Hi all, I've been attempting to educate myself on LEDs for a while now(as well as HIDs), but there doesn't seem to be any kind of consensus on the topic. I'm interested in trying my hand at building my own, as the one standard opinion seems to be that most of the store-sold ones are overpriced and/or of low quality. Where do I start? Any advice, reading suggestions, or help would be greatly appreciated. If there's a sticky on this topic which I've missed somewhere, apologies in full!

[Booner47]

I dont know anything about building my own but I grow with LEDs and I love em. I have two 63 w penetrator pros and an 84x pro from Hydro Grow Led. They work great for my personal grow... They were a lot more expensive than hps but the lack of heat output and saving on power is what I'm interested in. And the results of led are amazing. So if you decide to follow threw with investing in some you will not be disappointed.

[setaemies]

That is a very good question to ponder, where do I start. It is easy to jump to hasty conclusions from the bullshit marketing hype for led growlights or the angry feedback from disappointed customers. First, you should think about what are your motives behind your interest in led lighting? There are as many ways to approach the subject as there are different people with different ideas and goals.

The easy way:

You can surely reap some of the benefits that LED technology has to offer by buying a ready made unit, most preferably a quality one. For example less radiant heat than HID lights and capability for a mediocre grower to have yields in 1gpw and upwards range. Downsides would be higher initial costs per watt, quality problems and exaggerated performance claims from some manufacturers.

The DIY way:

If you have a lot of spare time to set a side and you like to figure out things by yourself, DIY is a great way to get into LED lighting. For starters, seek posts from Knna on this forum and google "How to build your DIY LED array" for more. And if you are a numbers geek, google for "Bulb analyzer tool (actualized)" a great tool made by Knna. Also ICmag member pinstripe has posted an inspirational growlog that clearly shows the possible benefits of DIY growlights. After you have spent ridiculous amount of time reading different forums, browsing electronics suppliers catalogs and studying scientific papers about artificial lighting, you probably notice that there is a hell of a lot to learn about light and how it interacts with plants

With the existing information in DIY topics in different forums, it is very possible for a normal guy without any electronics knowledge to build an efficient light array. It probably will not be cheaper than a commercial one, but it will be more efficient and maybe suits your needs better because you built it. Even if you never use all the information you gathered while designing your own light, you have definately educated yourself and had a ton of fun. And if you ever build one, the learning curve just keeps climbing after that. Nobody really knows what wavelengths or proportions of do we need for optimal growing of cannabis plant in its different growth phases, or how can we manipulate the growth habits by using different spectrums in different growth cycles. That is something that keeps me interested in the possibilities of LED lighting!

Personally, I have set a goal for arrays capable of 2+gpw every time, while being passively cooled. With todays top bin LEDs, I think it could be done easily. I'm just waiting for the prices to settle a little and learning more about growing cannabis with artificial light

Thanks for the suggestions! The long strip-like Penetrator's look like they'd suit my needs. Setaemies, if there's no money to be saved building it I'd probably take the retail route. My ridiculously huge veggie garden and work will leave me with no time for light building this spring/summer :(. If I've chosen to go the retail route, do you have any brand suggestions? The light would be for an area probably around 2'x5'.

[setaemies]

By any means I'm not an expert on the subject, and I don't have any personal experience from the commercial units, so please consider all my writings as an individual opinion only. And I didn't mean to discourage you from building your own, just wanted to know what you need your lights to do.

I don't think anybody except maybe the manufacturer knows the true output of ready made lights, so it is very hard to make a reliable analysis for cost savings attained by DIY light. But we can compare how much the same wattage of top of the line Crees cost compared to a top of the shelf ready made unit. For example, lets use HGL 126X PRO for the comparison, at least they market it as the latest and greatest.

According to forum member VerdantGreen, this light pulls 187 watts from the socket using 126 pcs of 3w rated emitters. I googled few places for the price and it goes for a bit under 1000$. If anyone knows a cheaper place, let me know, so we can make a better comparison.

XP-E red bin p3 @ mouser 100: $4.61 = 461$

Cree XT-E royal blue @ mouser 20: $3.01 = 60.2$

Cree XM-L cool white @ mouser 10: $8.90 = 89$

XM-L MCPCB @ mouser 10: $0.959 = 9.59$

XP-E MCPCB @ mouser 120: $0.759 = 91.08$

Total 710,87$

Red 550mA 120W

Blue 700mA 42W

CW 700mA 20W

Total 182W

Comparison is for very rough estimates only, the spectrums are very different etc, so don't take it too seriously.

This would leave us with few hundred bucks for misc parts, drivers and heatsinks, that isn't going to be enough I'm afraid. Also if you don't have tools, you need think about the price of those too. But we must consider that XM-L's could be driven efficiently up to 1,5A and XP-E's maybe up to 700mA, so we could use less LEDs or go for more power. Osrams are cheaper in Europe, with those the price of similar panel would be less than half, but then you wouldn't know the real output of the panel because they aren't available in single bins. But even the low bin osrams are pretty efficient, in the 30% range, so...

These are the very LEDs I consider capable of 2+gpw every time, if they are used in right combination of spectrums (which I don't know )

[rives]

The one thing that I would add to the above comments is that building an enclosure for the fixture that protects both the components and the operator can be expensive. It is entirely possible to build a light without the protective envelope, but at that point it is pretty difficult to compare with commercial offerings. Building the light modules isn't overly difficult - incorporating them into something that has a nice appearance, protects the wiring and the components, affords good cooling, is grounded, etc, etc, is both challenging and expensive.

Thanks for all the suggestions and information! I'll check out the grow diaries and do a bunch more reading before I make any purchasing decisions. I'd love to learn all about the light spectrum and really know how to do this, but there's only so much you can absorb about plants at once, and right now my mind is wrapped up in ACT.

I made my own 46W LED lamp with Osrams. I had little previous electronic experience but after attending Knna University for a week I felt ready. Professional it is not, but it gets the job done and the plants seem to love it--Internode spacing is very tight and penetration much much better than CFL. I have a few months before the first harvest so we'll see how it performs.

I saved money by getting my heatsink from fleabay ($15), but you can't get around the cost of the LEDs and drivers which were around $200. Materials were $30ish. Even for a small light like mine it's a lot to spend for the average grower who could just as easily us HPS.