'Redline's LED - DiY - Build' aka"GROW LIGHT"

Ok I am looking into this. I am building closet set up, HID seems like a bad idea. So LED is the better selection. My area is only 2' X 3'. It seems like you are building them for a wider area then I will be dealing with. What size would you recommend? I would also like to have a wider light not a brick light, but i am not sure it would make a difference in this small a set up. There seem to be some serious obvious advantage to LEDs, at least for a cabinet/closet grower. Now I haven't bought anything, I want to design the system then buy the parts(get a solid concept of what I want).

You keep talking about putting things an 1 1/2", but if you do that a lot of the light energy for the bottom leafs would/could not be used. It is the same concept of you can have /light\ (wide) or you can have [light] very focused(which is what you are doing). Light reflect off the leaves and putting it a small distance(4'-6'?) away would be more effective it would seem. I guess what I am saying is that you can't over focus you light to much otherwise it would over shadow everything else? I don't think anyone has brought that up.

Maybe it would be better if you had more of a canopy top? That is why a goalie in soccer charges the player shooting because it makes the goal smaller. You are doing the same thing, by focusing to much light close you really aren't covering a wider area. Unless you have both blue and red light in each small section, which would take butt load of lights. (Maybe I am picturing things wrong?)

Also have you to taken into consideration too much of anything is bad(64 X the light, righteous)? A plant can only work so hard effectively? If they could work that hard would you need to keep close track of the water/nutrient level, it would drink a lot faster? Would this change nutrients up any? It seems doing a lot of these things would in effect only speed up growth not necessarily so much on yield(though there would be a small increase)?

You do have far more knowledge of LEDs, so I will listen to what you say these are just things I have questions about. Sorry for the twenty questions. I have been reading and understand some things, I need to know a bunch more before I get buying let alone building.

I dunno! I don't think anyone really has a handle yet on LED growing (including me). It is going to take a while to get thinks optimized. At this point we are all just screwing around, having fun.

I think a very flat growing surface is what is going to work with LEDs tThe penetration ,even on the best of them, suck. The reason I am placing lamps very close to the plants is because K2s have a very wide viewing angle of 160%.
Working with different viewing angles will play into your design. If I was using Crees with a 90 degree angle, I would probably have the lamps a couple of inches higher. Or if I was using a 30 degree lenses, the design parameters change again.
The array I am building now, will have 2 different types of lamps in each half so I can do some comparisons of different light angle and drive current.

Yup, I tend to agree with you regarding light on a single plant, no free lunch.
My designs are going to be more geared towards a green carpet as opposed to discrete plants like in the SNSealth initial grow.

[quote=redline]Stup,Were those grown completely with the Procycn? They look really good.

Not completely with a procyon. I have a 3' wide cabinet so I put 1 85 watt CFL on each end. But, the plant in the pictures is directly under the procyon and doesn't get any direct light from the cfls, but it gets some indirect light from them. also, they were vegged under cfl while I was waiting on the procyon. I think a 22" x 18" cab would be good with the procyon only. otherwise you need to put the procyon too high from the tops. I have 7, 5", pots across the 3' span. and the pots on each end don't get much light from the procyon at about 10" from the tops.

Placement should depend on lens angle, and I agree with redline that closer is better.

I have seen some very good results with CFL/LED combinations. You might try leaving the Procycn at 10" and filling in with CFLs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redline

I have seen some very good results with CFL/LED combinations. You might try leaving the Procycn at 10" and filling in with CFLs.

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That's not a bad idea, Just finished a pure LED grow.
The concept is proven.
I'm gonna throw a 42W CFL at one of my flower girls that's 4 weeks in and see if it beats the last crop
Got 2 girls scrogged together and one of them is lagging.
I'll point the CFL at shorty,
At the least, it can't hurt

Thanks for the wake-up
Weezard

ah.....The Perfect Elusive Equation...

Oh to be able to know what x is huh? xLEDs at x distance at xNm + xW CFL at x in from plants.
PLEASE GUYS!!!! Figure this out...Im countin on ya'll to answer this shit. My ass is trying 3 Procyons with 4 40W 3000k T12s now...Seems to be doing better than without the T12s, so who knows...
I agree we are not at 100% efficiency with LEDs alone yet...But we are getting there.
whiskeytango



VEEEERY medicated....:joint1:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnSstealth

ah.....The Perfect Elusive Equation...

Oh to be able to know what x is huh? xLEDs at x distance at xNm + xW CFL at x in from plants.
PLEASE GUYS!!!! Figure this out...Im countin on ya'll to answer this shit. My ass is trying 3 Procyons with 4 40W 3000k T12s now...Seems to be doing better than without the T12s, so who knows...
I agree we are not at 100% efficiency with LEDs alone yet...But we are getting there.
whiskeytango
VEEEERY medicated....:joint1:

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No gotta be perfect, brah.
Just gotta be good enough, ya?

Usin' less dan half da power,
built some LEDs an' gruesome flowers.:)

Overmedicated,
Sunday Weeze.

GOt a chance to do some more of the metal work. All this drilling, cutting, grinding, tapping really sucks up the time.

I needed to cut one more of the short supports from the 1/5 inch strap. This will be the only center support. The other two short straps will only be used for power delivery.

Picture shows the detail for end screw locating peg for the long straps that will support the light modules.

I am going to try and do as much mechanical work as needed on the individual modules before mounting LEDs. However, I am sure I will forget something and have to make some retro mods.

I hack sawed 1/4-20 threaded rod into 7 inches lengths. Then tapped a hole towards the center to the heat sink. This will be the vertical adjusting rod. Adjustment range will be slightly over 6 inches.