I've been reading about LED's for some time on differant sights and have heard a lot of misled information, so I finally got on here to set things right.
First I keep hearing a lot about people using light strings like on a Christmas tree, and how close they have to keep the LED's to grow things. That's funny to me because I don't know what frequency they put out to start with. Then there are all those cheap (expencive) LED systems. I saw one of those Flying Saucers, what a joke. I can see why they have to be so close to the plants. So I built my own. I used 5 watt LED's, but first let me tell you a little about power (watts). They say 5 watts but I X E = P. in other words a blue LED has a breakover voltage (E) of 3.5V and runs at a current (I) of 1A so that makes 3.5 watts for those. The reds break over at 2.5V and also run at 1A, so that makes 2.5 watts. This is real power used, not some made up number because each unit is called something it's not. (to be fair to the LED makers, these units can be pulsed at the full 5 watts, so that's the raiting). I made up three pannels with 20 reds, and 6 blues for the flowering room, I don't need to beat a dead horse on the grow room because everybody has already heard how good LED's work for that. So I ended up with 213 watts of real power used for the plants. I'm not going to tell you how to build a power supply for a system like this because I am a trained electronics technition, but I will say this, I devided it up into three sections so I would only have a current output of three amps.
I bought LED's that were pre-soldered to a star type, heat sink for easy mounting and soldering, and mounted them on a home made heat sink built with aluminum channels, and angles from Menards. When they say there's no heat using LED lighting they are not talking about power LED's. 213 watts is still 213 watts. I replaced a 400 MH/600 HPS combo light with this system and have made one run with it so far. First thing is, I don't have the LED's too close to the plants because they don't seem able to handle it well, too much light I think. So all the things I keep hearing about how close to have them is only for the T500 style, not for high power LED's. I got very nice results, but I did have one problem up here in the froozen country where I live. Twice my heat went down to less than 60F for two differant weeks, and I think kept them a little smaller, Other than that I got about the same results as I used to when I was running only a 400 HP. This run I'm on now is already bigger, so I know it's all good.
I am however at an impass as to what I may do next. I've been reading about other light spectrums to incorperate, and since they are secondary I think I will be useing 1 watt units in red/orange, and some in yellow as I have found some of those mounted on stars as well. I was thinking of getting some in dental blue, but can't find them on stars. Here again these do not use 1 watt as they break over at 2.5V and use .350A so that's .875 watts each, and the nomber of them also has to be 26 per panel to use all the voltage in the power supply. Yes if you do something like this you will have a power supply.
My total cost has to include the grow room LED's and there heat sinks as well, plus the parts I used to build two power supplies to run them was around $900 bucks. The LED's used for this project are good for 100K hours.
Good luck building your own, but it does work.:
First I keep hearing a lot about people using light strings like on a Christmas tree, and how close they have to keep the LED's to grow things. That's funny to me because I don't know what frequency they put out to start with. Then there are all those cheap (expencive) LED systems. I saw one of those Flying Saucers, what a joke. I can see why they have to be so close to the plants. So I built my own. I used 5 watt LED's, but first let me tell you a little about power (watts). They say 5 watts but I X E = P. in other words a blue LED has a breakover voltage (E) of 3.5V and runs at a current (I) of 1A so that makes 3.5 watts for those. The reds break over at 2.5V and also run at 1A, so that makes 2.5 watts. This is real power used, not some made up number because each unit is called something it's not. (to be fair to the LED makers, these units can be pulsed at the full 5 watts, so that's the raiting). I made up three pannels with 20 reds, and 6 blues for the flowering room, I don't need to beat a dead horse on the grow room because everybody has already heard how good LED's work for that. So I ended up with 213 watts of real power used for the plants. I'm not going to tell you how to build a power supply for a system like this because I am a trained electronics technition, but I will say this, I devided it up into three sections so I would only have a current output of three amps.
I bought LED's that were pre-soldered to a star type, heat sink for easy mounting and soldering, and mounted them on a home made heat sink built with aluminum channels, and angles from Menards. When they say there's no heat using LED lighting they are not talking about power LED's. 213 watts is still 213 watts. I replaced a 400 MH/600 HPS combo light with this system and have made one run with it so far. First thing is, I don't have the LED's too close to the plants because they don't seem able to handle it well, too much light I think. So all the things I keep hearing about how close to have them is only for the T500 style, not for high power LED's. I got very nice results, but I did have one problem up here in the froozen country where I live. Twice my heat went down to less than 60F for two differant weeks, and I think kept them a little smaller, Other than that I got about the same results as I used to when I was running only a 400 HP. This run I'm on now is already bigger, so I know it's all good.
I am however at an impass as to what I may do next. I've been reading about other light spectrums to incorperate, and since they are secondary I think I will be useing 1 watt units in red/orange, and some in yellow as I have found some of those mounted on stars as well. I was thinking of getting some in dental blue, but can't find them on stars. Here again these do not use 1 watt as they break over at 2.5V and use .350A so that's .875 watts each, and the nomber of them also has to be 26 per panel to use all the voltage in the power supply. Yes if you do something like this you will have a power supply.
My total cost has to include the grow room LED's and there heat sinks as well, plus the parts I used to build two power supplies to run them was around $900 bucks. The LED's used for this project are good for 100K hours.
Good luck building your own, but it does work.:
