The BubbaBlaze 2000
[attachment=o217086]
A fully adjustable photosynthesis facilitation apparatus.:D
Actually, just thought I'd bump it with some led porn.;)
Can't wait for sundown.:stoned:
l8r
Weeze
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The BubbaBlaze 2000
[attachment=o217086]
A fully adjustable photosynthesis facilitation apparatus.:D
Actually, just thought I'd bump it with some led porn.;)
Can't wait for sundown.:stoned:
l8r
Weeze
Yay!
Beat the heat.
This works a treat.
Meanwhile, I was waiting for epoxy to dry, and got curious.
I opened the case on my UFO knock off.
(Oh Horrors, there goes my warrenty!)
Cheese cries!
Obviously built by chimps in a hurry.
Nothing in it, really.
One power cube for the three cheap fans.
2 sealed "black-box" kine current limiters to drive the 1Watt SMLs
At least I assume they are current pucks.
Well, ok, I fervently hope they are.
Everything is thickly smeared with silicone caulking.
Looks like it was applied by trolls, with mops.
Now I don't feel so bad about the esthetics of Frankenlicht;
[attachment=o217105]
I'll attach and calibrate the dimmer knobs tomorrow.
Start turning them down and make a mark for every 10% drop in relative Lux from 1 foot.
I may not know actual ratios, but I'll at least be able to tie a number to my results.
A must-have, should I ever remember to document anything.:rastasmoke::o
Hmmm, mighty quiet up in here.
<Breeep, breep, ricket breeep>
Recon I'd better toddle off too then.
'night
W.
Hey Weezard,
I really like the variable Red:Blue ratio. It reminds me of the company in NL that uses a computer control to adjust light spectrum for specific plants.
Kinda a poor mans' version. Hey how about naming it....
I suggest "dial-a-stretch". lol
Very nice work.
I like it!Quote:
Originally Posted by oldmac
Thanks, O. M.
Here's your first royalty payment. :twocents::jointsmile:
Could add labels to the dial markings as well.
From LTS (Long Tall Sally), to PWIS, (Pot what is squat).
Hmm, got me thinkin' again.
Where'd I put that labeling software...
BRB
W.
Hey Weezard!
I've been lurking this thread for some time now with interest. That's a nice setup you have been building there. As the 5watt, 15 watt, and future generations of LED packages become available more cheaply using them will make even more sense then now, but someone's got to pioneer the method, eh?
They make axial fans that are wisper quiet yet blow like a hurricane, I've replaced them in CAT scanners, but they ain't cheap.
I love the tunable colors, by the way. :)
I went to a demonstration of LED surgical lights as part of my job. These were CREE and LEDngn LEDS in large arrays. One of the companies made a controller that allowed you to control the "color temperature" of the output. There's got to be a "controller" out there to allow you to drive the LED arrays by your computer.
Anyways good work and carry on... :thumbsup:
Merry
Howzit, MP?
Thanks for the props, brah.
"They make axial fans that are wisper quiet yet blow like a hurricane, I've replaced them in CAT scanners, but they ain't cheap."
Amen to that!
I've seen prices that I wouldn't pay for a car.
I love the tunable colors, by the way. :)
Thanks, It's kinda Bass ackwards from nature's way.
There's not MORE red at the end of the day, there's actualy considerably less.
Looks red to us, 'cause the blue fades out first.
I'm hoping the girls don't notice;)
"One of the companies made a controller that allowed you to control the "color temperature" of the output. There's got to be a "controller" out there to allow you to drive the LED arrays by your computer."
There are several PIC controllers available.
Most are dedicated to mixing different shades of white.
All, are expensive and I'm kinda mono-culture oriented anyway.:jointsmile:
So, I have no need for rapid, real-time, changes.
I set a mix, write it down and watch for a week or so.
Once I know what works best for my favorite strains, I can go back to 2 kine hardwired lights for veg and bloom.
150 Watts of the red is overkill even for blooming. But I needed the headroom for testing.
Once I can outdo a 1k HPS for less than half the power cost, I'll consider this project pau.:cool:
These lights will then get hung in an auto-water leveling auto-buffering 5g. dwc bucketed tent and have a single seletor switch marked, oddly enough, Veg, and bloom.
I plan to make it "chimp simple".
Just slide it into a condo closet and plug it in.
Gonna call it Bubba's black-thumb system.:D
Not for commerce though, I'm retired.
Mostly so I won't have to stop growing if I get too senile.:smokin:
Trust me, had I found someone on the net doing this to my standards, free, or dirt cheap, my lazy ass would be floating in warm salt water 12/7.
I am one lazy lizard, brah.
Just doin' dis, 'cause, well, someone's gotta.
Show me a clutz proof, affordable, plug n play grow system, and I'll re-retire in a heartbeat.
Hana Pau!
Weezard
"These lights will then get hung in an auto-water leveling auto-buffering 5g. dwc bucketed tent and have a single seletor switch marked, oddly enough, Veg, and bloom.
I plan to make it "chimp simple".
Just slide it into a condo closet and plug it in.
Gonna call it Bubba's black-thumb system."
Mine is based on the KISS principle, too.
One room for veg, one for flowers.
Dirt.
Real simple.
The girls are blooming nicely and I will most likely post my weekly pics in my "grow log" tomorrow.
Next week will be real busy as the wife and I are off to see the Dead for two days, but the girls won't need my attention. Simple is beautiful. I'm nearly retired, just a matter of when I get fed up now. Then it's up to the mountains of North Carolina for the both of us.
Later,
MP
I have to keep saving my posts as Word documents and try to paste them in before the board freezes up on me. Been trying to at least say hello for days. WeeZard, yer move. Merry, nice setup. Crossing fingers, hitting "Submit reply."
Here's the last one that got eaten...
Quote:
Hey, Weez. Dropped in often; attempted a coupla short posts but the board ate both of 'em. No loss, jes' sayin' hey. I need to avoid that overload window of midnight-2am EST.
Thanks for the great photos. They'll clarify things for viewers, fer sure. I must say, with your reducer on the light it looks like a mini-nuclear power plant.
Going back a ways to ask:
Ever get the lenses you were waiting on?
You gonna add small heatsinks to the triacs in your dimmers? It's surprising they'll operate like that. I belive I'll glue additional sinkage to my meanwells once I get the hang of crippling my epoxy bond. Then I can bust 'em back off to reassemble the case if desired.
How about a "show us yer UFO's guts" comparison thread? Better still, with the actual power consumption included, and price paid. That's prolly the only way we'll get any "truth in advertising" out of these hucksters. I'll bet there's a dozen varieties being sold under double that many brand names.
Looks like you tacked down your leds with an extra spot of glue close to the solder pads. Probably really helps keep the bastids from squirming around as you try to work with them. My question: is that thermal epoxy, or the "other" stuff you're using (which I assume is Devcon 5 minute epoxy or something similar) to secure your leads to the heatsink.
Another question: (sorry, been saving these up for awhile :D) Do you have a plan / technique for accessing the leds individually after you connected them in the 2 parallel strings? (Like to retest after a month of burn-in) Or are they staying permanently wired up once you connect the strings? I ran a "+ and -" lead to each led and tacked it down in one place with epoxy. I ran each pair of wires around to the fin / topside of the light and connected them there so I could group them according to Vf. With more than 6+2 wire pairs this may get a little sloppy looking (especially with the free-air-architecture wiring technique).
Okay, not gonna press my luck. Hitting "submit." No dare preview, pls fergive typos.
"Going back a ways to ask:Quote:
Originally Posted by DreadedHermie
Ever get the lenses you were waiting on?
Yes,
and no.
Got the lenses, but they were not what I wanted.:(
Boneheads set them in a black plastic collar that gets very hot very fast.
(This bonehead, read all about that and ordered them anyway)
I'm looking for those little parabolic reflectors that are used in mini-mag flashlights. They can be shimmed for different spread angles and run much cooler than refractive lenses, when clean.
You gonna add small heatsinks to the triacs in your dimmers?
Um, I mis-spoke when I called 'em triacs.
(I'm used to dimming AC)
This being DC, they are prolly SCRs or SCSs
Full-on the voltage drop across them is about .7 V.
At 6 Amps that's only 4.2 Watts.
Now that they are in the airstream, they run quite cool without any added 'sinks..
It's surprising they'll operate like that.
Not too. They are, after all, "little Off n onnies"
Very low Vf when on, and 0.0 current when off
I belive I'll glue additional sinkage to my meanwells once I get the hang of crippling my epoxy bond. Then I can bust 'em back off to reassemble the case if desired.
How about a "show us yer UFO's guts" comparison thread? Better still, with the actual power consumption included, and price paid. That's prolly the only way we'll get any "truth in advertising" out of these hucksters. I'll bet there's a dozen varieties being sold under double that many brand names.
That's a very good idea!
Looks like you tacked down your leds with an extra spot of glue close to the solder pads. Probably really helps keep the bastids from squirming around as you try to work with them. My question: is that thermal epoxy, or the "other" stuff you're using (which I assume is Devcon 5 minute epoxy or something similar) to secure your leads to the heatsink.
That's just plain old, cut it off with a razor, stickum
Another question: (sorry, been saving these up for awhile :D) Do you have a plan / technique for accessing the leds individually after you connected them in the 2 parallel strings? (Like to retest after a month of burn-in) Or are they staying permanently wired up once you connect the strings?
Yes, the wiring is semi-permanent as it stands.:rastasmoke:
I used removable stickum just in case my "even-ing" scheme was a wild pipe dream.
The scheme;
I tested and labeled each emitter then arranged them with the "Hottest" ones, (those with the lowest Vf. at 1.25A), at the end of the buss. Then fed them only from the cool end.
Each emitter added it's current load which increased the voltage drop in the supply wire. Putting the "hotter" ones at the end allows me to keep a good match in output of the emitters that _should_ hold as the unit ages
Had all the emitters matched, I'd have tied both ends of the + and - bus to the power supply and used heavier gauge buss wires.
I ran a "+ and -" lead to each led and tacked it down in one place with epoxy. I ran each pair of wires around to the fin / topside of the light and connected them there so I could group them according to Vf. With more than 6+2 wire pairs this may get a little sloppy looking (especially with the free-air-architecture wiring technique). "
Yep, using the wire resistance to "even out the bumps" allowed the shroud some free air flow.
And that solved my heat problem.
Kinda.
2 days of cookin' with the bloomery sealed and temps stayin' around 80 had me happy.
Then I looked in around noon and the room was 94 F. and the color was wrong!
Only the 2 blues were lit.
Unlikely that both dimmers would fail and the blues have their own power module.
So, gotta be the 12V. 21 Amp supply. 'cause the fan was down too.
Though I had placed the supply right under a ceiling vent,
It still got hot enough at 14 Amps draw, to trigger a thermal shutdown! Dang!
That supply now has it's own 120 mm. muffin fan and runs cool to the touch.
This will free up one of my earlier arrays for use in a clonery
Just lit this message up and hit control-C for luck.
Weeze takes a deep breath and...
Yay! The preview worked.
l8r
Weezard