Building an LED light, Need help!

[pop123]

hi all, first off, i like to say that after reading all the post about the leds im going to attempt to build one. I read thour all post and im still debating or should i say unsure of what to use? LedEgin or Cree,5mm,10mm and so on.....

what i was thinking is using the LedEgin led. but the prices kinda high... the 15w red, blue are about 29-33 USD. but the 5w are only about 7-10. which is better?

this is only to veg my cough "tomato plants ". if u can plz, give a detail of the
Schematics, how many Leds to buy (red,Blue). Every items that i will need. thx! oh and i like to match a 600mh/hps light at veg.

Thx Much in adv.
Pop!:rastasmoke:

pop123 Reviewed by pop123 on 01-27-2011. Building an LED light, Need help! hi all, first off, i like to say that after reading all the post about the leds im going to attempt to build one. I read thour all post and im still debating or should i say unsure of what to use? LedEgin or Cree,5mm,10mm and so on..... what i was thinking is using the LedEgin led. but the prices kinda high... the 15w red, blue are about 29-33 USD. but the 5w are only about 7-10. which is better? this is only to veg my cough "tomato plants :)". if u can plz, give a detail of the Rating: 5

[emilya]

hi all, first off, i like to say that after reading all the post about the leds im going to attempt to build one. I read thour all post and im still debating or should i say unsure of what to use? LedEgin or Cree,5mm,10mm and so on.....

what i was thinking is using the LedEgin led. but the prices kinda high... the 15w red, blue are about 29-33 USD. but the 5w are only about 7-10. which is better?

this is only to veg my cough "tomato plants ". if u can plz, give a detail of the
Schematics, how many Leds to buy (red,Blue). Every items that i will need. thx! oh and i like to match a 600mh/hps light at veg.

Thx Much in adv.
Pop!:rastasmoke:

When I first considered growing I was playing with LEDs. I have built many little projects around here with them and really thought that I could build a nice light out of 5mm LEDs. I almost went with the 1 watt ones but didn't follow through because they were so expensive. The 3 and 5 watt ones were really crazy and I had problems finding them in the view angles and exact light frequency that I wanted. I think you will find as I did that the larger LEDs tend to be slightly out of the optimum red and blue areas and the smaller 3 and 5mm LEDs are available right exactly where you want them to be.

Then I started figuring out lumens/$$ along with my requirements of low heat and low electricity. I weighed that in with the time and effort it would take to build a 20,000 lumen LED light and realized that it would be a lot easier to go with a high output florescent and meet my above requirements. You also have to be very careful with your design so as to not dissipate a lot of heat in your load resistors or a large array can easily become hotter than a typical florescent.

I love LEDs and use them all over here in my ham radio and specialty lighting projects but they really are a bit pricey compared to other lights available to us, at least in the candlepowers that we need here in our gardens.

Let me point you to 2 sites... one a cheap source for experimenter LEDs and the other is a handy dandy circuit designer so you can order just what you need in LEDs and resistors.

Super Bright LEDs ââ?¬â?? LED Lights, Bulbs, and Accessories
LED series parallel array wizard

I also highly recommend these guys for your resistors and any other miscellaneous parts you may need.
All Electronics | Electronic and Electro-Mechanical Parts and Supplies at Discount Prices

Emmie

[pop123]

thx alot Emilya!:hippy: ill read that link to and see what ill do.
i dont mind paying 7.00-10.00 or even 27.00-33.00, but if i can buy [email protected]=21.00 it'll save me a bit, and every bit counts.

thx alot
pop :rastasmoke:

[Weezard]

You show me yours, an' I'll show ya mine.

thx alot Emilya!:hippy: ill read that link to and see what ill do.
i dont mind paying 7.00-10.00 or even 27.00-33.00, but if i can buy [email protected]=21.00 it'll save me a bit, and every bit counts.

thx alot
pop :rastasmoke:

Aloha, Pop

The 5 Watt LEDs;
[attachment=o264090]
Grow decent bud;
[attachment=o264089]
But the 15W. leds are easy to construct.
[attachment=o264091]

However, If you wish to match a 600W. HPS, you will need at least 50 of the 5 Watters, or 16. of the 15W. emitters.
And the reds should be mostly 660nm. if you want fat colas on dem 'maters.

Jus' my experience, YMMV.

If you DIY, please start a thread, I'll be happy to kibbitz if ya let me watch.

L8r
Weezard

[jaydee84]

i have also built my own led grow light will post up some pictures bit later i used 150 super bright 5mm red led's i run them in chains of six per 1ohm resister then divided them in to two chains of 75 for maximum power and no power lose running off 12 volt 2000ma... using a pre drilled matrix pcb board to mount led's on.. i found this is really good for promoting root growth in cuttings/clones i was lucky as i was given a bag of 180 red LED's

use the best led's you can get (for your money)as the cheaper one's like they use in the ufo grow lights just really not that great especially if you want to grow more than 1 plant....look out for the post later i will call it (pic's of home made led grow light) i will take some nice close ups of the wireing and the led's

[emilya]

You show me yours, an' I'll show ya mine.



Aloha, Pop

The 5 Watt LEDs;
[attachment=o264090]
Grow decent bud;
[attachment=o264089]
But the 15W. leds are easy to construct.
[attachment=o264091]

However, If you wish to match a 600W. HPS, you will need at least 50 of the 5 Watters, or 16. of the 15W. emitters.
And the reds should be mostly 660nm. if you want fat colas on dem 'maters.

Jus' my experience, YMMV.

If you DIY, please start a thread, I'll be happy to kibbitz if ya let me watch.

L8r
Weezard

Beautiful lights W! I love it! How many lumens you throwing out with that 15w array? Whats your viewing angle on those? I was curious if the typical 30 or 45 degree viewing angles worked ok for our application. Price wise, I'm thinking what... about 2-3 times more than a typical HID setup with about 18x the lifetime and 1/10th the power requirements?

i have also built my own led grow light will post up some pictures bit later i used 150 super bright 5mm red led's i run them in chains of six per 1ohm resister then divided them in to two chains of 75 for maximum power and no power lose running off 12 volt 2000ma... using a pre drilled matrix pcb board to mount led's on.. i found this is really good for promoting root growth in cuttings/clones i was lucky as i was given a bag of 180 red LED's

use the best led's you can get (for your money)as the cheaper one's like they use in the ufo grow lights just really not that great especially if you want to grow more than 1 plant....look out for the post later i will call it (pic's of home made led grow light) i will take some nice close ups of the wireing and the led's

and yours Jaydee sounds like you definitely did your homework in designing the circuit. I will be very interested to see how you got this all wired up. I am surprised about the 1 ohm resistors though... seems like you would be pushing a bit more current than the 30ma or so that the LEDs need... but maybe yours have a higher requirement. I am very curious, but I bet they are shining very brightly! I still have a large bag of at least 100 LEDs sitting here. I think I need to put this on my list of things to do again. I have a little array I built breadboard style with about 40 LEDs on it... that sucker is quite bright when you get at the right angle. My plan a while back was to mount these around the edges of my T5 florescent array and supplement the 6500k lights.

Emmie

[pop123]

You show me yours, an' I'll show ya mine.



Aloha, Pop

The 5 Watt LEDs;
[attachment=o264090]
Grow decent bud;
[attachment=o264089]
But the 15W. leds are easy to construct.
[attachment=o264091]

However, If you wish to match a 600W. HPS, you will need at least 50 of the 5 Watters, or 16. of the 15W. emitters.
And the reds should be mostly 660nm. if you want fat colas on dem 'maters.

Jus' my experience, YMMV.

If you DIY, please start a thread, I'll be happy to kibbitz if ya let me watch.

L8r
Weezard

Weezard... man, I wish u had ur old posts still, the one with ur "cake pan" Read alot about it. Would be nice to have urs to go by. I did however found some online with detail Schematics. but the one picture of urs seem so easy"cake pan".

Wow i would need that much to match a 600wMh/hps...... maybe a 400w then? its just for veg stage as i have 2 600w hps for budding.

I checked around to see the wattage with Crees but theres no wattage on them at all... maybe im checking the wrong sites, Mouser and newark? Mouser dont offer cree for some odd reason. if u can point me to the right direction to tackle the prices issue would be nice!

thx alot
Pop:rastasmoke:

[Weezard]

Weezard... man, I wish u had ur old posts still, the one with ur "cake pan" Read alot about it. Would be nice to have urs to go by. I did however found some online with detail Schematics. but the one picture of urs seem so easy"cake pan".

And it was.
But the back looks kinda techy;

[attachment=o264181]

About 75 Watts but the 4:1 ratio is not optimal for veg.


Wow i would need that much to match a 600wMh/hps...... maybe a 400w then? its just for veg stage as i have 2 600w hps for budding.

Gotta ignore all da huckster hype.
The reality is, almost half the power consumption of an HPS.

I checked around to see the wattage with Crees but theres no wattage on them at all... maybe im checking the wrong sites, Mouser and newark? Mouser dont offer cree for some odd reason. if u can point me to the right direction to tackle the prices issue would be nice!

thx alot
Pop:rastasmoke:

The "Calling out to Weezard for led advice" thread is still here I think.
It has all the details and parts are even entertaining.

Never used Cree.
Not concerned with absolute efficiency.
More into pragmatic application at a reasonable price.
All about bang for the buck, yah?.

@Emilya

I could tellya, but I'd hafta kilya.

Seriously, lumens are more suited to white light and can only be comparative with color.

"about 2-3 times more than a typical HID setup with about 18x the lifetime and 1/10th the power requirements?"

See above.
About 60% power saving is more honest.

The 15's are lambertian, (~180 degrees), as are my 5 Watters.
I use external lensing for tighter angles;
[attachment=o264182]
Browse my gallery for more pics.
Feel free to comment on them.

I'm a geek, an' I'm here all week.

Weeze

[pop123]

@Weezard "About 75 Watts but the 4:1 ratio is not optimal for veg."

So.. what ratio would be optimal? I'm shooting to have 2 mother and 6-12 clones under it.

btw thanks for the link!

thx!
Pop:rastasmoke:

[Weezard]

@Weezard "About 75 Watts but the 4:1 ratio is not optimal for veg."

So.. what ratio would be optimal? I'm shooting to have 2 mother and 6-12 clones under it.

btw thanks for the link!

thx!
Pop:rastasmoke:

I find that 4:1 will make a seedling stretch.

Course dat depends on 4 of which an' 1 of who.
But generally 10:3 is good and 10:4 will keep the internodes tight.

Your best bet is to overkill one color but put it on a dimmer.
Then you have a sliding ratio and can "tune" a plants shape to some extent.
My Big light is 5:1 with the reds turned all the way up.
That is great for flowering, but will force pre-flowers in youngsters.
(Actually, that's a good thing)!
For vegging, I jus' turn the red down as low as 3:1 that makes for short, bushy girls
Sounds clever, but actually, I did it 'cause I was too lazy to do the math.
Dem damn micromoles always set me to chortling.

Too many variables for a tiny 'zard to think about, so, I jus' swamped 'em out with one beeg variable dat I could vary by hand, yah?

Hope yer havin' fun yet.

Weeze