Bueno Grows w/ DIY COB LEDs
- Thread starter Bueno Time
- Start date
You can build your own spectrum with enough well picked monochromes or you can use them to supplement a white base to tune the spectrum so to speak and boost key wavelengths for photosynthesis, etc. Top bin monochromes are generally quite efficient too, especially blues which have crazy efficiency.
I misunderstood! I mistakenly thought with ribbed you meant the yellow red area were surrounded by a ring protuding on the Z2 whereas AB / Z4 didn't have any ring protuding...
Seems I got lucky and got ABs from Mouser definitely! On mine apart from the tray labelling with AB code, the ring isn't like the one in that pic, is perfectly smooth as the first COB shot in this thread... yipee!!
Let's see what happens on my cab, I think I have enough blue with the XM-L's...
I just read the manufacturers have changed the process and all the bins are smooth around the outside of the white ring now so we cant use that to distinguish bins anymore. So yours are more likely than not Z2 bin, they generally send you what you buy when you order LEDs. Sorry to get you excited that they may be a higher bin just wanted to let you know I found this out today.
What company sites are you ordering those kinds of lights from? I would be interested in upgrading my light spectrum to have more of the good spectrums. CFLs dont really have a place in my tent if i'm trying to veg quick. I wonder if i can crank out any more than 200-250 out of that size of a tent (2x2). Have you done the numbers on what the max Lumen/watt is for a LED footprint?
are you using these suckers for flowering, or do you think they would be good in veg as well?
200-250 what in a 2x2? Grams? Watts?
If you mean grams, 200-250 grams in a 2x2 your doing good already.
If you mean watts, 200w of top bin LED would be way plenty (possibly overkill) in a 2x2 you could get away with half that or a little more and still get good results (~1GPW or more dry). If I was going to run a 2x2 and wanted to use CXA3070 COBs I would run 4 of them at 700-900mA each, dimmable driver would be great to fine tune light intensity and heat management, turn the light down to reduce heat/intensity, etc. You could add some monochrome LEDs on stars to tune your spectrum to what you want.
I have a post one page back that links the reds and blue leds I bought and used and also I have bought CXA3070 and Vero 10 COBs from digikey they are an excellent company too.
If you are not in US there may be cheaper/better options for places to buy from depending on shipping costs or importing fees.
Lumens per watt can be as high as you can build it (up to the max efficiency of your chosen LEDs) for the higher bin LEDs in larger quantities run at lower currents will always be more efficient than lower bin or even equal bin LEDs run in smaller quantities at higher currents. Doesnt really matter the size of grow space just has to do with efficiency. Find a balance between cost and efficiency that you feel is reasonable and go with that. Using less LEDs is cheaper to build but less efficient to run for the same wattage vs using more LEDs costing more initially to buy the components to build the light but is more efficient since each LED would be running at a lower current. More efficient = more light and less heat.
If im trying to get a bit more stretch from the plants in later veg I turn them on but generally its a lot of deep red to add during veg stage. Seems to make them really branchy even though they do stretch a little more between nodes even in veg with them on. During stretch stage of flowering the plants get very stretchy with them on which can help with very short compact indicas but not so much with sativas or stretchier hybrids. After that though post stretch flowering is where they are most effective, the deep red anyway, helps building and ripening of the buds.
Just what I have noticed so far from playing with them.
Day 49 12/12
PunkSteady
Member
This your diy led grow is astounding!!! This cob led technology is more better what I thought. The great work!
Hey thanks PS, glad you enjoy watching. Yes LEDs really have come a long way just in the past couple years and keep getting better and more efficient.
Unclecrash
Member
Look's like you are getting it dialed in by the size of them cola's. My friensd is trying to get me to helps him build a 1000watt setup, but I don't know enough about the drivers and stuff. I could take and build him a bunch of the units you are using and combine them, but it would be a mess. Do they make a bigger cob and driver where I would only need say two or three to do a 1000watt
yeah, im talking about watts. 400hps gets way to hot in dimensions that size. i tried that before, and it was just too much of a pain to vent. i think im going to stick with 3 cxa3070's and maybe add from there. were the dimmable drivers comparable in cost? i didnt even look at those.
i just keep thinking that it would be better to have lenses or a proper reflector installed. i see that you got COB holders. where did you order yours? everywhere seems to want to sell packs of 500. im not looking to hang them as christmas tree ornaments.
Ya try out the 3 CXAs and see how you like it, what current are you going to run them at? 1400mA each would be about 156w LED dissipation total from the 3 COBs and will be easy to cool. Of course you can run them higher but will sacrifice efficiency for the extra output but also will get more out of your 3 COBs so its up to you really. 1900mA would be 75w each, 225w total for another example.
Dimmable drivers generally cost more than non-dimmable especially for a quality brand of dimmable driver but I think its worth it, my next build will be all dimmable other than the reds/blue leds that will be fixed current still at a little over 600mA. Really up to you though probably not needed but its handy at times.
I got mine as a sample from newark, 3 was like $12 shipped or maybe less not sure but somewhat reasonable probably better price when buying bulk for sure.
Thanks they buds arent all that big but nice dense chunky frosty things, should be tasty.
Ya theres a few people running high wattage COB builds and it does get a little messy with all the wiring. You can tidy up the wiring by organizing the drivers out on a driver board with distribution bars for positive and negative AC input, electical junction boxes, etc and then somewhat cleanly run the wires from the drivers to the COBs by zip tieing or grouping together wires running to the same areas of the room or whatever to keep it as cleaner but ya it can be a pain on a large scale.
There are bigger COBs than the CXA3070, the CXA3590 you would only need half the number of COBs but they arent as efficient as the CXA3070s either and finding drivers to run them is generally more difficult and expensive. Also I think its best to spread the light out as much as reasonably possible. You wont cover much are effectively if you run only a few COBs at real high currents simply due to the way the light is emitted from the LEDs in a cone shape. Hence why I am going to be building a new setup with a bunch of smaller COBs to get a super even spread over my area.
You could make a few modules with multiple COBs on them using larger heatsinks and fans but that would all be custom heatsink/fan setup and more work and research if your not into that might not be the best option either.
It would kick ass and definitely work very well on a large scale just takes some planning and research to get it done.
Hey BT
your grows are impressive man, congrats!!
I been toying with the idea the get some COBs, more seen your results, but one qustion that came to my head time after time and that I never seen anyone talk about is light penetration.
With HPS the rule of thumb is that a 400w has a light penetration of 40cm (in reality always a bit less), 600W 60cm and so on.
How will you say is the penetration with the CXA3070??
In other words how big plants could you grow, where the lower buds still been relevant and not just some fluffy small nuggest?
thanks a lot in advance!!!
your grows are impressive man, congrats!!
I been toying with the idea the get some COBs, more seen your results, but one qustion that came to my head time after time and that I never seen anyone talk about is light penetration.
With HPS the rule of thumb is that a 400w has a light penetration of 40cm (in reality always a bit less), 600W 60cm and so on.
How will you say is the penetration with the CXA3070??
In other words how big plants could you grow, where the lower buds still been relevant and not just some fluffy small nuggest?
thanks a lot in advance!!!
Im not really sure to compare since I have never used a 600 HPS, highest wattage Ive used was one grow 400HPS and my first harvest ever years ago was with a 400MH. Id say the penetration is pretty comparable to a 400HPS.
My buds below the main cola are almost always smaller popcorn buds whether I grow with HPS or these LEDs. The LEDs seem to make denser buds in my experience anyway, they dont look quite as big as my HPS buds but they are always heavier than they look since switching to LED I have noticed.
If you were to run reflectors on the COBs you could increase the penetration at the expenditure of some light spread. A user call Positivity on RIU grew a few runs with reflectors on his CXA3070s and stated the penetration was noticeably stronger with them installed since it narrows the beam down it concentrates the light in that area more and adds some more "throw" to the light beam (cone) being emitted.
Thats the best answer I can give you really.
If I could run a large enough exhaust to cool a 400 or 600 without having stealth issues I would probably just do that myself, much easier and way cheaper to buy than to build an LED fixture for the same area. Ive gotten into the LEDs in an attempt to max out the amount of light I can run in my area with a small exhaust fan of only 80cfm rating. So I focused on efficiency to some extent in order to get more light in my area and less heat from the lighting system so it is more manageable (actually easy to cool) even with such a small exhaust fan. The efficiency and output is leaps and bounds above that of the 150HPS I was using so it was very effective option in my case.
That being said if you still want to build an LED setup, you could build it more efficient than a large HPS, 600HPS or 1000HPS (which are the most efficient of the HPS's) its just going to cost a fairly substantial amount to buy the components to build a fixture that will achieve that but I have seen other members on RIU running 400-1000+ watts of CXA3070s with excellent results of 1GPW plus pretty easily.
Although on a second thought I did forget to mention though that with a well chosen setup you can really get higher PAR per watt in addition to the increase in efficiency of the light system with LED vs standard and even some fancy HID bulbs. There is a pretty good amount of different Kelvin rating white COBs and then you can really tailor the spectrum to your liking with well chosen monochromes to boost certain wavelengths.
So you can actually get a double wammy on HID bulbs if you build your fixture more efficient electrically than a large HID but also the efficiency of the spectrum you design or use can be considerably higher if well chosen.
If that makes sense to anyone.
So yeah in my opinion, its worth it if you dont mind spending some pretty significant cash up front to buy all the components for a larger setup and dont mind too much the DIY part and having a few (or a lot) of wires to route through your grow. Also keep in mind the up front cost will pay off over time, if your LEDs are kept nice and cool (properly heatsinked) they will lose less lumens or output over time (degradation) and also will run for many years where you would be replacing quite a few HID bulbs during that time for lumen maintenance or burning out (if anyone lets there bulbs go that far...).
So you can actually get a double wammy on HID bulbs if you build your fixture more efficient electrically than a large HID but also the efficiency of the spectrum you design or use can be considerably higher if well chosen.
If that makes sense to anyone.
So yeah in my opinion, its worth it if you dont mind spending some pretty significant cash up front to buy all the components for a larger setup and dont mind too much the DIY part and having a few (or a lot) of wires to route through your grow. Also keep in mind the up front cost will pay off over time, if your LEDs are kept nice and cool (properly heatsinked) they will lose less lumens or output over time (degradation) and also will run for many years where you would be replacing quite a few HID bulbs during that time for lumen maintenance or burning out (if anyone lets there bulbs go that far...).
thanks for the anwsers Bueno, and yes they make a lot fo sense...
I think I will wait until Cree release some new COBs and the 3070s came down in price, because the whole budge to change my current set up is just plain silly, having already invest in a digital ballast and a good reflector.
anyhow, COBs seen like the future to me, as I have to change my bulb once a year (4 grows) but with COBs, could be easily 4 years or more, plus the whole spectrum side of things...
thanks a lot for all the info man, apreciated!!
PS. only for curiosity, how height are normally your plants by chopping time? (or what you aim them to be?)
I think I will wait until Cree release some new COBs and the 3070s came down in price, because the whole budge to change my current set up is just plain silly, having already invest in a digital ballast and a good reflector.
anyhow, COBs seen like the future to me, as I have to change my bulb once a year (4 grows) but with COBs, could be easily 4 years or more, plus the whole spectrum side of things...
thanks a lot for all the info man, apreciated!!
PS. only for curiosity, how height are normally your plants by chopping time? (or what you aim them to be?)
I hear you man its damn expensive to build a really quality LED setup, probably not a bad idea at all to wait it out a bit.
I would like for them to have stayed a bit shorter this run but generally try to keep them maybe 2ft tall from soil surface with multiple tops sometimes less even but these ladies are taller the shortest is 3ft tall and the tallest is closer to 4ft on the top most bud that stretched up further than the others. They got stretchy on me but I was running the red LEDs too during stretch so that could have been part of the reason. Plus from what I have seen Chem and GSC seem fairly stretchy between nodes.
