Sammy's DIY Cree CXA LED

[nephrosis]

ok, i was just looking for a driver that would work for this setup. if you have any other suggestions? Ill prolly pick up one of these drivers. ill be getting a CXA3050 asap, maybe 2 just for the hell of it... i want to get a good amount of light pen along with coverage (and intesity)

I plan on getting a 5 gal smart pot and vegging for a while then gonna flower one big plant. i need 200w for what i need to get from it, like 200grams.

 

[Dr.Nonagon]

Then make sure Nephrosis that you get two drivers, and two heatsinks. One for each LED.

What spectrums were you thinking?

 

[nephrosis]

i was going to get 2700k for now, then get a 6500k for some extra growth. a few UV bulbs to supplement the sun when needed. But honestly, i might just end up staying at 2700k for the entire time. I DO want to get a 630-660 MM red also, but i might have to wait till i have more money.

Can i bridge them together to 1 plug in or should i just get a power bar and plug in 1-3 when i get them?

 

[sammyz2646]

I must admit, I screwed up big time . I was wiring up the 12 volt back to the fan on the Arctic Alpine 64 and wired the + & - side to the WRONG WIRE and fried the fan. TOAST.. Fortunately, I was able to get it replaced and switched out the aluminum hood/visor, re-set the chip on the new thermal adhesive, and I'm off and rolling------



I put this 2700 k in my VEG room, as supplemental lighting for now. As you can see even though this little Cree light has a fan, making it "active" and NOT "passive", I still put it in front of my window shaker, LOL. I started it out running around 50 watts. I went up to feel the heat sink, and it was ICE COLD!!! chilly! It was hard finding as "shady" spot to add this CXA

So, I decided to really crank it up and see what happened. Well, I'll say this, I have a VERY BRIGHT ROOM anyway, and these next photos will show--- that even inside a stupid bright room, this 100 watt cree cranked up near MAX, makes a significant impact on the overall light in the room . Amazing. You can see that it stands out even next to numerous 1000 watt MH's, Numerous old school T-5's ( Actinic/Pentron reds/3000k's/6500k's), and several additional LED"S and another 400 watt . Now I am looking forward to replacing these ancient T-5's with new LED technology.




To see the light bouncing off my hands at 3 , 4 , 5 feet away from it . WOW. You can see in this bright room, the footprint it still leaves on the A/C unit and nearby objects. I was really impressed. It's WARMER WHITE @ 2700k, than I realized. Nice and RED hue to it. I know that I have it hanging awful high, but this is intentional, as it is adding a lovely coverage area at that height and I'm sure that it will have a nice impact overall.

 

[sammyz2646]

So I told you that I had it cranked up near MAX or AT max. This is the current Kill-a-watt photo ---




Now, with this silly little fan, and not that big of a heat sink really, I thought surely running it like this would generate excessive heat soon and so I stood by and monitored it carefully.. Still running almost COOL I would say.. With the A/C bursting up against it, it doesn't ever have the chance to really get hot. EVER. Therefore, efficient or not, I will drive this thing as hard as it will go, achieving maximum light, MY GOAL ACHIEVED. I did not want to sacrifice anything that the chip could produce

I let this light run for 6 hours and then measured the temp with my IR gun,

On the back of the heat sink-----




And the chip itself....... It jumps around, but looks to be max ~ 200-210 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is CLOSE to 100 degrees Celsius. Maybe a bit hot for those looking to maintain the best efficiency, but with the cool air behind it , I'll be rolling those dice !!!!

Another thing to keep in mind, when I fried my little Arctic 64 fan initially, and I turned on the COB, THE ENTIRE FRAME AND EVERYTHING WAS TOO HOT TO EVEN TOUCH!!!

 

[sammyz2646]

I am now working on utilizing the Cree 3070 that I have and I have decided to put it onto this heat sink----GOING "PASSIVE" THIS TIME, therefore I needed a BIGGER sink




Now, if you noticed, earlier in my original rectangle build, I used some aluminum I bought at the local hardware store, stuck it in my vice,(everyone needs a VICE!!), and cut it to length.

The main reason that I built it this way was not to look like a light hood, but as a VISOR to be mounted at a specific height , so that when hung up, you won't be retina blinded.

In this design with the round heat sink, I could have probably made the aluminum "VISOR/HOOD" rectangle again, even though the sink is round, but I started thinking .... . . . . . ..





I ended up just eventually putting a towel into the teeth of my vic and bended it that way, much easier to fine tune the bending. The aluminum is nice and soft and bends fairly easily. I didn't finish it yet, and I haven't figured out just how I will attach it to the heat sink, but, I have several ideas brewing about how to do it. MUST HAVE A VISOR for these LED's

Additionally, today I ordered a 450--460 nm blue 100 watt cob to go along with the 630 nm red that I have seen here--- (Chinese cob's sold on EBAY)

 

[sammyz2646]

So enjoyable , building your own high- powered LED lights!



For those who are interested in building a similar setup, I will post some parts lists and helpful links with some of my choices (originally), and of course can be modified at your discretion.
There are a million different ways to accomplish your light building goals. I can simply tell you directly what I used here. I hope to hear some other success stories as well. Of course, we all love pictures

 

[Dr.Nonagon]

Now, with this silly little fan, and not that big of a heat sink really, I thought surely running it like this would generate excessive heat soon and so I stood by and monitored it carefully.. Still running almost COOL I would say.

Yeah an active heatsink stays cool, I could even put my tongue on mine if I was that kinda guy.

I have some passive coolers here and I was surprised how hot they actually get over time. Very informative to see how a 3050 is actually 100w or even more.

Ever thought about running the 4k spectrum?

 

[sammyz2646]

Yeah an active heatsink stays cool, I could even put my tongue on mine if I was that kinda guy.

I have some passive coolers here and I was surprised how hot they actually get over time. Very informative to see how a 3050 is actually 100w or even more.

Ever thought about running the 4k spectrum?

I have not specifically thought about this spectrum, BUT, from what I understand, it seems to be a happy middle ground that rides somewhere in the middle of the usable colors and would probably be a lovely choice to grow from front to back. So it seems to me from my research, that these white variations contain all the necessary colors we are looking for to grow. White, reds, greens, and blues are prevalent in these chips, and the 4000k seems to hit one of the so called sweet spots in the middle of the color spectrums, Yes, I do believe that plants use green light !

This is some information I read from an unknown source(to me),here on IC Mag, and it makes much more sense than much of the OTHER discussion currently at hand. It had an impact on my ever changing opinion about how plants use and process light, combined with COMMON SENSE. It is an opinion, but I agree with this general line of thinking--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


secretweapon while the precise science talked about is indeed true, go ahead and fall back a few minutes and think about the situation from a natural viewpoint:

when you wake up, at different times of the year, the sun... it's not really, all that different, in color. The differences, are just a few percent: those percentages in nature are only dictated by the lowering of the sun, in the sky, relative to the plant, as the season passes on through summer, past June 21st the longest day of the year.

As the dates creep by through the months and the sun rises, just a little further south each day , even at the very end of that time, when the sun rises at it's lowest: December 21st or whatever it is:

consider how little change in color there is, from a June 20th or 21st sunrise. Not much at all, really, if you think about it.

And if you consider that actual date for the plants to start converting to flower isn't the shortest day of the year: but the day when the night/day period equals about... roughly..... 12/12...

There's only a very few percentage points difference, in the red vs blue spectrums the plants'll receive in any normal, natural setting. The percentages are slender at best and are only dictated by the sun rising a little lower: passing, a little lower.... through the sky, and being filtered, by a little more atmosphere as the sun cuts - as i said, a little bit - through a crosswise section of the atmosphere, as opposed to shining down from higher, where the path through the air, would be shorter.

The vast, wide fixation with using all these different colored lights, comes from people having to use whatever they can get their hands on, and the importance of trying to max out their grows, due to illegal harrassment by worthless cock sucking government fucks who are such parasites they'd lock a person in a cage for smoking pot - claiming the Nuremberg defence, "My boss made me do it." Which of course is worthless in any real court of right or wrong: but when people's paychecks depend on not understanding right from wrong, well... we know how that works.

You don't need to be too terribly concerned about the differences unless you have the lights there: if they'll grow vegetatively in a light spectrum, they'll flower in that light spectrum.

Light intensity in the real world, is where it's at. In the first place it's a function of almost all plants, that the more light, the harder the chlorophyll engines turn on, and the harder growth that goes on: more sun, is more heat. More light from that sun, is more energy: the combination speeds up all chemical processes, and drives the cell-splitting, hence growth: faster.

Pot itself - as i'm sure you've read, (probably to your dismay) is a light hungry, photon chomping baby: and can take a whole lot of light, and does better and better, as you add lumens.

Many a person grows from start to finish, with metal halides only; high pressure sodium only; one color of flourescents, only: and aren't too much, the worse for wear. Obviously peaking everything is a big plus: but, the plant: is a bush hog, and will damned near grow out of a dirty tennis shoe - especially so if it can get & use a few hours of high quality, high intensity light each day.
Last edited by -KiNgMaKeR-; 07-08-2007 at 03:22 AM..
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I know that reading sucks for lots of us, but if your truly interested in understanding how things work, and you have an open mind, the world is just waiting to give us those answers, you just have to want to find them.

 

[sammyz2646]

Like i said, MORE LIGHT wins! Almost any light. Yes, there will be variables and strain specific tweaks, but in general, you will do well. I am NOT planning on changing any lighting , unless I am ADDING MORE, throughout the plants life phase

Now I took that information, and am now simply taking what specific COLORS that we know work----

450-460 nanometer BLUE
630-660 nm RED
UV
YELLOW
GREEN
ORANGE

Of course , some of you don't like Chinese COB's, but as far as high powered, SPECIFIC color options, they are where I must turn for a DIY project
And obviously there will be about 3 or 4 misc. WHITE COB's to every one specific colored one, as a general rule

I am looking forward to adding these colors to my white COB's


Another note, my recently acquired welding glasses are a big help to "soften" to blinding light emitted from these powerful COB's (Much better than regular dark glasses)

I am choosing to target these known usable colors and simply turbocharge them with colored 100 watt COB's.---IN ADDITION TO THE FULL SPECTRUM WHITES which have traces of all these colors .. . ..

 

[tenthirty]

Just a few links.........
More light is not necessarily better.

http://plantphys.info/plant_physiology/light.shtml
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/biology/ligabs.html
http://spot.colorado.edu/~basey/photocolor1.html

 

[sammyz2646]

Holy cow! Thank you 10:30. This is the sort of truly helpful scientific information that allows our wheels to turn. I am a realist, and a huge believer in the science behind things and this clearly show that light is specific----- and the plants response is greatly enhanced, (or restricted), in certain color/wavelength areas. Great links , THANKS!!

I know you know your LED stuff, and I will be paying lots of attention to your posts. I am just beginning my understanding of the in's and out's of the CURRENT LED tech/marketplace.

My "perspective", which is in turn, my opinion, is ever changing, and is always open to a broadening horizon of information. People who called the world "round", or suggested that the continents were previously connected long ago, were cast away and told they were nuts. So everything is subject to change, especially in our understanding of light, and how plants use it.


Having said that, I am trying to produce the absolute HIGHEST quality cannabis for my patients, and while certain light may not be nearly as efficient , or even as usable, I have had better luck with MORE light , than LESS. For years, I had insufficient lighting. I paid a huge price , working my butt off, with good results, but after increasing the light, especially with LED as supplemental, WHAT an IMPACT!!! Even adding specific colors has helped the harvest, noticeably! Light movers are huge too, IMO. More and more KINDS of light is always better, here, for me. I am still convinced that CANNABIS specifically, needs and uses light, that we may not entirely understand.

Therefore, I will continue to build these DIY LED's like a madman, and simply ADD, ADD, ADD,
more whites (mostly), along with supplemental reds, blues, yellows, greens and oranges, and I look forward to seeing what develops.

My plan is to slowly continue to add enough LED's to slowly ELIMINATE ALL of my 1000 watt HID's. (We've got a ways to go, LOL) I will post results, but it will take time.

I have always been a very motivated individual, and being a grower who is 100% dedicated to his garden, I spend every possible extra free moment pondering just how to improve and maximize ideas, including the placement and organization of EVERYTHING in the grow rooms. Lighting placement and/or lighting wavelength/spectrum is never far from my mind. I thoroughly enjoy this topic and am honestly very enthusiastic about the road (for me), to a 100% LED grow operation, that is potentially SOLAR powered, and absolutely KILLS most everyone else's HID setups. My dreams may be bigger than reality at times, but I intend to give this entire theory a good run, all the while keeping up diligently with current new technology, as to not miss a beat.


Thank you again , tenthirty , for adding to the discussion here with some excellent information

 

[sammyz2646]

I do in fact have a few concerns about some repercussions(some good, some bad), for adding a very INTENSE specific color that may cause these potential issues (just off the top of my head),

And please feel free to add and suggest something I did not mention, or correct me please.

For those interested, I will take the time to post the links to these Chinese colored COB's--- GO HERE-----

http://www.topledlight.com/Wholesale-100w-100-watt-high-power-led_c823 or Ebay for the colored COB's


RED (630nm)- 1-- Excessive STRETCHING , especially in early flower, the 1st few weeks
2-- Maybe an earlier finish?


BLUE (450-ish nm)- 1-- Improved node spacing, (tighter growth) in general.
2-- Is there a bad???


YELLOW/ORANGE/PINK IDK???? (But there MUST be benefits, my opinion)


UV -- This I am not educated on so I look forward to some input, but its apparent that it will help , assuming that it doesn't get too intense , and that you protect yourself very intelligently when being near that COB (It's like $200 for that COB on Ebay) sheesh! (EDIT- guess its only $100) better

Now , I will always rotate my plants in the room, depending on how they are responding to the conditions in that corner, and rotate them 180 degrees daily (even with all the light movers) to try and avoid all of the above discussed issues with colors. I understand that not everyone is able to do this. This is why I, personally, chose to avoid the SOG or SCROG method of growing. I have had countless systems and have ended up here, hand watering for now. Looking forward to my Blumats though. Once i learn more about how they need to be used and the best hoses for flexibility, etc. (Another fun front to explore)
I feel that for me, those methods really INHIBIT the inspection, accessibility , and overall mobility of each plant, for me. Especially if you encounter any pests and your plant is intertwined with another , etc. I like my water tight dollies. They are stable and mobile. They can hold up to 500 lbs. The dollies also played an intricate role in me ridding my garden of some nasty RA's a little while ago

I would never choose to cut a corner, or do something half speed, just because it is fairly easy to stay ahead of the herd, going the EXTRA mile, to produce the finest quality medicine that can be produced. Even if its not super efficient. I prefer more efficient, but want the results and am willing to do the extra work and pay for the extra power draw.


My 100 watt 630nm RED is BLASTING across the room and making its way through a door, like 30 feet down the pathway here. Beaming a deep red 40 feet away from the source!!!! I was amazed at that!

 

[nephrosis]

niceeee im thinking of getting just a uv bulb instead of any type of DEEP reds, and test the difference. i should be getting some money this week. atleast these parts are not in the 100's

 

[sammyz2646]

Hey Neph, just remember that you need a LED, a driver, a heat sink, and a power source for your fan if you want to go active and run it 12 volts from the driver. This isn't the cheapest thing YET, but its MUCH cheaper than spending thousands of dollars to fill the pockets of some light developer

Another thing to remember is that you can do this a hundred different ways , so try and follow certain guidelines and specs before you buy stuff

 

[gusgusthegrate]

Gnarly heatsinks youve got on those!.where did you get them?
Do they really help dispurse heat? You said 70*f , that's cool. . I think I should have went larger on mine. Now that I have 3/ 60w they pump out heat even with my little osculating fan. I lowered the voltage down because in just getting some clones going at the moment.

 

[sammyz2646]

Gnarly heatsinks youve got on those!.where did you get them?
Do they really help dispurse heat? You said 70*f , that's cool. . I think I should have went larger on mine. Now that I have 3/ 60w they pump out heat even with my little osculating fan. I lowered the voltage down because in just getting some clones going at the moment.

Yeah, I wanted to see just what it took to control the temps at full power ---as a passive unit. No fans, except maybe air movement from an additional , separate fan, or airflow in the area.

This is a link to the Wakefield heat sink--

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/19754-M-AB/345-1123-ND/3175829

I have yet to really test the Wakefield out. . . .


This is where I found it originally----

Cree was testing with 3 different ones here--

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=gXODG4Q8Yd3Qxn8T2sl5hA&bvm=bv.66917471,d.cGU



This is a link to the heat sink that come pre-drilled for the Chinese 100 watt cob's. But they are really undersized to run @ full power! Wayyy too hot. They need to be bigger, or add a fan, or run the chip at a lower temp. There are so many options out there though.

Giorgio 11185 XXL -

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-pc...013999999870&gclid=CO2SlIqTt74CFceCfgodqSwA4A

I may choose to run the Chinese 100 watt COB's at a lower wattage, choosing either a lower wattage driver, or a dimmable driver to contain the heat with this particular sink. (for the 100 water).. Maybe run it @ 50 watts and try that heat sink, IDK yet

 

[gusgusthegrate]

Nice. I spent 5 on my Heatsinks on amazon I totally should have went larger. I used thermal adhesive so I think the damage is done.... It will probably Prolong the life. They all work just a Lil hot at full power.(the room got to 86*f). I'll probably give this set up to a friend with a larger room....

I added 2 more 60w and triangulated the heatsinks all separately switched.

 

[sammyz2646]

This is some information I found, regarding the amount of light a plant gets and uses. The life cycle of a plant is only as strong as its weakest link. That link is usually, not always, but for most growers, the weakest link is light, or lack there of, especially in the corners, and under the canopy
-----------------


A light meter will measure the amount of "lux" and here's a good guide to help you determine if your plants are getting enough lux.

< 15,000 lux - sparse or "stretchy" growth - plant isn't getting enough light

15,000 - 25,000 lux - enough light for healthy vegetative growth

25,000 - 35,000 lux - plenty of light for fast vegetative growth, but not enough for optimal flowering

35,000 - 45,000 lux - optimal amount of light for cannabis plants in the flowering (budding) stage

45,000 - 75,000 lux - a lot of light and can be a waste of electricity compared to returns

> 75,000 lux - at this light intensity, you've hit the plant's "saturation point" which means your plant can't use all the light (be careful of light bleaching!)

Note: The only way to increase the plant's saturation point is to supplement with CO2.

The above information does support what tenthirty was saying
about exceeding the usable AMOUNT of light emitted

I will add that my intent is to be somewhere ~ 50,000-60,000 lux , or the PPFD equivalent , and that should be in EVERY conceivable area the the canopy is. I don't know how difficult this will be to achieve, but I am intent on trying. I do not yet have a light meter, but its on the list for the future

I want to verify the seemingly ever-changing PPFD in all the areas throughout my garden

 

[gusgusthegrate]

"I do not yet have a light meter, but its on the list for the future"

i just found a light meter app on both ios and andriod. i need to try it later.