Cree DIY COB LED? Why do people use white lights?

[Atulip]

While this has been an interesting read, I really did not learn much about what the thread was posted as. "Why use white light" I see a benefit of being able to do plant maintenance without having to turn your lights off or to take photos, but other then that I can not really see any other reason to grow with them. I keep hearing about what great penetration they have but in all honesty, I look at the grow journals of people using them and the plants look no better or worse then one growing under a Mars or any other LED. I must be missing something.

More light, less watts than a Mars. We're getting 2-2.5+umol/j in the DIY(and some commercial) cob world. Mars hydro is half that maybe?

Green aides in penetration and lower plant health, unless you still buy the plants don't use green light thing. Other than that, more light, more penetration. If you missed the early post I addressed the wonderful spectrum under these White light cobs.

 

[Mars Hydro]

You guys can check on our Mars Pro II series : Mars Pro
Designed for those whom must have the absolute highest quality harvest possible, the Mars Pro Series provides superior output while offering precise control.The Patented Spectra Reflector System collects and fuses 100% of the light emitted from the LED chips.

 

[Kriaze]

I would really like to try a DIY build (I will be trying this myself) I'm impressed with some single COB prebuilt systems that I'm currently using but the price although fair is prohibitive in comparison to these DIY lights. I've been watching GrowMau on the tube and have been reading some other forums where building your own is the norm.

I've used CFL, HPS, Mars old type, Mars reflectors (I have a real dislike of these, but mine are the old 3 watt type) and the Mars II 1600w. Apart from the reflectors I have been in the main happy with whichever lights I used but have either had problems with heat, electricity consumption or diodes burning out on me, whereas the last grow using 4 single COB lights at 60w each eliminated most of these problems and although I will probably average around only 50g a plant that's around normal for me (testing my own organic compost and changing a branch from female to male are my excuses this time lol). 240w of COB lights in the flower tent and the difference between any of my past harvests are quite indistinguishable.

The main problem I have is sourcing the parts here in the UK. I've made an order from an Australian company for 3 of the kits recommended by GrowMau but shipping is a killer, plus I've just been hit for an additional import charge too. Does anyone know of a source where these parts will either be slightly cheaper or shipping costs plus import duty are not such a problem?

Also I'm intrigued to see that people are salvaging the parts from their old Mars lights, I would be very interested in seeing what can be done. I have 2x 96x3 reflectors that I don't use plus a Mars II 1600w which has burned out diodes, my attempt at replacing one of them was terrible so I would not be averse to using those parts too. How are they working for those that have modded/upgraded them?

Apologies for the wall of text but there is actually a lot more that I would love to ask, but I think enough is enough for now

All the best everyone and may your buds be bountiful

 

[Graytail]

Have you run across Dion on another forum? There's a thread with international users and links to various distributors. Search for dion led diy.

And have you seen what Citizen has been doing? Great prices and performance, and I think they have UK distributors - I think Budmaster uses the Citizen COBs? Their latest series nearly matches the CXB3590 for much less cost.

 

[Kriaze]

Thanks Graytail, I'll have a look for them. Excellent information and appreciated

 

[ShiggityFlip]

Super interested and reading along.

 

[jaymu86]

While this has been an interesting read, I really did not learn much about what the thread was posted as. "Why use white light" I see a benefit of being able to do plant maintenance without having to turn your lights off or to take photos, but other then that I can not really see any other reason to grow with them. I keep hearing about what great penetration they have but in all honesty, I look at the grow journals of people using them and the plants look no better or worse then one growing under a Mars or any other LED. I must be missing something.

I kno believe that over time your plants if growing generation after generation would adapt to blurple only light and would mutate good or bad I like white light cause it's what all plants evolved to

Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using 420

 

[jaymu86]

You guys can check on our Mars Pro II series : Mars Pro
Designed for those whom must have the absolute highest quality harvest possible, the Mars Pro Series provides superior output while offering precise control.The Patented Spectra Reflector System collects and fuses 100% of the light emitted from the LED chips.

It's not cob based tho Sara

More light, less watts than a Mars. We're getting 2-2.5+umol/j in the DIY(and some commercial) cob world. Mars hydro is half that maybe?

Green aides in penetration and lower plant health, unless you still buy the plants don't use green light thing. Other than that, more light, more penetration. If you missed the early post I addressed the wonderful spectrum under these White light cobs.

Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using 420

 

[Graytail]

While this has been an interesting read, I really did not learn much about what the thread was posted as. "Why use white light" I see a benefit of being able to do plant maintenance without having to turn your lights off or to take photos, but other then that I can not really see any other reason to grow with them. I keep hearing about what great penetration they have but in all honesty, I look at the grow journals of people using them and the plants look no better or worse then one growing under a Mars or any other LED. I must be missing something.

I was rereading this thread and ran across this post again ...

I tend to agree. At this point in time, it looks like the best overall light sources are the new double-ended hps and the white COB LEDs. But it's not like I see much difference from grow to grow, at least nothing that's obviously due to the light source. People hardly ever have enough control over their environment or strain to make good comparisons from lamp to lamp.

And cost is a factor.

But here's something to mull over. I've gotten enough into the whole DIY COB thing to do some of the efficiency math - Lumens/watt - ppfd - Par watts - and I have a design for a grid with COBs on 10 inch centers, 30 in all. I was planning to use Vero18s, but I discovered the Citizen1212s which are much more efficient at the same cost. The Veros would run at 30 watts each at 127 Lumens/watt. The Citizens run at 23 watts and 162 Lumens/watt.

That means roughly the same lumen output at less than 80% of the power. I'll be running 710 watts instead of 917 watts. Same output.

That's a significant difference in every way - less heat, less monthly cost. So the difference between a great hps with a great reflector, and an array of COBs across the sky is clear. The COBs win. But the COBs will cost a minimum of $1200 DIY today and a 1000de Gavita ready to hang will run you ... $500? - haven't checked lately.

I personally don't want to hang one big, bright, hot, 1000 watt hps in a 4x4 but I'm a hobby grower. If I was a pro, I'm not sure I could justify COBs over hps.

 

[ShiggityFlip]

I was rereading this thread and ran across this post again ...

I tend to agree. At this point in time, it looks like the best overall light sources are the new double-ended hps and the white COB LEDs. But it's not like I see much difference from grow to grow, at least nothing that's obviously due to the light source. People hardly ever have enough control over their environment or strain to make good comparisons from lamp to lamp.

And cost is a factor.

But here's something to mull over. I've gotten enough into the whole DIY COB thing to do some of the efficiency math - Lumens/watt - ppfd - Par watts - and I have a design for a grid with COBs on 10 inch centers, 30 in all. I was planning to use Vero18s, but I discovered the Citizen1212s which are much more efficient at the same cost. The Veros would run at 30 watts each at 127 Lumens/watt. The Citizens run at 23 watts and 162 Lumens/watt.

That means roughly the same lumen output at less than 80% of the power. I'll be running 710 watts instead of 917 watts. Same output.

That's a significant difference in every way - less heat, less monthly cost. So the difference between a great hps with a great reflector, and an array of COBs across the sky is clear. The COBs win. But the COBs will cost a minimum of $1200 DIY today and a 1000de Gavita ready to hang will run you ... $500? - haven't checked lately.

I personally don't want to hang one big, bright, hot, 1000 watt hps in a 4x4 but I'm a hobby grower. If I was a pro, I'm not sure I could justify COBs over hps.

I really think the future is cobs that are mostly white but have supplemented spectrum. Just to change the shape of the white spectrum to add more red and blue, UV, IR. I thought a video I saw was very interesting talking about commercial setups that already have huge banks of HPS. They were spreading them out and alternating in a checkerboard pattern with LEDs to provide themselves with a signature set of terpenes.

I plan on getting some cobs in the main grow. A couple sets of 4 crews at 50W. I would do the citizens but just plan on getting the timber veto kit. I will have the lights at .8 foot in a line across a 5 foot width. I will alternate them with my Eshines (p450 equivalents). Then I will mount them all to a light mover so that all plants get a mix of the white and Blurple light.

 

[Kriaze]

My DIY kits arrived today, I've only gone for 3 so far to see how they look once up and running. The drivers are a fair size bigger than I was expecting, I've gone for 3 of the 60w drivers so one for each COB but I need a rethink on how I will mount these now due to the discrepancy in what I thought I was getting and what I actually got. So in case anyone didn't go into the technical specifications to check the sizes of the drivers I would say be careful (my mistake, just another in a long line of many) as these are a good 6 or 7 inches long, 3 or 4 inches wide and quite weighty. I'll post a couple of pics up for size comparison when I get everything together soon

 

[Kriaze]

OK here are a couple of pics for size comparison, they looked a lot smaller in the pictures that I saw on the website that I purchased them from (excellent customer service there btw, they didn't pack my drivers due to a website error so sent them out express for me) and it was quite a shock at seeing them when they arrived.

Here we go, I hope this helps:

 

[Kriaze]

Feeling emboldened by a smoke of some slow dried but uncured Lemon Skunk I decided to crack on and see if I could get them up and running. My DIY skills leave a lot to be desired but the idea was to connect everything and see whether they worked, aesthetics can always be rectified later.

They were actually quite easy to put together and at £87 apiece plus shipping they work out pretty cheap in comparison to the lights I have been buying, you could probably source them a lot cheaper though, especially over in the USA. My main issue now is finding a way to hang them up

They have two tapped holes drilled into either side of the Heatsinks so I'm thinking of putting two screws in each side and wrapping wires around them tightly to create two hanging loops that I can put a ratchet through, not sure if it would be safe enough though so if anyone has any ideas I'd really appreciate the input.

Here they are all connected up:

Can you believe it? They work!

I hope this helps

 

[Kriaze]

With a little bit of invention and ingenuity I've replaced one of the LED lights in the veg tent. It's probably an Electrician's nightmare but it works for me

This is pretty much how it went:

One down, two more to go.

Graytail, thanks

 

[PTSDgrower]

I ordered some cheaper 5 watt diodes(5) a 50 watt cob and a 100 watt cob. I should have search for drivers before ordering the ones I did. I was only able to find a 20 watt driver for the 5 5 watters. Can only find a 50 watt driver for the 50 watt cob and a 100 watt driver for the 100 watt cob, which I read you only want to power them 1/2 or a bit more then their max. This is going to be my experiment before I get higher dollars ones. Kriaze, I like your ingenuity of your hanging brackets and good job on getting them to work!

 

[TheEEngineer]

Consider the 72v 3590, 1 per driver. For $40-45 per, you get 56% efficiency. 2 x 3070 are 59%, 2 x 3590 36v are 64% efficient at .7A. All top bin.

And consider the driver waste as well. The mars drivers are only ~85% efficient, compared to say a 95% mean well. So a 56% efficient cxb3590 at the wall turns into 48% on a Mars driver, 53% on a meanwell.

I was thinking about this statement the other day while at work. The efficiency of the drivers does not make the cob less efficient as the efficiency of the COB is how well it converts electrical energy into light. A simple way of looking into this is if you feed 1 watt of power into the COB ( Realizing that this isnt enough power to overcome the resistance of the device but lets just use this as an example) with the 1 watt of power 0.56 watts will be converted into usable light. So sure the driver may be inefficient but that just means that instead of maybe needing 315 watts at the wall with say a meanwell driver to provide 300 usable watts to the LEDs you might need 345. Though again this figure has no play on the LEDs themselves because to the device (the COB) 50 watts is 50 watts, it doesn't matter if it took 52.5 watts or 57.5 watts to convert the AC voltage to DC.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I kno believe that over time your plants if growing generation after generation would adapt to blurple only light and would mutate good or bad I like white light cause it's what all plants evolved to

I'd think that would only be valid in regards to natural selection - for example, some kind of post-apocalyptic scenario where a huge grow room full of such lights (somehow remaining powered) and a fairly large number of plants (somehow continuing to get water/nutrients) are allowed to grow, flower, pollinate each other, produce seed, the seeds germinate, grow, flower, rinse/lather/repeat for many(!) generations.

In a typical grow room setting, there is no natural selection / evolution process.

I did get a nice mental image from thinking about the concept, though. Could have made for an interesting addition to a novel, had many, many rejection slips not long ago convinced me that I'd never manage to eat from writing sci-fi .

 

[TorturedSoul]

Wow, this stuff makes my head hurt (worse) and my eyes glaze over. We could really use a Homer Simpson level DIY COB primer thread (or... section, lol).

I was planning to use Vero18s, but I discovered the Citizen1212s which are much more efficient at the same cost.

Are you talking about the (Citizen) 48 or 52?

I have gotten the impression through semi-random web searching that the efficiency of various COBs varies depending on the amount of power that they are driven at... IOW, that one brand/model might be more efficient than another at a certain power level, but when the power is increased, that the efficiency ranking could change. Is that correct, or not? If so... HtH do people ever figure out exactly what they should be building/running, lofl? I'm lost after the "Okay, my grow room area is..." step :rolleyes3 . At least with HPS, assuming a decent reflector, one can look at their area - and the shape of that area - and then generally determine what wattage and how many HPS lights it'd require to give good coverage and intensity for a room full of sativas (or indicas, I guess). Speaking in generalities, they can even get a rough estimate of n watts per square foot. Sure, some HPS bulbs (in a particular wattage) are better than others, but there does not seem to be a great deal of difference. With LEDs, though... Several manufacturers, each seems to have several models of COB - and I don't even know how to "read" the codes for one brand (FFS!), like Cree has CXA2520 all the way up to (if not more, by now) CXB3690 or maybe it's CXC or CXD I can't even remember that much... - which have different levels of efficiency, which again seems to vary by the amount of power they're being fed, and bins and drivers and stuff which is like... IDK. I figured I'd do a little searching and try to give myself a basic understanding and it was like I set out to figure out which brand of tv dinner was more nutritious and only end up finding articles on the genetics of what the freakin' mother of the cow that eventually went on to form (some small part of) the salisbury steak ate along with a bunch of electron microscope images of the plastic tray. I should have just bent over and ran full tilt into the nearest brick wall, lol - my head wouldn't have hurt any worse, I would have gained just as much of a basic understanding of all this sh!t, and I could have saved a few hours. MAN, I wish I was still twelve years old and hadn't gotten hit in the head with everything from baseballs, the ground, and a few 3,000+ pound vehicles that wanted to see if they could fit through my windshield...

I started out thinking that Cree was what you bought if you wanted the best. I don't even know if that's right. I saw mention of Bridgelux, Citizen, Osram, Philips, Vero, Nichia, Toyota(???), and even Sharp who last I heard couldn't even make a halfway decent microwave. IDK. Sorry for the rant, but... I guess you guys haven't been knocked out half a dozen times and knocked silly LOTS more and are still young enough that your cognitive function is still kickin', lol. But there's a lot of decrepit old farts here whose hands might still be steady enough to use a soldering iron who could benefit from a thread like "For a 3' x 8' Room, buy THESE Parts from THESE People for THIS Much Money for Great Intensity @ THIS Many Watts (THIS Year)." Then, people could advance from the pre-school thread to a kindergarten one that discussed options like what if your room is smaller/larger, or hey I cannot support that many watts in my house trailer so if I shrink my space can I get by with n watts and, if so, which changes do I need to make to the basic design - with part # recommendations, please? Stuff like that.

I have an Amare Technologies SE350+UVB here, that I've got to do a grow with. I'm assuming that I'll have to give it back because it's, what, something like a $900 piece of kit, lol. But I figured after the grow, I'll have learned something about growing under LEDs (as I have never done so before and my current knowledge level is... well, you just read my rant, lol, so that much is obvious ) and ought to be able to do better and learn more on a second grow (and so on) . PLUS, with a little bit of experience, I might wonder if changing to a different style / training method might give a higher g/w . Stuff like that - IOW, I can see the one grow turning into many that could still be learning experiences for me and others... and potentially help the company's sales by showing that even a dumb@ss (in regards to this LED stuff, at least) like me who has grown before with different types of lighting but never LEDs really could make the transition to LED. Which means... well... when I complete that first grow, instead of emailing to ask, "Do you want me to ship this LED panel back now?" I'll probably just, err, wait on them to email me and in the meantime keep on using it and learning with it, lol. Now, of course, my possession of the panel after that becomes completely hypothetical - and I know this. But... IF I still have the thing, say, six or ten grows from now, I'll probably have reached the point of diminishing returns, that any further knowledge I get from it would be relatively small. So I was thinking about that hypothetical future point and wondering, "Okay, this panel has some kind of COBs in it. I think they might be (CXA???)2520s. Maybe 2530s, but I read that the early versions of this model had 2520s and this particular one was so early it might have been a prototype (or even THE prototype, lol). So... Could I upgrade the COBs in this panel at some point? What, exactly, would that involve? JUST changing the COBs, or would I need to change bins/drivers/power supplies/whatever else is in the thing I sure am not going to open it to find out because it's not broken and I don't want to change that, lol. I'm not even sure about this much, but I think that all COBs are not the same size, so I'd at the least need to figure out which one(s) is/are the same physical size.

Obviously, like I mentioned, that thought about upgrading is all hypothetical. But it sure would be nice if I could find a stickied thread that had the basic information - and in a dumbed-down form - that I'd need to digest in order to even think about it. Err... I'm ranting again, aren't I? Sorry.

I really think the future is cobs that are mostly white but have supplemented spectrum. Just to change the shape of the white spectrum to add more red and blue, UV, IR.

That's the way that this SE350+UVB is: Six COBs and each one has a ring of ten mono-color LEDs around it. The COBs give "white" (I think it might be ever so slightly off-white, but my color perception is all screwed up and isn't even the same from one eye to the other, so I'm not sure and couldn't begin to say whether it leans a little towards yellow, green, blue, red, or... But I'm pretty sure that the individual LEDs are a mix of red, blue, white, and "IR." (And why everyone calls them IR is beyond me since last I heard the human eye cannot even perceive infrared but we can see the illumination from these, albeit dimly.) I think it's a really cool product, to be honest. Seems to have been well built, from some pictures I've seen it is capable of producing (and producing a lot for just ~350 watts), comes with removable 90° lenses for the COBs that really look like decent optics instead of cheap junk (and you get a 120°, IIRC, pattern without the lenses - which gives you some ability to tailor the light to the space/setup in terms of penetration vs. footprint size - and since there's one for each COB I suppose you could remove the two middle lenses and keep the four at the corners installed, or vice versa for a "hybrid affect"), and it was designed with the purpose of growing cannabis in mind. I couldn't say how it would rank in terms of other brands (and this model is a year or two old and a generation behind the company's current version in terms of wattage, COBs, etc.) but I'd think it'd fall somewhere nearer the top than the bottom at least. I'm pretty impressed already with just the impressions I have gotten with it before actually growing with it, feel privileged to have been given the chance to use it, and am a bit embarrassed that I was not able to get an a/c so I could have gone ahead and used it from the time that I received it instead of having to wait until the weather cooperated.

Now that I recall, the concept of adding mono-color LEDs to customize the spectral output (and, of course, the overall level of illumination) is not new. Six years or so ago there was someone who was either selling or getting ready to sell induction fluorescent grow lights, and he was talking about adding a few (like four or five on each end of the fixture, something like that) for that purpose. IDK what ever became of that, because he seemed to only have been here a few months and then quietly disappeared.

This post is quite a train wreck. Apologies....

 

[Tomula]

Hello, I'm currently thinking about making my own fixture with COBs for flowering. I have bought 4x4 tent, but I will not really use it all now so I was thinking about 400W draw, for two plants max. I see many ppl driving their 100W LEDs at 50+- or can you run them at 100W. I was thinking about cooling an I have 3 pound piece of aluminium heatsink with broad fins for each and that should do it with 100mm pc fan. What chips do you recommend? I have 300 dollar budget for LEDs and drivers. Any idea? I like the Cree. And I am from Europe so not everybody on Ebay ships here. Thank you for any insights, happy growing!

 

[sleepless]

Hello, I'm currently thinking about making my own fixture with COBs for flowering. I have bought 4x4 tent, but I will not really use it all now so I was thinking about 400W draw, for two plants max. I see many ppl driving their 100W LEDs at 50+- or can you run them at 100W. I was thinking about cooling an I have 3 pound piece of aluminium heatsink with broad fins for each and that should do it with 100mm pc fan. What chips do you recommend? I have 300 dollar budget for LEDs and drivers. Any idea? I like the Cree. And I am from Europe so not everybody on Ebay ships here. Thank you for any insights, happy growing!

I have done a ton of reading.

I just ordered 4x CLU058-1825 3500K and 2x drivers.

These will be serious beasts and will be pushed very hard on large heatsink.

Google Titan DIY Cob if you want to see my inspiration.

Right now based on sphere testing it seems citizen is the best bang for your buck.

Cree and Vero are no longer ahead of the pack unless your talking price.

Granted someone that hasn't read the recent tests will say I am wrong and most likely own cree cobs.

In your price range I recommend the CLU048-1818 and the spectrum is your call. Citizen jas no bins as they only sell the best COBs they can make.

Citi and Bridge lux have new models coming out soon.

Do your research.

Search Growmau5 and watch the tutorials then watchthem again.