Mad's DIY LED PC Grow #1

[MadR1]

I'm at least pretty confident about the safety of my second light. The driver says right on it 7-12x3w.

Anyhow, let this thread be a lesson to others who wrongfully think just cause they are only 1-10w LED's, that it's that much safer than building a diy COB array without the proper electronics background.

Lucky for me I spent my first $200 or so on breadboards, resistors and such a while back when I wanted to learn electronics to make Synths. After making an Atari Punk console I had no idea what to do next. I have a volt meter, Arduino, Raspberry Pi's, etc. all collecting dust. Now I got a reason to want to learn electronics again. Glad I saved all that junk after all. Still to broke to buy solder anyhow cause I called out sick at my day job in retail for a week. Cool!

I was DUMB! But at least I wasn't as dumb as that Ben Franklin guy with that whole kite and key in a lightning storm experiment. What was he thinking? Hehehe

 

[MadR1]

The answer to keeping my interest then, is to also study about LEDs, while learning about Ohms law and how it all really works. I can learn about it without wiring anything up.

Quiz #1, you can post the answer, I won't look.

Of these two drivers pictured which is constant current, and which is constant voltage? Also, what is the forward voltage, and requirements of all of the LED's I own. (So I can label the ziplock bags where I keep them)

 

[MadR1]

This part of the meter business is confusing to me. "Always use the black test lead on the common output"?

To test the AC, the load would go plugged into the V spot with the red (meter plug), neutral would go plugged into the COM spot? Like poking a monster with chopsticks.

 

[MadR1]

The load is the black one, small plug, the load is the black one, small plug, the load is the black one, small plug, gravity is my friend I am one with gravity!

 

[MadR1]

Alright, I'll unplug my two "experimental" lights. I can't yet determine if they are constant current or voltage variety. Don't want any Thermal Runaway. Even though the drivers are not getting hot, might be lessening the life of the LED's, wasting electricity, maybe it could take a lot more time than a couple days to fry them and cause a fire hazard... I'll replace the driver for the 3rd light with the gold colored driver I posted about earlier. That is correctly suited for those LED's. I have 2 of those drivers.

If it's not enough light to flower, perhaps it will still be a nice seedling area.

Peace, and thanks again for the help!

 

[MadR1]

More fun stuff finally arriving from China. Someday this will be a fun hobby. I. The meantime I think I'll hang these on the wall as art.

 

[ReikoX]

The answer to keeping my interest then, is to also study about LEDs, while learning about Ohms law and how it all really works. I can learn about it without wiring anything up.

Quiz #1, you can post the answer, I won't look.

Of these two drivers pictured which is constant current, and which is constant voltage? Also, what is the forward voltage, and requirements of all of the LED's I own. (So I can label the ziplock bags where I keep them)

The top one is a constant current driver, it can run 7-12 3W diodes is series. And it is dimmable, so you can adjust the current from 1-680 mA. That's one I would use. It has protection so should be fairly safe.

The second one looks like a constant voltage driver (12 volts) and produces 830mA current. I wouldn't use that one for LEDs, though I would use it for 12v fans.

 

[MadR1]

Thanks again! I knew the answer of course, but helps my review and learning process. Oops I built another light. I got another one of those constant current drivers in the mail, says how many 3ws it can run. Changed the driver on my evening light to one that also came in the mail with clear specs, constant current rated for 3w's. Not trying anything new or creative, following a Instructionals. Done making lights for now. On with the growing!

3 different lights each on there its own timer.

Daytime, my brightest light, should be 60w's included in title. Daytime has 1/2hr overlap into morn and eve, so really that's 11hrs... The creative aspect of this grow.

See the picture for the breakdown.

 

[MadR1]

24w Morning light is 8 3w's. 6 Deep red, 2 blue.

 

[MadR1]

60w Daytime light is 20 x 3w's. A mix of Warm White, Full Spectrum, Green, Blue, and one UV. It has two drivers. One is powering 9, the other one 11.

 

[MadR1]

27w Evening light is 9 x 3w's. 5 Red, 2 blue, 1 Royal Blue, and one IR.

 

[MadR1]

Regarding my DIY LED's for my regular grow tent and veg area, much less experimental. I followed YouTube vids for these ones.

I call this flower Snowball, last pic. She is with seed, how I usually prefer. Heavy Indica dom, real munchies right away kinda smoke. I am for sure small time. Don't slang or bang, just like, to smoke that beautiful thang!

 

[MadR1]

My full day sun light is the most photogenic thanks to the warm white. I should have put a cool white also? Don't have any of those. Oops, this is with morning as well still...

Watered plants yesterday, they haven't fallen over.

Someone invent a miny Roomba thing to move the plants around in there!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

This part of the meter business is confusing to me. "Always use the black test lead on the common output"?

To test the AC, the load would go plugged into the V spot with the red (meter plug), neutral would go plugged into the COM spot? Like poking a monster with chopsticks.

that is correct and turn your dial to the red voltage settings on the right hand ride for ac, the black settings are dc, just remember when using a non auto-sensing meter always initially read at a high setting so say if reading voltage start high then switch it lower till you get your reading range, you do this to prevent frying your meter.

Also That meter is pretty limited as it has no current measuring ability.

Which brings up a recommendation, pick up a uni-t ut136b meter when you can, there probably your best bang for the buck on the cheap end and will cover everything you will need to do for years.

Of these two drivers pictured which is constant current, and which is constant voltage? Also, what is the forward voltage, and requirements of all of the LED's I own. (So I can label the ziplock bags where I keep them)

ReikoX is correct, or at least by what i quickly looked up.

As for the LED's no idea need to have part numbers which you can then find the specs for to work out.


Now saying that even though it can be done and you have with your "newest" lights, you may not know but even though they "china" may say its a 3w led it will only run at that wattage with a certain current and voltage aka VoltagexAmperage=Watts, but typically you dont want to as one leds are more efficient when underdriven, and two the cheap chinese "star" 3w chips wont last very long at there specified 3w output.

So dont rely on the wattage rating to build a circuit, you need to work out the current draw and voltage draw to do it properly, also here's another thing you probably don't know each color of led will want to run at its own voltage due to how they are made where as an example your blue or white leds will have a forward voltage is in the 3.2 ish range where as say a red is down in the 2.2ish area, which is typically why people separate out there different colors into separate circuits, just so chips aren't passing more voltage or current than they need to aka "longevity".

So for the wattage calculations say for just example sake your running things at 500ma, a blue or white led will only be running at 1.6w (3.2v x 0.5a = 1.6W) but your red running at the same current will be 1.1w (2.2v x 0.5a = 1.1w) so your wattage does't just add up 3+3+3+3 its a bit more to it than that, not to mention you also will have some ballast/driver loss

Now the issue i was bringing up before is say was when running a circuit at a specified voltage or current the issue becomes if you dont know what its doing it can lead to issues, as for example with led's as your increase their drive current their required voltage also goes up and or visa-versa, so if say your circuit is running at specified current and your driver is a constant voltage driver but due to the current of that circuit your leds want more voltage than what the driver is regulating that will cause the driver to start fighting the circuit and can lead to heat/burn up issues. Same goes for feeding too much current through a circuit your leds won't handle it and burn out or will prematurely fail due to them being over driven.

So its just helpful to know what your circuit actually is doing to having things work properly.

Now side note im no expert in the whole lighting theory aspect especially on the absolute latest stuff, but why all the different color chips ? the more modern convention is your whites will cover most all of the rest of the spectrum that you cant get with say your deep reds and blue leds, and typically you will have more than enough blue coming from your white chips to supply the blue side anyways as white chips are actually just blue chips with a phosphor coating which allows a bunch of that base blue wavelength to come through anyways.

Also industry wise White are typically your most efficient chips, due to that where the money is at as far as the general retail and commercial application are, so typically it more effective and efficient just to run whites augments with some reds than it is to run a whole bunch of different leds it there own specified wavelengths and then to try and add them together to fit our plants chlorophyll absorption spectrum but i'm definitely not a expert when it comes to all that, just something to consider and maybe read up a bit on.

 

[MadR1]

Thanks for all the info. White? 5000k?

Leave it to me to try to grow different than most folks. Was trying to create a moving sunlight-ish setup. Rotating planets, the atmosphere, stuff I'm trying to simulate on a very small scale for an unusual experiment. Though I have heard of other growers using more than one grow light in a moving pattern for bloom.

This is my first time trying it with a 18hr veg setup. Hope they don't think it's time to flower yet. Seems my latest herbs from grow tent taste better than usual, was hoping it was cause of all the multicolored 1w-3w bulbs, or the 3 lights on diff timers setup. Trying to re-create that success on a smaller scale with more control over the 3 spectrums. When I used to grow with HPS I always had light well above average grower. Less mass in the end, not as tight of flowers, but a way better flavor. These LED's are closer than in my tent grow, but they are way less watts. Time will tell.

 

[MadR1]

Plus I like the idea of cutting down on heat and power by having the full day sun one be on for less than 12hrs, 8 maybe.

 

[MadR1]

In a Borat accent - "Plus with my lights you get the cool disco colors that the ladies like, yes?"

 

[MadR1]

My lack of knowledge about spectrum, lumens, and photosynthesis aside, I made one big mistake with this I only thought of recently.

A PC case is not well suited for such an experiment. Since the goal is to fill the case with flowers, having a smaller light footprint than the floor is impractical.

Perhaps I will turn on all the lights and point them down for 12/12.

I put the two smallest plants into my regular veg area. I expect them to catch up and surpass these 3 cause of the greater wealth of usable lumens.

Hope people can learn from my mistakes or maybe have some great insight. If I was to do it over maybe I would do something like 6 30w chips with a checker pattern, 3 on only for a half hour at a time alternating. To get the coverage of 180w's with only 90w's of heat at a time.

Peace!

 

[Rageous8899]

Ive used both meanwell drivers and cheap china made stuff. Havent been able to tell a difference. Aside from only having one photo red fail, and that was on a meanwell driver.
Thats my xml2 "power bar" lol. It has a somewhat blurple hue without the 3590s
[/url
These are 3590s cxb by cree. I placed one on a sweet diamond audio car amp that was blown out. Powered by one of the drivers i got from a china made crap cob system. 50w@1200 ma.40-60volts so i put 6 cree xpe on there to use the lost volts. The other is on an arctic 11 alpine but powered by china made 50w@1200ma driver. Almost a copy of buenogrows setup. Im not an expert but i can say this..chinas stuff as far as drivers has performed just as well if not better than the meanwell stuff had this system for well over a year and had the one photo red fail on the ppwer bar. Powered by meanwell. Just experimenting for yourself will surprise you after readimg so called customer reviewCheck out my albums and if you have any questions hmu brother.Good luck and keep growing] [url='https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=73679&pictureid=1782641']

 

[MadR1]

Thanks for the info on your setup. Some of the 3w chips I got are Bridgelux brand, others generic.

Seems like DIY and China Store bought LED systems, would both benefit from a safety override system in the event that the fan stops working. What would be the simplest way to build such a thing? Or comparative product? Some sensor I can buy for my Arduino, and relay switch?

In the meantime, I've been getting into the habit of checking my fans daily with my hands.