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"Full Spectrum" LEDs versus regular LEDS

Klompen

Active member
I am fairly new to the world of building LED lights, but so far I have mostly played with easy-to-use, but hard-to-cool 50W "driverless" COB lights. They haven't been without issue and they certainly aren't the most efficient, but I certainly think they have been worth the money. I started out with about 1/3 4000K white COBs and 2/3 "Blurple" "full spectrum". Most of the white COBS actually burned out fairly fast, but the blurples have toughed it out for more than a month of continuous use so far(I run my autos at 24/0).

One of the lights I made for my current setup using driverless COBs:



Here's a shot of it and the other one I made in action(you can see what an odd mix my side-lighting is):



There is a new generation of driverless COB lights available now that run cooler and better in general, but I am exploring other options. Most importantly, the type of growing I am doing involves a lot of side lighting. I want to surround the plants in light, but have a very intense overhead fixture. Each stall in my new grow chamber will be about 16" wide and 24" deep, with maybe up to 4-5' of clearance. If I could put a flat panel on each side of the stall, I could really bathe them in light. Unfortunately I am having a really hard time finding a specifically horticultural panel that is small enough and cheap enough is hard.

Here is a picture of the eBay panels I am looking at:



There are some good-looking panel lights on ebay that are basically an ultra thin panel that is about 1 square foot and has 225 LEDs running about 22W. They claim efficacy of about 157 Lm/W, but at about 20 bucks a piece that would add up to a lot of money since I would need 16 of them. Driverless COBs would probably be too hot for side lights and I don't have 350 dollars to dump on those panels. Plus, the COBs are 50W each and I don't need to put 250W per plant.

Thing is, there are a lot of very cheap panels online if I am willing to go with a non-grow panel. I just don't know how "regular" diodes compare to "full spectrum" diodes for growing. I need to find a solution soon though as I will be moving to my new cabinet within the next couple weeks as my current grow finishes. How would regular panels like these compare?

 

Horselover Fat

Member
Veteran
Growlights are usually just regular white leds. There may be added monos in different wavelengths, but really, the white leds are regular white leds like lm301b from samsung.

Look at led strips. Bridgelux eb3 are cheap and almost as efficient as lm301b.
 

Klompen

Active member
White LED's will outgrow blurples, have you thought about something from HLG?

I've certainly given them some thought. Is there something about the Samsung diodes that make them so special for plants? Do they have a special spectrum or what? I know they're extremely efficient, but is that it? They seem maybe too much for my side lighting. They're a perfect shape for my setup though. I do need to think serious on my lights, but money is a serious issue for us right now. I am building a really awesome new cabinet that is not as pieced-together and crazy like my current cabinet. It will have rows that are 16 inches wide and 24 deep, which is in theory about 2.66 square feet(but in practice that's more like 12" x 20" of usable space).

I'm a big DIY guy, but it seems like DIY on most of these would probably be more. Are the Samsung diodes available individually?
 

Horselover Fat

Member
Veteran
I've certainly given them some thought. Is there something about the Samsung diodes that make them so special for plants? Do they have a special spectrum or what? I know they're extremely efficient, but is that it?
[...]

I'm a big DIY guy, but it seems like DIY on most of these would probably be more. Are the Samsung diodes available individually?

No, they are just very efficient. Nothing special otherwise.

They need to be reflow soldered so best let someone else do it. Look at led-tech.de if you are in europe. Their lm301b zeus xt boards are great (see under "system" and also take a look at the led strips they offer under linear led modules).

Here's a picture of my four zeus boards in action
 

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Klompen

Active member
Beautiful plants. Interesting about the lights. Don't they just reflow solder to save time and money though? I've soldered plenty of electronic over the years and could certainly take the time to do them all individually if that is possible. I've soldered SMD resistors and transistors before, but I honestly don't know how that compares.
 

Horselover Fat

Member
Veteran
Beautiful plants. Interesting about the lights. Don't they just reflow solder to save time and money though? I've soldered plenty of electronic over the years and could certainly take the time to do them all individually if that is possible. I've soldered SMD resistors and resistors before, but I honestly don't know how that compares.

Thanks, it a single plant actually :biglaugh:

Honestly I don't know about the soldering. I think I remember reading about someone reflow soldering leds in their kitchen oven, but I've no idea if that is a good idea or a terrible one...
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Use Samsung or Epistar, get more than you need (slightly more expensive) and run them at lower voltages. You'll get longer life and (at the right power level) better lumen/watt ratio than full blast.
 

Klompen

Active member
Interesting. I always assumed Epistar was a junk brand because the COB itself on my driverless COBs is supposedly made by them. The new generation doesn't really specify, but the ones I specifically got about 2 years ago said the diodes themselves came from there. I would bet they wanted to switch to a Chinese supplier instead though for political reasons.

With dimming, be it driverless COB lights or SMD diodes; doesn't that change the spectrum a bit?

I'm still too new to LEDs to know for sure if this is correct, but this page seems interesting:

https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/cr_effectsofdimming.asp
 
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