Bueno Grows w/ DIY COB LEDs

[Bueno Time]

Actually changed my plans and not taking any clones just running them through this run. If I get a nice female and male Cheese n Chaze Im going to make a small amount of F2s. May or may not take male and female of one or more of the other crosses and selectively pollinate to make some F2s of those crosses. Not sure yet.

I plan to flip the veg tent to 12/12 tomorrow possibly or within the next few days for sure. Get them started on 12/12 under the 1 50w COB for a week or a couple days more then into the flowering tent and add in the 2nd COB (veg tent exhaust not strong enough for both COBs). This run will be done a week quicker this way and they are topped, bushy, and have already vegged to sufficient size for flowering with my height limitations.

Probably going to start LST on them tonight.

 

[Bueno Time]

Veg tent started 12/12 today. These pics are from last night D26 from seed

OGSWTs in far left row, PECCs in the row next to that

BBCJs in second row from right, CCs on far right

 

[chowdan]

Those girls are looking VERY nice!

I'm looking to order a few lower wattage COB's for my window garden as well as some of the higher 50-100w cob's for my cab to replace the 400w HPS that i'm currently running.

Surprisingly Seattle has been having some really hot weather and my tent is sitting in the mid 80's with the light running at 75%. I have a feeling summer is going to be brutal so i think switching over to LED's will help reduce the temps that i'm fighting.

Thank you for sharing your experiences Excited to see how these girls flower!

 

[Bueno Time]

Day 3 12/12

 

[3dDream]

Looking great!

Keep the pics coming!!!

 

[blynx]

That second pic make it appears the light is very bright under the LED but drops off drastically as you move toward the edges. Any plans to rotate the plants under the light?

 

[xil]

^^^or you could re-position your cobs more evenly above the canopy.

 

[Bueno Time]

That second pic make it appears the light is very bright under the LED but drops off drastically as you move toward the edges. Any plans to rotate the plants under the light?

^^^or you could re-position your cobs more evenly above the canopy.

Ya I have been rotating plants around here and there. The light does drop off on the sides, if I could have the COB higher above the canopy it would cover more evenly but its at max height right now. Its only the one COB still over these in the center, I can only run this one COB with my weak exhaust in the veg tent I cant add the other one. Started them flowering in the veg tent to get a head start while the flowering ladies finish up under the 150w HPS, then these plants will be put into the flowering tent with both COBs spaced apart evenly.

I do plan to make a better veg light eventually but havent ordered any parts yet. Going to use 2 heat sink bars with 4-5 Cree XM-L2 4200-4500k U2 bin leds on each heat sink bar all wired to a 900mA driver, that will give a nice spectrum for veg and way better lighting distribution, also the XM-L2 U2s are very efficient ~46% efficient at 1A drive current.

 

[Bueno Time]

Identified and chopped down 5 males over the past 2-3 days. OGSWT2, PECC1, PECC3, CC1 and CC2 all males, so no Cheese n Chaze F2s this run and no females this run oh well.

PECC1 PECC2 CC1 (CC1 on far right and in front of the other two)

OGSWT2 CC2

BB1 BB2 BB3 PECC2 OGSWT1 OGSWT3 are still unsexed but I am assuming/hoping are probably females since they havent shown sex yet like the 5 dudes I pulled so far. Usually if they dont show super fast they arent males from my experience the males usually show in the first week of 12/12 and also the males are usually the taller and slightly more vigourous.

 

[Bueno Time]

Couple pics of the 6 left, unsexed. Going into flower tent under both COBS tomorrow night Im thinking. They are too tall/cab is too short and lighting is far from optimal over them right now but it worked for the first week to give them a jumpstart while the last run finished up.

 

[budelight]

Looks like you could use a glass lens to spread out the light over a wider diameter, or refract it or diffuse it.

 

[Bueno Time]

Looks like you could use a glass lens to spread out the light over a wider diameter, or refract it or diffuse it.

I dont think they make lenses of any sort for these yet.

Yeah the lighting distribution is horrible in this situation with this large of a rectangular footprint and only 1 COB in the center that I couldnt raise up any higher. I never intended to have the plants get this big under the one COB but I backed up in the flowering tent, I didnt think the plants would get this big this fast and had to flip to 12/12 in the veg tent otherwise if I kept vegging they would have been too big once flowered in the flowering tent.

If someone had a grow with very limited height like this veg tent, I would recommend SCROG and more smaller wattage COBs spread out over the canopy.

Its all good though, tonight they are going into the flowering tent under both COB modules.

 

[Bueno Time]

Cleaned the tent out with Chlorox Wipes and bleach spray. Swapped plants in and hooked up both COBs in there. Wow am I impressed. To the human eye it looks much brighter than the HPS and the spectrum is so much nicer. I dont even need to use the camera flash to overcome the yellow effect like I did with the HPS. Plants look healthy and happy so far. Cant wait to see the real test for these COBs when it comes time to building buds...

I tried to make it pretty easy to wire and hook everything up and take it down and also to be able to swap out COBs if something drastically better comes out, so I went with bullet connectors on the drivers to COBs wiring and a molex connector on the connection between the heatsink fans and the 12v adapter for them. Easy enough.

The wiring is pretty sloppily ran for now just to quickly hook it all up tonight. I have a better idea for mounting the light modules and running the wiring a little cleaner. That will happen in the next few days.

Heres the parts layed out ready to plug n play.

After 9 days 12/12

 

[Bueno Time]

Not sure why it looks so dim in the pics with no flash but it is not in person. I took the 3rd pic with flash on and thats basically close to what it looks like when I look in there. Bright clean yellowish white and the plants look so much nicer under it you can see the plants and how green they are much better than HPS. I have a feeling these babies are going to rock, but we will have to wait and see...

Day 9 12/12

 

[Bueno Time]

I have rocked the 150w HPS in this tent somewhere around 7-8 runs and she did fairly well. With some beneficials, organic nutes, and FFOF based medium average around 90-100grams per 10 weeks flowering.

Looking to get the same 100g and higher density buds off these COBs. Is that too much to ask?

Kill A Watt #s
1 CXA3070 3000K Z4 and 1 CXA3070 3000K Z2 both on MW LPC-60-1400s wired to same plug
0.63PF 121W 1.6A 191VA
2 Alpine 11 Plus heatsink fans @ 12v full power on chinese 12v adapter
0.54PF 5.7W 0.08A 10.3VA
Total 126.7w with both COBs and heatsink fans running (total power consumed by light devices). That is at the outlet.

Also

Just checked the temps in the tent are 3 degrees above ambient right now with the COBs. Ill have to wait until the tent is in full bloom to see how the temps are then when the airflow is restricted by large plants densely packed together in there. I think the 150w HPS was running about 8-10 degrees over ambient with the tent packed full. So far its running much cooler though which is excellent!

 

[#1cheesebuds]

this looks like a bad ass garden. cob light r the future for sure. so whats the temps in there.

 

[Bueno Time]

this looks like a bad ass garden. cob light r the future for sure. so whats the temps in there.

When I checked last night, the ambient was 73 and temp in tent was 76-77 at different points. Central AC keeps the house ambient at 75 so I am hoping to stay at 80 or below when in full bloom mode with the tent packed full of plants, restricting airflow through the tent a bit, have to wait and see.

 

[StoopheadFred]

Bueno I've got my fingers crossed for ya man! Things are looking killer right now. I have been in the EXACT same situation with leds as you ever since I heard about them. I am about to grab that same heatsink and fan combo, how is the noise on it?

The coolest part (pun intended) is that you are barely scratching the surface when it comes to what is on the market heatsink wise. It would be really cool to see what someone could do with a closed loop watercooled system. Hell the things are only $50!

 

[Bueno Time]

Bueno I've got my fingers crossed for ya man! Things are looking killer right now. I have been in the EXACT same situation with leds as you ever since I heard about them. I am about to grab that same heatsink and fan combo, how is the noise on it?

The coolest part (pun intended) is that you are barely scratching the surface when it comes to what is on the market heatsink wise. It would be really cool to see what someone could do with a closed loop watercooled system. Hell the things are only $50!

Sounds good man, you cant go wrong with the Alpine 11 Plus for $10 shipped each from Newegg. The Alpine 11 Plus fans are fairly quiet, I think, even at full speed (12v). Not silent but not bad either, doesnt add any more noise to my grow than my exhaust fan does. The two heatsink fans are the same or slightly quieter than the one mini desktop fan I had blowing on my 150w HPS bulb.

There is a user Observe & Report on RIU that has a setup with Vero COBs and a CPU water cooling setup cooling the COBs with little copper coolers the COBs are mounted to and the water flows through the coolers to keep the COBs cool. The thread is called "More Money Than Brains - a water cooled cab build" if you want to check it out.


Probably a bit more expensive and complex of a setup than it needs to be but cool none the less.

 

[StoopheadFred]

Thanks or the input on the Alpine 11, much appreciated. Another cool thing about using computer cooling stuff is that it's designed to dissipate heat in a small confined area, so I would imagine that using them in a larger (relatively) area like a grow would only make them more efficient.

That guys setup is awesome, especially since it's a DIY style water cooler. I was thinking something more along the lines of the Cooler Master Seidon (http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/seidon/seidon-120v/). But at $50 or 5x the price of the Alpine I don't know that it would be worth the additional performance unless you had some really nice COB's that you wanted to keep safe and cool.