants use more light from the yellow-orange-red-deep red spectrum. "Red Spectrum" is quite an understatement. Notice I said the plants use "more" of specific colors during certain cycles. The plant still uses all colors in all cycles... it just uses some colors more during different stages. This chart shows what enzymes and plant organs use different colors of light. The left side is purple through blue, then green and yellow are the low center area, and orange-red-deep red are the right.

----{See Image - PAR action spectrum.gif}----

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wats up. quick ? ive ben unplugging my light from my wall is it best to unplugg from ballas or wall. we have no switch. this morning. went to give the girls there light and got shocked and light went out. did our own prob. solving and rewiered the vented sun systems hood. wats best way to fix my shocking prob/ currency prob. im having. aaaarrrgggghghhhh bad morninng and no sleep. cant offord to happen again. plus i like to do good by my ladies.

farmer frank said:

wats up. quick ? ive ben unplugging my light from my wall is it best to unplugg from ballas or wall. we have no switch. this morning. went to give the girls there light and got shocked and light went out. did our own prob. solving and rewiered the vented sun systems hood. wats best way to fix my shocking prob/ currency prob. im having. aaaarrrgggghghhhh bad morninng and no sleep. cant offord to happen again. plus i like to do good by my ladies.

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so any help woood bee sweet

farmer frank said:

wats up. quick ? ive ben unplugging my light from my wall is it best to unplugg from ballas or wall. we have no switch. this morning. went to give the girls there light and got shocked and light went out. did our own prob. solving and rewiered the vented sun systems hood. wats best way to fix my shocking prob/ currency prob. im having. aaaarrrgggghghhhh bad morninng and no sleep. cant offord to happen again. plus i like to do good by my ladies.

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Try searching the forums for electrical advice. If you can't find anything, consider posting a new thread in a forum that is related to your problem...

My 2 second advice: Get a $10 timer.

The LEDs, Breadboards and power supply were all purchased 2 days ago, on Monday. Things should start arriving tomorrow or Friday! I'm freakin' stoked!

hello, l've been growing for 40 years mostly outdoors, thx for all your input re: led lites, looking forward to your results, the reduction of electrical cost even by 50% [l've seen ads claiming excellent results and a 70-80% cost reduction] will l dear say revolutionize the cause. keep up the good work!!

dannny said:

hello, l've been growing for 40 years mostly outdoors, thx for all your input re: led lites, looking forward to your results, the reduction of electrical cost even by 50% [l've seen ads claiming excellent results and a 70-80% cost reduction] will l dear say revolutionize the cause. keep up the good work!!

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Very cool, thank you much.

C2C

Cuttings2Colas said:

Thank you much, I look forward to the results!

If you find the article, I'd love to read it. Any experiments that have already been done can help me find a baseline to start my experiments. You know, I'm still using quite a bit of "deep red" with the 660nm. I'd like more 680, but I haven't seen a single grow light out there with 680... probably too expensive.

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http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/vol43/issue7/cover.dtl

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/7/1947

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/7/1951

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/7/1957

HortScience is the journal where I read those articles. This issue is the one you want to check out (I don't have access anymore). The first few articles in issue 43 vol 7 are all about LEDs, their history and more importantly how they have progressed in terms of spectrum and strength for plants. Very good shit.

aha! good luck. post some pics when you get a chance! very excited now.

I'm excited... all of the LEDs arrived end of last week, and the breadboards & 24V/6.5A power supply should be arriving later today. Assembly time! Tomorrow, I'll be making a small aero/hydro mix setup to start some mothers (from rooted clones) in my friend's grow room. Once I have my full room assembled, the ladies will hopefully be ready to produce their first babies. I had better start a grow journal. Let the Sea of Green commence! (wish me luck)

I ordered 64 extra LEDs (48 red 635nm & 16 blue 470nm) for a test run on my smaller breadboard, and they're super-bright. 1652 LEDs is going to be ridiculous. Just ridiculous. I already can't look directly into it with only 64 of them. When I put together the real setup, I'm pretty sure it'll appear much more white to the human eye than most LED lights, since I've filled out the spectrum more. I'll post pictures of the brightness when I can, and I should be able to do a Custom LEDs vs. 600W HPS "brightness" test. Unfortunately, that won't really tell us much. Theoretically, though, the LEDs should be even brighter to the plants than they are to us.

I'd also like to use this test panel to experiment with cross-lighting later in the process, thus alleviating the light penetration issue. My favorite idea is a "light stick" that hangs down between your plants and slowly rotates. It's like an LED light mover INSIDE your plants!

C2C

Cuttings2Colas said:

My favorite idea is a "light stick" that hangs down between your plants and slowly rotates. It's like an LED light mover INSIDE your plants!

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BAHAHA i love it. Please do so! Can you make a bunch of them so that you can put them all over within your group of plants? I don't remember whether you have posted details about the planned arrangement of your plants... but anyway.

Peace!

Alright, so I added 8 LEDs for a total of 72. This made it so I could do one of the deep blue/blue/teal/green spectrum groups. I shined it on the fridge (first white surface I noticed), and took a picture.

The light is held at about 12" away from the fridge. The center white-looking area is about 5 inches across for LEDs that are about 2.5" across, so the light is twice as wide at 12" away.

The reason the center is almost white is because of the colors I added to broaden the spectrum, even though there's very little green. The final product will have a broader red spectrum, too. The mixed light might just look fully white to us, which would be badass.

C2C

Hahaha. Love it.

Hey,

How many leds can you power with 24v 6.5 A?

I've been running 12 volt... and I can only fit three leds in series,

and with my 20 some odd amps only 144 of these circuits in parallel.

> Ok, thats not too bad... But I'll bet your going to be a little more efficient than that!

turtleblood said:

BAHAHA i love it. Please do so! Can you make a bunch of them so that you can put them all over within your group of plants? I don't remember whether you have posted details about the planned arrangement of your plants... but anyway.

Peace!

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Thank you much. The plan is definitely to have a few for hanging in the garden... it'd look really cool. You'd have to wear some serious sunglasses, though. Maybe the tanning bed glasses would work well. With these LEDs shining right at you, you'd go blind.

I'm pretty sure my mothers setup will be 2-3 plants in a small rubbermaid tub, probably sitting on top of a reservoir of the same size. Small pond pump, minimal nutrients (start about 50, then up to 400-500 tops, then down to 150-200 once I take my first set of clones), basic pH correction, FREE tds meter up to 999 ppm (it'll do perfectly for now), small dose of hydrogen peroxide to keep the roots nice (after a couple new nodes have popped), air pump w/ stone in the top res (drain will leave about 1" water in bottom of tub), I may need to address water temp later, but maybe not with the negligible amount of heat these LEDs emit.

Treeth said:

Hahaha. Love it.

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Thank you much.

Treeth said:

How many leds can you power with 24v 6.5 A?

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The setup I've created uses one of them to power 1652 LEDs (1452 3mm, 200 5mm). It uses 4.4A & 140W. I forgot to mention the power supply is rated for 150W.

Treeth said:

I've been running 12 volt... and I can only fit three leds in series, and with my 20 some odd amps only 144 of these circuits in parallel.

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I was looking at using 12V, but once I saw a super-discounted 24V, I realized a few things. Higher DC voltages travel with lower resistance (less heat), more in series allows more efficient use of space on the breadboard & fewer jumper wires to mess with, and a longer series also allows me to get closer to the exact "typical voltage" without pushing the max voltage.

New Picture! I took a shot of what my mini test panel looks like. The reds are all the 635nm (real panels will have more variety). The front right LEDs are the 470nm blue, and the left rear is the deep blue/blue/teal/green arrangement.

I forgot to mention that I'm using a 12V 500mA power supply switched to only 9V, so these aren't even being powered to their full potential (wired them for 12V on this panel). I want to get a multimeter to test the DC output first, so as not to damage any LEDs.

Here's a picture with a dollar bill in front of it... better shot for perspective.

oh balls that's quite tiny!! are you planning to cut the leads on the LEDs so they don't stick out so much on the final? i suppose it's not necessary as long as they are firmly in the board, but it might look nicer =)
you are going to have WAY too much fun with this project. hell, I have too much fun, and i'm doing a really simple cfl grow!

Holy crap, the package is here. This is a shot of the breadboards, power supply, mini test-panel & its power supply, all with a dollar bill for scale.

Headed to radio shack to buy a voltmeter, then assembly will begin!

C2C

edit: added image.

Damn!

Can you link me to that power supply?

Or at least name drop the website?

Found out the power supply doesn't come with a cable. I got a computer power cord at the local thrift store for $1.00 and cut the cables open to power it. Perfect.

Power supply is putting out 23.4V. It has an adjustable voltage, but they've glued the adjuster in place so you'll only change it if you really want to. I wanted it to be just under 24V to not stress the LEDs. They can be quite sensitive to over-powering. With this in mind, 23.4V is perfect, and I'll leave the adjuster glued in place.