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LED Lab 2009

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rambam

Member
Performance-wise, someone else will have to comment, but as I mentioned above, Prosource will give you the UFO for either 25-30% off (if you're doing a journal) or 50% off (if your journal compares their product head-to-head with competitor).
 
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bf74

Member
rambam said:
Performance-wise, someone else will have to comment, but as I mentioned above, Prosource will give you the UFO for either 25-30% off (if you're doing a journal) or 50% off (if your journal compares their product head-to-head with competitor).
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I love my illuminators-heres day 15 flower, all plants vegged for 20 days.Prosource is not a bad company at all.
 
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bf74

Member
Desert Dan said:
bf74,

What specific lamp are you using???
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I have 2 90w prosource illuminators-tri band spectrum- 4x 45w glow panels-only really useful for side lighting, I have them surrounding the perimeter- I also have 4x 12w cree white led fixtures-these suckers are heavy-5000k spectrum.After alot of putzing around I've found this to be my most productive led system.
 
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Goofball7

New member
Weezard said:
...and Weezard; :bow:
About your 4 Red: 1 Blue setup; What area does it cover, and are you using the 445-470nm LedEngins? I'm thinking maybe 25W over 0.7 sqft is too much.

Apples n oranges, brah.
 I use the 15W ledengins
 My 4-1 is in a 1.5' X 2' tent for 3 sq.ft.
 But, it's a nominal 75 Watts.
I run 'em at about 59 Watts as that lets my fan cycle off and on.
I hang it from a single, central chain.
 When the fan kicks on, the light torques about a half turn, then swings back.
Shadows shift and all the leaves get their share of the light.
 I call it my redneck light mover.
 If I were doing a grow your size, I'd go with option number 2. , and add 1. 5W 730nm. led on a "short" timer.
Aloha,
 Weezard
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knna said:
If you are looking for an efficient setup with easy heat management, at the current state of art of LED and its price/perfomance, go hybrid is the way to go.

CFLs provides light on the full PAR range, that possible eliminates problems due to the lack of a certain wavelenght, and do it for cheap. Then adding RED leds, that are the cheaper ones and runs on the lower forward voltage, thus they are by far the cheapest LED alternative, enhances the spectrum efficacy and increase the average energy efficiency of the setup.

IMO, its the easiest, simpler and cheaper solution currently on small grow cabs.

Type S CFLs are too low power ones to use them for growing, IMHO. On the same shape, you have the type L, that offers more power, radiant intensity and way higher energy efficiency. 36W ones are 17" long, so there is little space where you cant use them

Of course, using white LEDs, or white and blue LEDs instead of the CFLs, would result on higher energy efficiency, so you can use less watts. If stealthness is esential, and/or heat dissipation difficult, I would use LEDs instead of CFLs. Otherwise, CFLs are still cheaper on the long run.

White LedEngin's LED havent good specs at all. There are currently cheaper and more reputated white LEDs on sale for cheaper. While they offer some options than arnt avalaible at other brands, as high power deep red and far red, on conventional colors I dont think LEDEngin's LEDs are a good choice.

Be carefull to not confuse "nominal watts", the name of the product, "3Watts", "5 Watts", etc, with the actual power being burned.

On the LED industry, ratings for 1Watt LEDs refers to those running at 350mA, 3W for those running at 700mA, 5W for 1A. It results on red LED of those categories running at 0,8W ("1W"), 1,8W ("3W") and 3W ("5W").

InGab LEDs (blue, white) burns power more close to the nominal rating, but still below it. For example, those "5W" white LEDEngings burns 3.6W on average.

You can get the actual power consuption of a given LED multiplying its Vf (forward voltage) by its If (forward current.

For a 0.7sq ft setup (what height?), you need very little power. True 25W is a very good figure for that space.
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Thank you for your replys. I'm very sorry for throwing a question out like that and not being able to answer for a month.
I'm surprised how much nominal and rated watts differ. So now I know why it's called "rated watts." Doh, haha.


Anyways, I'm back on track. My space is approx. 33x18x42cm (L x W x H) and heat is the issue. I'd prefer not to go over 30 watts total.

I won't pay over 90-100€ for the light, and I've found a cheap driver that I could max out running two parallel lines of "osram golden dragon plus" leds (if I'm right about how the driver works)

Here's what its' spec. say
The LED driver contains one channel supplying a constant current of 700mA, so extra resistors for 3W power LEDs are not needed. Minimum 4pcs up to maximum 8pcs of 3 Watt power leds (Luxeon, Prolight) can be connected in serial to output.
The number of LEDs depends on their forward voltages. The sum of the forward voltages must be at least between 15V and 36V maximum.
The LED driver is protected against overheating, short circuit and surge.
Power supply: 220-240V
Output current: 700mA
Output voltage: 15V...36V (see text)
Size: 140mms x 45mms x 28mms
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When this driver does its best, it will put out 0.700A * 36V = 25.2W. I know it's probably not the best idea to push the driver too hard, but say I'd let it run 23-24W of leds, would that be too much?

What makes me confused is that Prolight 3W 625nm leds have a forward voltage of 2.2V. They say max eight 3W leds, but 16 red 3W add up to almost exactly 36Vf. :puppydoge
EDIT: I spoke with customer service and they confirmed that running 16*2,2V is okay.


Also, I could go with seven 5W 660nm, and two 5W 455-470nm ledengins, all run at 900mA. I believe the osrams would do a lot better though.

The challenge is mostly about matching an efficient driver with available leds.

Getting late.
Peace
 
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Goofball7

New member
Flashlight reflectors

Flashlight reflectors

Another thing came to me. I think flashlight reflectors could be useful for those who don't want to pay 1-3€ for lenses or reflectors. Or maybe I just haven't found the cheap ones yet?
 
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LeoRexTyrannus

Member
BF those plants look like they're doing nicely.

I am of the mindset that LED like you're using with a small supplemental pulse start metal halide would fix any time issues you have.

Keep up the good work guys.
 
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bf74

Member
LeoRexTyrannus said:
BF those plants look like they're doing nicely.

I am of the mindset that LED like you're using with a small supplemental pulse start metal halide would fix any time issues you have.

Keep up the good work guys.
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Just the man I need to talk to! I've been toying with the idea of running a 250 watt mh for 4 hours in the middle of the 12/12 lights on cycle-like I'm doing now with the uvb- I was gonna give it a try after this grow-thoughts? I got a hortilux eye-mh bulb thats just begging to be used.But I'm at day 17 of 12/12 now and pistils are forming nicely-I think, but I cant prove, the combo of the white led fixtures and the 52w of uvb are def helping the ever present timing issues.
 
knna

knna

Member
Hmmm, bf74, those pics you posted yesterday let me thinking.

I dont remember right now, but I was on the idea you were using enough light and a good spectrum. May you refresh me/us about the setup? I cant find a reasonable answer to the flowering delay.

On the spanish forum, all the growers using enough light are getting flowering times equal at most, and some of them, shorter, than under HPSs. From the two groups, one with the blue+orange+red and the other with blue+white+red LEDs.

Those using high light densities are getting faster flowering induction than under HPSs:

Ecelkus (his journal), 37 days of flowering photoperiod. 200w on 0.45m2:
http://img529.imageshack.us/i/12072009129.jpg/

Flo (journal), 46 days of flowering. 100w on 0.36m2:
attachment.php


MrX (journal), 63 days of flowering, just before harvest (same clones 3 days more under HPSs). 240W:

5copia.jpg


So as I believe your spectrum distribution is similar to that of Flo, I can only think on the amount of light (not of watts burned) as responsible for the delay. But I think you were using enough light; the size of the buds says it wasnt very high, but enough. Im confused :confused:
 
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bf74

Member
knna said:
Hmmm, bf74, those pics you posted yesterday let me thinking.

I dont remember right now, but I was on the idea you were using enough light and a good spectrum. May you refresh me/us about the setup? I cant find a reasonable answer to the flowering delay.

On the spanish forum, all the growers using enough light are getting flowering times equal at most, and some of them, shorter, than under HPSs. From the two groups, one with the blue+orange+red and the other with blue+white+red LEDs.

Those using high light densities are getting faster flowering induction than under HPSs:

Ecelkus (his journal), 37 days of flowering photoperiod. 200w on 0.45m2:
http://img529.imageshack.us/i/12072009129.jpg/

Flo (journal), 46 days of flowering. 100w on 0.36m2:
attachment.php


MrX (journal), 63 days of flowering, just before harvest (same clones 3 days more under HPSs). 240W:

5copia.jpg


So as I believe your spectrum distribution is similar to that of Flo, I can only think on the amount of light (not of watts burned) as responsible for the delay. But I think you were using enough light; the size of the buds says it wasnt very high, but enough. Im confused :confused:
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Sounds like it.I'm only on day 17 of 12/12, and I'm growing in soil-hmm, things appear to be going as usual.Remember I had them under veg for 20 days-so the roots had to fill out those nice big pots I transplanted them in.The pistils are def forming tho-I just need a better camera.
 
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bf74

Member
I tell ya Knna-those are some primo grows there.I speak a little Spanish, so if theres a link to these grows I'd really appreciate it.Thanks bro
 
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unthing

Those are indeed great looking grows. The short flowering time is great too.

Bf-the links to the journals are above the pictures.
 
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