What I learned about LEDs this weekend

I posted a few days ago about a plan to build a led lined box. There are a few things I have learned this weekend after 14 hours of wiring:

1) LEDs CAN be wired just like a lightbulb, There is a long side and a short side to each LED. if you hook them up wrong it does not hurt the led, just switch the power supply wires and it will work.
2) LED resistors are a pain, but you can avoid useing resistors by simply matching the power supply to the LED. Radio shack sells a voltage selectable power supply that works great, if the LED is 2 volts just set the power supply to 2.
3) LEDs are sensitive to voltage I hooked up a 2 volt LED to a 3 volt source and it works for about 2 sec then the LED burns out.
4) the easiest way to wire an LED is to solder one wire to all of the long ends, and one to all of the short ends of the led prongs then hook up to power.
5) With out resistors you cannot run a mix of 2 volt and 3 volt LEDs you will need 2 power supplies.

Attached are pics of a quick LED board I did, with only a few leds you can't look at it without your eyes hurting.

What do you know about growing with them? It sure would be nice to not have a energy bill like i do now!

I have one veging on a set of blue LEDs it looks great so far I will post some pics. I will be flowering one with red/blue mix as soon as I get another Female (bad luck on the last 4)

Make 'em pulse and you got a ganja disco hall!

Seriously, it's a sound idea and I look forward to hearing your results.

serrated.. this thread rocks!!! please continue to post lots and lots of pictures and details about the wiring and other pertenant info.

mad love

More info
Wiring LED Circuitry tutorial: how to hook up LEDs.

to buy them I have used sure electronics they have an ebay store you can buy them in lots of 100 for about $4 per 100, the red is 630nm (660 is also great it is more orange, everything I have read saya to mix the 660nm and the 630nm) and the ultra bright blue are 460nm.
I think my math is wrong but it seems that 100 of these is less than 2 watts? does anyone know how to do this, 100 LEDs, 3 volts, 10milamps per LED

in order for this to work correctly you will need a lot of LEDs. figure 400-500 per sq foot. It does work though and uses very little power. I've got a decent harvest off of my first attempt, but that was inside a computer case with LEDs, so it was a very small plant.

I'm still in the process of setting up my big room with LEDs. Currently I'm just making LED arrays that run off of the 12v plug from an old computer power supply. I plan on making 20, 42 LED arrays, which all plug into a 300 watt power supply.

but yeah LEDs do work.

so I finally decided to register here, hello everybody

Hey Astronomy! Good info, I'd really like to see some pictures if somebody has any.

welcome astronomy...this thread is very interesting can't wait to see more.

leds are definately the future of growing ....

serrated said:

I posted a few days ago about a plan to build a led lined box. There are a few things I have learned this weekend after 14 hours of wiring:

1) LEDs CAN be wired just like a lightbulb, There is a long side and a short side to each LED. if you hook them up wrong it does not hurt the led, just switch the power supply wires and it will work.
2) LED resistors are a pain, but you can avoid useing resistors by simply matching the power supply to the LED. Radio shack sells a voltage selectable power supply that works great, if the LED is 2 volts just set the power supply to 2.
3) LEDs are sensitive to voltage I hooked up a 2 volt LED to a 3 volt source and it works for about 2 sec then the LED burns out.
4) the easiest way to wire an LED is to solder one wire to all of the long ends, and one to all of the short ends of the led prongs then hook up to power.
5) With out resistors you cannot run a mix of 2 volt and 3 volt LEDs you will need 2 power supplies.

Attached are pics of a quick LED board I did, with only a few leds you can't look at it without your eyes hurting.

Click to expand...

i think u have some misinformation but your on to a good start. 1 leds dont hook up like a regular light bulb, whatever that means. the long end is the position the short is the negative. running them backwards -might- not hurt them, but it can ruin them. same with trying to run them on a power supply with no resistor EVEN if the voltage matches up correctly. it depends how good of a power supply u use. if the current isnt regulated it can have a rise and fall with output and can fry your leds. u are probably ok with the radio shack one but u might consider using 1ohm resistors just to keep it constant. volts x amps = watts. for 10 miliamps use .01 as your number. 1000 miliamps use 1 as your number. u didnt mention this, but u might know already, only run your leds from a DC power source. ac = alternating, dc = direct. running leds on ac can ruin them, but if its not that intense it will actually just pulse on and off really fast, bc the + and - on ac changes back and forth. with dc + is always +, ground is always ground.

not trying to crap on your parade. jus letting u know what ive learned about them over the past few monthes.

as for the 660? they arent orange at all they are really deep red they only appear less bright than 630. 630 are a little orangey, closer to the green spectrum therefore appear brighter to the human eye. your 470nm blues will also appear to the eye to be brighter than the 430 or 455 but will not be brighter to the plant--where as 430 and 455 will.

I know of someone who attempted to use leds, the problem is you still need to match up the spectrum (which can be done more precise with leds anyway). The ones you need cost a fortune large enough that it might not be worth testing out at all. Though, I would personally like to see if it could work because you can put a 33ms flicker onto them, and cut back on electrical costs.

I did not take it as crapping on my post, we are here to share info. Thank you for the corrections. I have a plant veging on 470nm blues and it is far out pacing the cfl plant. there seems to be a huge diff of thought in how many leds you need per sq ft??? any input??? 500 is the last number I read and that would make a insanly bright board.

wow 500 per plant so to do a actaul grow room (minimum 8 x 8 x you d need what 20000 minimal leds.Thats alot of soldering lol

I was thinking 2x2x4 grow box, but just close your eyes and picture a whole room full that would be awesome. May as well have the floor done in plexi with LEDs under it so that your plants are covered from all angles.

when are you gonna post some pics.

yeah dude i want to see that shit. post some pictures of that shit. common man