Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

[PCBuds]

I just wanted to remind you guys/gals that this thread is DOPE... i go back and re read it from the beginning sometimes. Reminds me why I subbed!!

I got to page 150 then skipped to the end. Lol

I re read page 1 all the time.

Thanks again blynx.

 

[ScrogMonster]

I don't know if you cut away that white "ceramic" looking stuff but I don't think you should.
That looks like a low-resistance high watt resistor. That ceramic stuff is a heat sink.
Try putting just a dab of silicone on the exposed metal and allow the heat sink to breathe.
Covering them up completely seals in the heat.

[URL=https://i.postimg.cc/R03rdYYh/20191021-160916.jpg]View Image[/url]

Hey PCbuds - I just snip the approximately centimeter long metal prongs that stick out down to as close to flush as possible, is snipping those prongs not good for the bulb some how? I don’t really need to put as much silicone on as I do if that is trapping heat in the bulb...but snipping the extra centimeter off makes insulating the “live” metal much easier and if I left them whole and covered them it might only just be more of eyesore but I’m telling myself I’m blocking a lumen or two as well. Here is a side by side picture with a untreated bulb or forearm taser lol and one that I snipped and put less silicone on.

 

[PCBuds]

I soldered in wires to 5 LEDs and managed to get two to lite but no more.

The voltage was reading 5.2 V for two series LEDs.



I thought I'd try my car battery charger that puts out 13.8 V to see if I could get more segments lit but then I could only get one to go.



I don't get it. Maybe it's the RMS thing that f-e mentioned ?


I'm going to have to research LED drivers.

 

[PCBuds]

Hey PCbuds - I just snip the approximately centimeter long metal prongs that stick out down to as close to flush as possible, is snipping those prongs not good for the bulb some how?

I doubt it. I think the prongs are just part of the manufacturing or testing process.

I think it's a sign that you have quality bulbs.

 

[PCBuds]

... Here is a side by side picture with a untreated bulb or forearm taser lol and one that I snipped and put less silicone on.

View Image

Yea, that looks pretty good to me.

And remember, you can get this stuff.
It's white and conducts heat.

 

[f-e]

94v-0 is a UL circuit board classification, regarding it's thermal characteristics.

If your 18 leds were in series, something like a 54v driver would be typical. The fancy pants driver onboard, takes the half wave voltage, and without smoothing, applies the voltage to the leds. As the voltage waveform rises, so does the current. The chip watches the voltage over a resistor to determine the current flowing. When the current so almost to great, the power is disconnected. The waveform carries on rising, peaks, drops, and the leds are again connected. This gives you about 60 flashes a second.

It doesn't look like the leds are all in series, so a fixed external supply won't be simply soldered on.


You're perhaps thinking, that 3 of the 54v $5 cobs could be run in series off your rectified mains. They could, but you would get a power spike one day that killed them. An improvement is to add current limitation, such as a simple switching regulator to pull the power as current rises too high. HGL just started using such a design, but it's very noisy in the radio spectrum. Lots of filters and protection are needed, and just like HGL, you probably wouldn't get it right. It's more effort than any other part of a lighting build. Requiring a lot of test and measurement gear. They simply didn't bother.

I'm not sure it's worth building drivers. The one's in our domestic lamps are fine. Meanwell are fine. Osram. Others... but not the $10 ebay stuff. They can get it right, but nearly always omit the filter stages in favour of cost saving.

By all means have a go, it's interesting in a rather geeky way. You won't improve upon the store version though. There is nothing wrong with it.

 

[PCBuds]

I did some reading and found that LEDs can either be constant voltage-driven or constant current-driven.

If it's constant voltage-driven it needs to have a current limiter so the power doesn't get out of control.
The limiter in its simplest form is just a resistor but that resistor gets hot and wastes energy.

I found a switchable power supply and tried to lite an LED segment.

It wouldn't lite at 6 V or less but just started to glow at 7.5 V.



Then at 9V.



Then at 12 V (which was actually 13.18 V).




I decided to let it run at 13.18 V for about 5 minutes to see if that "thermal runaway" would happen but it didn't.

The metal heat sink got pretty hot from just that one segment but it didn't burn out.

I noticed that it wasn't flashing like the SIL's do. It wasn't interfering with my camera.

 

[PCBuds]

The segment did start to look a little cooked but I figure just dial the voltage back a bit.

 

[PCBuds]

It doesn't look like the leds are all in series, so a fixed external supply won't be simply soldered on.

They're not. I've got 8 in series and 5 in series then 3 then 2.
Kinda strange. You'd think it would be an even balance.

I'm not sure it's worth building drivers. The one's in our domestic lamps are fine. Meanwell are fine. Osram. Others... but not the $10 ebay stuff. They can get it right, but nearly always omit the filter stages in favour of cost saving.

I agree, but if you can run LEDs off straight DC then you don't even need a driver.
Maybe just don't crank the voltage up too high?

By all means have a go, it's interesting in a rather geeky way. You won't improve upon the store version though. There is nothing wrong with it.

I guess the only way to try to make it practical is to get some plain strip LEDs and try to get them running in parallel with ~12V without a driver.
That way you could use an automotive battery charger as a "driver" and keep it (and its heat) outside of the cab or tent.

I tried to unsolder an LED chip from the board but I just started melting the plastic.

The board would have to be cut between the segments to hook up the chips in parallel.
(I'm not about to do that)

I'd rather work with 12V. Anything above about 50V starts to sting. Lol

It was just an experiment I don't think I'll take it too much further.
Maybe when my power supply comes I'll hook up a few segments and run it for a few hours with a heat sink and see what happens.

 

[ScrogMonster]

Here’s a couple of harvest shots of the 10week supposedly Sour Dog. A group cola hanging shoot and a couple close ups. I’m actually losing like half of this plant to russet mites. I sprayed with Lost Coast Plant Therapy, but not consistently enough I guess. Glass is half full I suppose, I wonder if the mites would have all of it if I didn’t spray anything. I know this is off topic but if someone has an organic secret recipe for russet mite extermination, lemme know eh?

Nice big chunky buds. Bulbs were from around 4” to about 7” away from the tops of the colas. This is the upstairs plant from my picture earlier showing the two tiers.

 

[piramidon]

Bud produced under off the shelf SIL is not off topic imho and neither it's issues.

 

[ScrogMonster]

Bud produced under off the shelf SIL is not off topic imho and neither it's issues.

Oh sweet thx, I actually lost like 80% of the crop to these bastards. it was so sad throwing away massive colas that were all brown, mite sucked and ugly. I battles them with Bayer 4bid in the past and although the shit works I don't wanna have to use chemicals I'm scared to touch any more. Interesting though is that the GG #4 under it seemed to not have a single mite. Same thing happened with my Big Smooth and Lemon Mirange grow I harvested a month before this one. The more Sativa LM had a rough go with the mites although I didn't spray anything on it after flowers appeared and I only lost like 10% of that one and still had 9oz of good bud off of it. But the Indica looking Big Smooth on the bottom seemed to either not have a single mite or to be totally unaffected. I'm guessing some strains, maybe quicker flowering more resinous strains? Thicker celled strains? Have a natural resistance to mites? This Sour Dog took untill week 7 or 8 to start looking frosty where as GG well wk 3 probably was sticky already. Thoughts any one?

 

[PCBuds]

There are SILs that have the driver on a separate board than the LEDs, these would probably be easier for you to work with than worrying about soldering directly to the LED channel.

While it can be fun to play with these sort of electronics, it’s really a waste of resources. Not just the components, but the time, energy, and R&D. In the end you’re still going to be more inefficient and probably more expensive than just buying the LED bars. I don’t have any personal experience with this type of build, but there is tons of info out there. The light bars are significantly more efficient (like 30-50 lm/w better) than the SILs, but they’re also not a “turn key” design.

View Image

I took your advice and bought these.



They're a bit more efficient than the SILs and they're only 20¢ a piece so I can afford to blow them up. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

I found some parts to make a rectifier circuit.





Then I ordered a voltage/current limiter.




I'm going old school.
Now all I need to do is find is a flux capacitor, but they were only available on first edition DeLorean's. Lol




My white widow is doing pretty good.

She went into flower Sept. 24.

 

[ScrogMonster]

My white widow is doing pretty good.

She went into flower Sept. 24.

She looks great! SIP? I’m trying to find a good way to do that with out raising the plants up to much with my limited head space.

Why don’t you take the globes off of those bulbs? Trading the lost lumens for convenience?

 

[ScrogMonster]

Try

Search for mainlining vs manifold..should be 1st or 2nd search results.. Mainlining is good for seeds..manifolding for clones.. Coco for cannabis has a good article there too. Great for diy led Canopy training.

I’m gonna be doing 3 plants per shelf, 6 plants per tent for my perpetual cycles in these two tents. One tent per month. Eight week strains only. I’ve been trying to pretty much mainline for 24 colas per plant for 72 even tops per 2ft x 4ft canopy but only one of my six veg plants is up to 24 top growths. I’m sort of freestyle mainlining, I’ll probably still use modular trellises to even out the canopy.

This is the biggest one, it’s a GG cut. This is it with 24 Growths at the top and 12 days left to lollipop those. I just topped like 5 of the biggest branches to bring it up to 24 growths.

Here is a close up of one branch of that plant that I just topped.

Group photo!! That GG is in the back all the way on the right, it was way taller then the rest I had to tie down every branch. In front of that is another GG to the left of that is A Tangelo and the other three are all Bubblegum. I got the bubble gum cut from my besties back yard, just helped him take that girl down and she did smell like sweet yummy bubble gum buds mm hmm.

 

[PCBuds]

She looks great! SIP? I’m trying to find a good way to do that with out raising the plants up to much with my limited head space.

I tried to keep my plant short using lighting.

Why don’t you take the globes off of those bulbs? Trading the lost lumens for convenience?

I took the globes off the top ones.



I didn't want any leaves touching my circuits and zapping my plant or starting a fire.

Plus this...
The globes only waste a few % efficiency.

And this...

One thing to note. The LEDs are more directed. So while the cone below the light is brighter than it would be for a CFL, a CFL does put it's light out evenly all around the bulb. So plants can grow up next to and above a CFL and still get a lot of light. Using these lights, if a plant grew next to and above the LEDs, the plant would not get very much light.

More comparisons coming.

 

[PCBuds]

My previous plant grew to the ceiling and I had to top it.

I thought I'd try to keep my plant short with lots of light including side lighting.

This is the progression of my lighting.

I didn't I think it would work so well so now my plant is too short. LOL

This is how I started.



Then I went to this.



Then this.



Then this because it just wouldn't grow (not vertically anyway)

 

[PCBuds]

It finally hit 19 1/2" at 7 1/2 weeks and I flipped the lights to 12/12 and fired up the 160 watt fluorescent light. (Two warm "grow" bulbs and two daylight).





Then I screwed all the bulbs in. (I kinda gave up on trying to get her to stretch)



This is where I'm at today.

 

[ScrogMonster]

PC buds - I love the plant surrounded by light like that and having done flouros and all the diff spectrum too. Sweet lil set up you got there. Makes me want to do little SOG with the globes on against the wall just for novelty of it and have them grow contained in like a large flat maybe 7 or 8 inch deep shelves, like a full wall of them.