Building a Home Made LED

[hempfield]

V3

V3

With last version the things changed a lot, the light being more focused on the canopy due the 45 degrees lens.

In this round I had 2 plants (the little ones that appear on the images were grown just for fun without any expectation from them), both G13 Haze from Barney's Farm.

A extremely stretchy plant and the big disadvantage was that I was mostly away on the first three weeks of flowering , so they stretch like hell, wherever them want , and some buds went above the LED panel but I succeeded to bend and tie them in a X pattern.

Again, I don't have many pictures with this grow, but the result was awesome. Used to smoke a 1.25g joint of my mild SuperSkunk, I almost passed out after a joint of G13 Haze (I remember that I felt asleep siting on a chair with my head overturned and my mouth large open.

Here is the album of this grow: https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=34077&page=3

 

[spyro]

Hey, impressive write-up on your LED construction. Seems you've come to master and account for many of the variables. You wouldn't happen to have a Kill-a-watt to show how much that V3 panel uses in total real power with the new 48V PSU? Are all the diodes being driven at full capacity?

 

[hempfield]

Hey, impressive write-up on your LED construction. Seems you've come to master and account for many of the variables. You wouldn't happen to have a Kill-a-watt to show how much that V3 panel uses in total real power with the new 48V PSU? Are all the diodes being driven at full capacity?

Here it is :

- the blue ones:


- the red ones :



- all together :



And more pics here : https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=4825653&postcount=87

I think the leds are used at 80~90% of the capacity (I didn't had time to check every circuit and to fix it if it was necessary.

:joint :

 

[medmaker420]

great panel my friend!

looks like a great setup

 

[repuk]

(I remember that I felt asleep siting on a chair with my head overturned and my mouth large open.

K.O.!!

I just had the chance of reviewing your posts again from a PC, and I can confirm, you're a perfectionist!

BTW what's that mirror finish from the V1+V2 first pic?

I'm seriously thinking on going all-DIY for the 2nd HML I need. I'm considering chinese knock-offs, semi DIY using drivers, or all DIY... How much was building V3?

keep up with the good work!

 

[tenthirty]

It looks like the next fixture will be:
12 ea. WW XP-G's at 37.8 watts driven at 1750mw
6 ea. NW XM-L's at 33 watts. driven at 1050mw.
All in a line 3' long.

wwn wwn wwn wwn wwn wwn

What ya'all think?

 

[rives]

It looks to me as though they would be more evenly balanced/distributed if you used a repeating wnw pattern.

 

[tenthirty]

I agree, but the XP-G's put out roughly half the power of the XM-L's and I was thinking that I want the spectrum a little more red weighted.

 

[rives]

I don't see how it is going to change how the spectrum is weighted - the numbers of each are unchanged and the distribution is the same other than the ends of the fixture would be evenly balanced.

xxw xxw xxw xxw xxw xxw vs.
xwx xwx xwx xwx xwx xwx

What am I missing?

 

[tenthirty]

The number of red'ish photons would be greater with the 2 to 1.

Well with 9 and 9 the power comes out at:
31.5w for XP-G's
49.5w for XM-L's for a total draw of 81 watts.
That's 3 watts more than the last HML not counting driver losses,
but the heat sink doesn't care about that.

so the decision is,
more lumens/photon density or
more red and less blue and less power.

I wish I could find some WW XM-L's on stars somewhere.
That would ease my mind some on the quantum effects of different
power leds.

At 10 days in the HML plants have a better color to them and are somewhat perkier than the Pro-Grow plants, though all are doing well.
Flower set was slightly faster, but I don't know if that is a good thing or bad.
The HML plants did stretch more, I fear that is because of the 660nm reds.
That may have been a mistake. 660nm May be helpful in the last 30 days,
but for the stretch, maybe not so much.

The texture and color of the leaves between the HML and the Pro-Grow are considerably different.
The HML leaves are more like "out door" green and are thinner and smoother. I consider this very good.
The Pro-Grow leaves are a little thicker and have much more texture to them, not the bright green that the HML plants show.

Any postulations?

 

[rives]

The way that I suggested (xwx) is still 2:1, the only difference would be the distribution would be evenly balanced on each end of the fixture whereas the xxw gives a different distribution at each end. Take a look at the diagram again in my above post.

With the varieties that I have been running, I don't experience any stretch to speak of and I am very heavily weighted to 660's. There is apparently enough blue to counteract it with both my hybrid fixture and my Lumigrow.

 

[hempfield]

First of all :

@tenthirty: I want to apologize for hijacking this thread with my multiple posts. I just want to help others with my experience.


@repuk :

BTW what's that mirror finish from the V1+V2 first pic?

I think it's a kind of mylar or something like this , bought from a flower shop. It's used for flower arrangements and wrapping and it's very cheap compared with reflective mylar. It's main disadvantage is that it will crumble after long exposure to intense light and heat (I have coated a cardboard reflector for 2 CFLs with this foil and after 3 months it was extremely brittle). I think it's the same material the chips bags are made of.

How much was building V3?

Well, I actually don't know, because most of the LEDs (and 'drivers') has been reused from the previous versions.

The most expensive parts were the 48V PSU (35$) and the 45 degrees lenses (30$). I believe I also bought like 20pcs 3W 660nm and 10pcs 3W Royal Blue LEDs but I really don't remember how much did they cost. The whole panel was built in a few months without having all the parts before I started to work on it.

It's obvious that it is not the optimal LED panel speaking of costs being a prototype, but I tried to keep my expenses to a minimum.

In a optimistic approach I would say 250$, but in a more realistic appraisal ~350$.

When I will have some spare time I will try to do some math for a more accurate cost.



Peace !

 

[repuk]

The number of red'ish photons would be greater with the 2 to 1.

Well with 9 and 9 the power comes out at:
31.5w for XP-G's
49.5w for XM-L's for a total draw of 81 watts.
That's 3 watts more than the last HML not counting driver losses,
but the heat sink doesn't care about that.

so the decision is,
more lumens/photon density or
more red and less blue and less power.

I wish I could find some WW XM-L's on stars somewhere.
That would ease my mind some on the quantum effects of different
power leds.

Most sites mentioned mid-end October for availability, did you find them w/o stars?

I'm curious about that, maybe Cree left the market out of stock of WW because they will be launching the next (XM-L2?) or simply because is their most sold chip?

On the other hand, if we suspect too much far red (with too much being a matter of ratio vs blues, not in terms of absolute power) I think 10W chips, in WW would be hard to manage in terms of light spread, as there will be few WW spots projecting 60% of their power
straight down; despite of the 120 degrees spread the budsites just below the LEDs will have a lot of power on them.

At 10 days in the HML plants have a better color to them and are somewhat perkier than the Pro-Grow plants, though all are doing well.
Flower set was slightly faster, but I don't know if that is a good thing or bad.
The HML plants did stretch more, I fear that is because of the 660nm reds.
That may have been a mistake. 660nm May be helpful in the last 30 days,
but for the stretch, maybe not so much.

If the stretch is "controlled" by the blue/red balance that would make sense... my hypothesis: once the plant is in flower by the photoperiod, with "too much" far red the plant "thinks" Autumn is here maybe almost ending, then it flowers as fast as it can, and stretch out to get the most light possible.

Please post pics when possible!

I'm thinking dimmable drivers would be great to experiment and try to tune the HML, also great to match the early flowering - mid flowering - ripening phases.

Maybe even the non-dimmable drivers could be modded for this...

We're trying to see if using white is most beneficial than actinic colors, but I'm leaning more and more to the "use white to build a nice, smooth spectrum" then fine-tune the "hues" with actinic LEDs on each end of the spectrum using dimmable drivers.

I see two advantages in that approach (10W whites, 3W actinics), the first coming from the use of less powered LEDs: more can be used making easy getting a even-spaced placement of them above the canopy for the same given power; second, dimming the actinics you can bias all the spectrum towards the end (B or R) you want.

I'm thinking having this:

| AA | W | AA | W | AA |
| AA | W | AA | W | AA |
| AA | W | AA | W | AA |

AA being actinic, WW the two XM-L/XP-G HML's I'm going to build.

hempfield: tenthirty has the last word on this, but I don't think you're hijacking the thread... though it would be great to have your own also where you replicate all the info and pics.

 

[tenthirty]

Hempfields build is interesting.
It is/was a lot of work.
The cost is comparable to what I am doing.

It's good to have a comparison of the different methodologies and what is involved in accomplishing the end goal in each experiment.

Hempfield spent months building his led fixtures. I spent hours. About the same money though.

When I was a kid, and color TV was new, my dad and I built a color TV.
Would I do it again? Maybe not.

I've spent decades building/prototyping electronic devices,
always looking for the fastest/most convenient way to accomplish the goal.
Time is money.

With the advent of the high power leds, this made building a HML feasible to me. I could not imagine soldering up 300 leds, mounting them etc.

Lazy stoner ya know.

 

[PetFlora]

It looks like the next fixture will be:
12 ea. WW XP-G's at 37.8 watts driven at 1750mw
6 ea. NW XM-L's at 33 watts. driven at 1050mw.
All in a line 3' long.

wwn wwn wwn wwn wwn wwn

What ya'all think?

I am concerned about the spread/coverage from a single row. I suggest 2 rails @ 1.5ft, or better still 3 rails @ 1ft. Tie them together with an adjustable bar (~6-9") on each end, so that you can move them in/out for best coverage (minimal overlap). Simply use electrical jumper in between

 

[tenthirty]

Reves, wnw wins. Will be placing the order today.

PetFlora, ultimately there will be 3 rails spaced at 1ft. 3 to cover a 3x3.
So your right on the mark.
What do you think about the 660nm leds causing the stretch?

 

[medmaker420]

Great diy led projects so far. I will odds are get a diy project started in 2013 but don't have the time right now. It looks like a decent diy will run in the $200 to $400 range which isn't too bad at all.

I can't wait for more flowering pics from these diy leds!

keep up the great work

 

[tenthirty]

"Decent"

Better than store bought!

 

[medmaker420]

"Decent"

Better than store bought!

decent as in wattage wise is what I was getting at

 

[tenthirty]

Ultimately, what is going to happen is 400 watts of Pro-Grow will be replaced with 260 watts of HML and provide better coverage and at least at this point better health.