DIY LED setup

[MPL]

I am done with HID. Too much heat, hassle and expense. On to LEDs. I think they've matured enough to give them a shot.

I don't want to buy a premade LED light. I have the technical skills to build my own LED panel. I just don't know which LEDs to get and where.

I have checked ledsupply.com but not sure which LEDs would be best.

My plans for a test set up are this:

5-7 bands, depending on availability of LEDs, especially need the far red and deep blue.

4'x2' panel full of LEDs over a 4'x2' E&F table. I'd like to build a 4'x4' panel to go over a 4'x4' table, but that size might be too expensive.

Any links or recommendations would be most welcome. I'll do a build thread for the panel once I'm done as well as putting up a journal for the test grow.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sm0k4]

I am done with HID. Too much heat, hassle and expense. On to LEDs. I think they've matured enough to give them a shot.

I don't want to buy a premade LED light. I have the technical skills to build my own LED panel. I just don't know which LEDs to get and where.

I have checked ledsupply.com but not sure which LEDs would be best.

My plans for a test set up are this:

5-7 bands, depending on availability of LEDs, especially need the far red and deep blue.

4'x2' panel full of LEDs over a 4'x2' E&F table. I'd like to build a 4'x4' panel to go over a 4'x4' table, but that size might be too expensive.

Any links or recommendations would be most welcome. I'll do a build thread for the panel once I'm done as well as putting up a journal for the test grow.

Thanks in advance!

Cree, Osram, LEDEngin, and Seoul are my top 4 LED manufacturers for efficiency and output. Cutter.com out of Australia has good Cree bins and you can buy them mounted on 20mm stars so you just have to attach the star MCPCB to the sink via thermal adhesive or tapping holes and screwing them down.

Search out posts from KNNA on here and at the Garden's Cure. He did lots of LED research and experiments.

 

[GP73LPC]

i don't believe you really need a panel as large as your table.

my wex-c150 is only 2 rows of LEDs in a 4 inch wide panel, but it covers about 16 inches in width when the panel is about 2 feet above the medium.

 

[budlover123]

mixing colors can complicate things, I was kicking around an idea for a veg light that was going to be 100% white, white contains red, green, and blue, typically more blue though I believe.

 

[asde²]

You really don't need to oversize it! Use lenses if needed. Also check the different beam angles - its all about design not size!

White/Red Ratio 50/50 to 30/70 (for the following leds, talking about power usage not led amount - higher current = less leds but also less efficiency/watt and shorter lifetime) + additional Far Red 700-760nm on demand

RED - 645-665nm - google for Osram:
► LH W5AM-1T3T-1-L-Z
► LH CPDP-1T3T-1-Z
► LH CP7P-1T3T-1-Z

Cool White - (Covers 400-750nm - no need for additional Blue/Green/Amber) - google for Cree:
► XMLAWT-0000T6051

Far Red - 7xxnm - google for Ledengin / Everlight / Edison
► x


Think about adding some toy options (before you build it) like Full White only (different current maybe - for vegging) or FR over night switch .. there are some interesting things to consider.
​

 

[grow101]

You don't need far red over night, just end the daily light cycle with far red and let it run for additional 10 minutes.

 

[alkalien]

How to do your own LED panel.

I'm a little bit bored so here you are my tutorial on how I build LED panels.

The process was developed by my friend loop1337 and me. We did a few of them and I really love our results.

What do you need?
1. and most important you need a anodized aluminium heat sink! If you can't get an anodized one you'll have to glue the LEDs on the Kapton tape.
2. Kapton tape for isolating the soldering points. The anodized heat sink should work properly but better be safe than sorry!
3. two component heat conductive glue, we use artic silver
4. Golden Dragon LEDs by Osram
5. wire for soldering
6. constant current driver
7. fuses if you want to drive multiple strings of LEDs parallel

Tools: a sharp knive, a caliper (or some other measurement device), a soldering iron, stuff to hang the panel with and a fan to cool your panel.

Step 1: place Kapton on heatsink

Step 2: cut away Kapton where you wanna place your LEDs. You better leaf the kapton if you aren't sure whether your heat sink is non-conductive. the LEDs may not be connected!

Step 3: The contacts must be bend upwards so that the ground plate is closest to the heat sink

Step 4: placing the LEDs. we build a mask to place all LEDs at one, its just a aluminium plate with holes and some screws to level it to the ground for all LEDs to be held until the glue works. We place the LEDs on the mask and then apply the glue

Step 5: waiting for the glue to work. We let the glue sit for at least 20 mins while applying pressure. Thepressure is applied by putting heavy lead weights on it

Step 6: soldering the LEDs. we use short pieces of wire to connect all LEDs in series on the heat sink. be carefull not to overheat the LEDs!

Step 7: security measurements. on this panel we use three parallel strings of LEDs to evenly spread our driver's current. If one string fails however, the remaining two would get fried. This is why we put a quick blow fuse in front of every string.

Step 8: additional white LEDs areplaced between the strings. Those are Cree XM-L on stars, they are powered by different drivers.

All our drivers are from Meanwell. We calculate the number of LEDs according to their drop voltage. Those voltages need to be added to a sum this voltage should be near the output voltage of the driver. Mind the drop voltages are depending on the current!

I'll be happy to help if you guys have any questions!

 

[MPL]

Damn guys thanks for all the great replies. I've been reviewing the posts by knna etc. and am still in the planning stages. Unfortunately I have been very busy so haven't had much time to really think about this yet.

I have so far finalized plans for the hydro setup. All that is left is lighting.

So here we go:

I need a panel that will cover 4x4. I am not sure about which LEDs to use still. I know I will want at least 3w for the penetration. I need to be able to pull 500g of solid nugs from this table. I was thinking 16 topped clones, 12/12 when all plants are about 12" tall, finish around 24" (depending on the strain I go with).

How does this sound:

3'x3' panel, 100 3w LEDs, probably 40% either white or some mix of the blue spectrum, 50% red and 10% far red. I can use 120* round patterned LEDs for good even light distrubution. I have to figure out the ratios, but I'll go at least 4 or 5 bands if I don't use the cool white. This does seem like a bit more than most people have used...

What do y'all think?

 

[MPL]

Ok, after more reading, would I be better off with closer to 350-400 1w or 2w LEDs at 60 degrees?

 

[TreeTopHi]

I'm pulling up a seat..I've been thinking about getting into LEDs myself...

 

[sm0k4]

Damn alkalien, I didn't think of making a template like that for easy mounting. I just did mine one at a time. I can see what I will be making

Soon I will be ordering more LEDs and will be stealing your template idea. Thanks and kudos!

 

[sm0k4]

Damn guys thanks for all the great replies. I've been reviewing the posts by knna etc. and am still in the planning stages. Unfortunately I have been very busy so haven't had much time to really think about this yet.

I have so far finalized plans for the hydro setup. All that is left is lighting.

So here we go:

I need a panel that will cover 4x4. I am not sure about which LEDs to use still. I know I will want at least 3w for the penetration. I need to be able to pull 500g of solid nugs from this table. I was thinking 16 topped clones, 12/12 when all plants are about 12" tall, finish around 24" (depending on the strain I go with).

How does this sound:

3'x3' panel, 100 3w LEDs, probably 40% either white or some mix of the blue spectrum, 50% red and 10% far red. I can use 120* round patterned LEDs for good even light distrubution. I have to figure out the ratios, but I'll go at least 4 or 5 bands if I don't use the cool white. This does seem like a bit more than most people have used...

What do y'all think?

In my opinion, one huge array seems to not be the way to go. Smaller panels will have the ability to be moved around individually and would benefit you more. Especially on the outer edges of the room. Maybe get 6 inch by 18 inch heat sinks. This would take 7-8 panels to fill your area, each can be moved where it needs to be.

Using 1W LEDs will require you to grow with the lights as close to the plants as you can get them AND you will also want good 1W leds. There are lots of crap ones and most can't even compete with the XPE series of Cree.

I compared Cree to Osram 1W emitters and with the naked eye the Cree were brighter. They have a tighter lens angle and I think that made the difference. So yes, LED selection DOES matter when taking growing style into consideration. Less penetration means shorter grows with SoG or training.

I think I will use Cree XPE royal blue and Cree XPG Cool White to add to my 250W HPS for more blue in my room. The trichomes seem to be more pronounced and bigger on the buds under the LED panel. I'm not sure if it was due to the HPS light causing the others to look less frosty, but the ones under the LED array looked frostier. So I am going to switch gears and add blue + white to the HPS. Possibly a little red also. Too bad they don't make UVb LEDs. At least not in the 218-315nm range we want for maximum THC production.

 

[rives]

I am midway through my second run with a LumiGrow ES330, and I agree with the above recommendations of going with multiples of smaller panels. The ES165 hadn't been released yet when I jumped in, and I wish that I had 2-3 of them instead of the larger single unit. I think that you gain a lot of versatility with being able to light up smaller areas and overlap the light distribution, lighting the edges of the grow toward the middle. I was initially going to build my own but had some health issues at the time that prevented doing that, and research showed that there was less cost difference than I would have believed when you start comparing building your own fixture with top components vs the unit I purchased. I particularly like being able to tweak the spectrum with the onboard pots - it really allows you to tailor the light to either vegetative or flowering growth, and would be a worthwhile addition to your design. By the way, I have spent a lot of time reading the CMH thread, and found the information invaluable.

 

[MPL]

I'm starting to come to the conclusion you did. I cannot build what I need for the same price that I am seeing commercial units sell for.

Growing with a CMH was a pleasure. It produced some great buds! I don't think there is a lot better in its size range and especially for the cost.

I am midway through my second run with a LumiGrow ES330, and I agree with the above recommendations of going with multiples of smaller panels. The ES165 hadn't been released yet when I jumped in, and I wish that I had 2-3 of them instead of the larger single unit. I think that you gain a lot of versatility with being able to light up smaller areas and overlap the light distribution, lighting the edges of the grow toward the middle. I was initially going to build my own but had some health issues at the time that prevented doing that, and research showed that there was less cost difference than I would have believed when you start comparing building your own fixture with top components vs the unit I purchased. I particularly like being able to tweak the spectrum with the onboard pots - it really allows you to tailor the light to either vegetative or flowering growth, and would be a worthwhile addition to your design. By the way, I have spent a lot of time reading the CMH thread, and found the information invaluable.

 

[MPL]

Ok, since I can't build what I need for less than what I can buy a good commercial unit for, I am off the DIY route. I almost always prefer to build my own stuff, but my time is somewhat limited right now. Also, warranties and customer service are valuable to me, so retail it is.

That said, I am still unsure with which unit to use. I like the idea of using smaller units to cover my table, I'm just not sure if they'll give me the yield I need.

My 4x4 table is a test setup for a strain I'm working on. It is intended to be used for a semi-commercial medical (100% legal under CA law) op, once the test phase is finished. I need whatever unit I buy to be able to yield at least as much as a 1kw HPS would over the same table, which means at LEAST 500g. If this test run goes well I'll be expanding to at least 3 more tables. I'm going with LEDs because my location doesn't allow for extracting the massive amount of heat from 1kw lamps, much less four of them. I gotta start reading up on what's available on the market now, bleh.

Has anyone seen a commercial/co-op medical grow done using LEDs? Have they matured enough for this level of use yet?

 

[rives]

The only two manufacturers that I would be willing to go with at this point are either Lumigrow or the Spectra units from growledhydro. If you google Irishboy's grows you will find that he has had some pretty amazing results.

On my first run with the ES330, I yielded just shy of 10 ounces with 3 plants in a 30"x30" scrog. Following SOTF's recommendation, I had rounded out the spectrum with (2) 55 watt PL-L lamps. I don't know how much the two PL-L's added - they were located over the front and back edges of the scrog, and shouldn't have added much to the middle of the screen. There wasn't really any noticeable difference between the areas that they should have covered well and the area that really couldn't have received much help from them. I should also mention that the strains that I was growing were some BOG genetics that aren't known as high yielders.

One idea that I have been toying with is to use (4) of the ES165 units in a square pattern with a single 250 watt CMH in the center. One thing that you should be aware of is that these things kick out a lot more heat than I anticipated, and the fans are pretty noisy. The way that the units are built doesn't lend itself to ducting the heat away like an air-cooled HID reflector, so if there is a way of using two fans (a smaller carbon-filtered loop for air exchange and a second, larger one for cooling the fixture), I haven't found it yet.

Custom building a unit that incorporated an easy way to duct the hot air away and utilized top-bin LED's would be great, but it would be a significant undertaking. At some point, I still hope to build an integrated unit that used alternating bars of LED's (440 and 660 nm) with PL-L's placed between them.

 

[MPL]

So far I am considering those two and the BlackStar units. I really like Lumigrow's apparent build quality and the red/blue dimmer options, but I also like how GLH tells you what he uses. I know I'll need at least 3w LEDs for the penetration I require.

I'd really like to cap the cost of lighting at around $1500. I'm thinking there are a few options:

4x BlackStar 240w units
2x Spectra LED 290
1x Lumigrow ES330.

Right now I'm leaning towards 2 of the Spectra 290s. Mostly because Lumigrow and BlackStar don't give many details on the LEDs they use, and GLH does. I also have no idea how much penetration the Lumigrow will provide.

It's worth mentioning that in addition to the large yield, I also require very high potency. The buds are useless if they aren't potent or if they're fluffly. I grow almost exclusively indicas and expect hard, dense, granite-like nuggets.

I gotta find some legit growlogs to read.

The only two manufacturers that I would be willing to go with at this point are either Lumigrow or the Spectra units from growledhydro. If you google Irishboy's grows you will find that he has had some pretty amazing results. On my first run with the ES330, I yielded just shy of 10 ounces with 3 plants in a 30"x30" scrog. Following SOTF's recommendation, I had rounded out the spectrum with (2) 55 watt PL-L lamps. I don't know how much the two PL-L's added - they were located over the front and back edges of the scrog, and shouldn't have added much to the middle of the screen. There wasn't really any noticeable differenced between the areas that they should have covered well and the area that really couldn't have received much help from them. I should also mention that the strains that I was growing were some BOG genetics that aren't known as high yielders. One idea that I have been toying with is to use (4) of the ES165 units in a square pattern with a single 250 watt CMH in the center. One thing that you should be aware of is that these things kick out a lot more heat than I anticipated, and the fans are pretty noisy. The way that the units are built doesn't lend itself to ducting the heat away like an air-cooled HID reflector, so if there is a way of using two fans (a smaller carbon-filtered loop for air exchange and a second, larger one for cooling the fixture), I haven't found it yet. Custom building a unit that incorporated an easy way to duct the hot air away and utilized top-bin LED's would be great, but it would be a significant undertaking. At some point, I still hope to build an integrated unit that used alternating bars of LED's (440 and 660 nm) with PL-L's placed between them.

 

[rives]

The Blackstar's names are deceptive, they only pull about half the wattage that the model number would lead you to believe. The Spectra's and the Lumigrow's actually pull what the model number connotes. If you check Grener's, you will find that (2) of the ES 165's are about $300 cheaper than a single ES330, and as I said in my earlier post, I think they would be more versatile. You would be close to getting (3) of the 165's with your budget.

As far as the penetration, I think that the Lumi does quite well. If you look in my albums, you will see that the scrog had a pretty dense canopy going. When I harvested, I was surprised to find a whole layer of buds beneath them that were pretty damn nice. All that being said, I think (2) of the Spectra 290's would make for a killer installation. As far as replacing a 1000 watt HID, realistically you need to be looking at upwards of 700 watts actually being burned (not model names!). LED's are more efficient, but not nearly to the extent that the peddlers would have you believe.

*edit* You mentioned build quality - I am a retired industrial electrician, and have dealt with thousands of light fixtures in my career. The quality of the Lumigrow is second to none, and as far as I know, their 5-year warranty is the longest in the industry. The only red flag that comes up for me on the Spectra's is that they appear to be the same package as all of the other Chinese imports. However, from everything that I have seen, Mike does a good job of standing behind them

 

[MPL]

Great info thanks!

You know, I could adjust my grow layout to a SOG. Do you think two ES165s would do a 4x4 SOG well? I could put 36 little lollipops on the table. If I got 16g of dense nugs each plant I'd be a happy camper. Hmmm...Is the ES330 just two ES165s put together? That's what it looks like, and 165x2=330... Are those five watt LEDs they're using? The only difference I can see is that the 330 has 6 fewer lamps.

The Blackstar's names are deceptive, they only pull about half the wattage that the model number would lead you to believe. The Spectra's and the Lumigrow's actually pull what the model number connotes. If you check Grener's, you will find that (2) of the ES 165's are about $300 cheaper than a single ES330, and as I said in my earlier post, I think they would be more versatile. You would be close to getting (3) of the 165's with your budget.

As far as the penetration, I think that the Lumi does quite well. If you look in my albums, you will see that the scrog had a pretty dense canopy going. When I harvested, I was surprised to find a whole layer of buds beneath them that were pretty damn nice. All that being said, I think (2) of the Spectra 290's would make for a killer installation.

*edit* You mentioned build quality - I am a retired industrial electrician, and have dealt with thousands of light fixtures in my career. The quality of the Lumigrow is second to none, and as far a I know, their 5-year warranty is the longest in the industry. The only red flag that comes up for me on the Spectra's is that they appear to be the same package as all of the other Chinese imports. However, from everything that I have seen, Mike does a good job of standing behind them

 

[rives]

Check the post above about watt-for-watt interchange. I think I was still on my editing spree of afterthoughts. I don't know where you saw 6 fewer lamps on the 330 - I believe that they both use the same board, but the 330 uses two of them. And yes, I think that they are 5 watt led's.

*edit* I just went and turned mine off and counted LED's. There are 29 on each board for a total of 58 on the ES330.