budderlvr Modular LED Project

[redline]

Bud,
I think the limiting design factor for LED Arrays should be watts per square foot of grow. The whole point of spending all this time and money is to use less electrical power to get an equal to a higher power HID.

I have limited my designs to a max of 35 watts per square foot. I would say most HID users are at 50 to 60 watts per square foot. I feel getting even a 30% power reduction would be highly significant and well worth the extra $$$.

redline Reviewed by redline on 08-26-2008. budderlvr Modular LED Project I am working on a new modular LED grow light. This thread will be a diary of my experience as I work through some of the many design problems. Currently I am at the circuit design phase. Although I do not want to reveal too much of my design at this point I will provide some information that has guided my decisions. The LEDs I will be using are from Lumiled. I am using the Luxeon K2s for the blue spectrum, and Luxeon IIIs for the red spectrum. The ratio of RED to BLUE (I will call Rating: 5

[Opie Yutts]

For those who don't know, LedEngin has multiple "bins" for each part, and some are better than others.

All LED manufactures have multiple bins, they're just not talked about much at places like ebay. When you buy the cheap ones, you get whatever bin they happen to be selling, and good luck finding out exactly what that is. You need to be careful you are getting the correct bin # for what you want. There may be 8 bin numbers for a 465 nm, and some may actually be something like 440 or 490. You especially need to be careful because the slightest adjustment in wavelength can make a huge difference in chlorophyll activity. (see chart)

Has anyone tried a cluster type lighting system? Where you would have small clusters of n LEDs and then strategically placed in nodes around the SCROG.

This would defeat the purpose of the scrog, which is of course to spread out the canopy evenly to take full advantage of all bits of light and space.

If people have done much reading they've seen these charts I've fine tuned, but here they are again for your convenience:

[budderlvr]

Thanks for the post Opie,
Shows my inexperience with growing. Someone keyed my vehicle last night which wouldnt matter, except it blows my budget for building a light for a while.Keep on posting, I will keep updating with anything I find.

[Opie Yutts]

Man, what a bummer. I think I hate vandals more than thieves.

About the ratios: Nasa recommends 9 to 1. that's 9 blue in veg, 9 red in bud. Sounds good to me. Before I read that I always said 85/15, but it's not critical. I think you could do without any red in veg, but I've noticed some blue in budding increases bud density and resin.

Hope you can continue with the project soon.

[SunnyD]

If you ever find out who the punks are...

Step One -:cursing::cursing::cursing:
Step Two - :asskick:
Step Three - :chainsaw:
Step Four - :jointsmile:

But really I'm just kidding about steps two and three...

[budderlvr]

Opie and redline,

Where would you recomend to get LedEngin lights to get the correct bin code? Contact their office directly?

[redline]

It may not be a bad idea. At least complain about the distributor marketing their product without full disclosure. I find dropping the bin nonmenclature to be a bit on the tacky side for a major US distributor.
But since they are the only game in town you got to roll with the punches, just assume the worse case scenerio...that you are getting the lowest grade. I ordered 28 of the five watters and all of them had a Vf of 2.5 or lower. Which means max power is 3.75 watts, not 5. Niiiice.

[painretreat]

Budderlvr: heat from my environment, not the light!
This is a busy thread! Sorry to hear about your car: I double Sunny D's sugg! Just hanging out and watching. Thanks for all the info! :thumbsup: :jointsmile:

[Opie Yutts]

Opie and redline,

Where would you recomend to get LedEngin lights to get the correct bin code? Contact their office directly?

You need to ask the vendor what bin numbers they are selling. The manufacturer probably won't know or won't want to look up, or disclose what they sold a particular vendor.

[cture]

SHIVA SPECTRA