Old school grower thinking about switching to LEDs

[bluter]

if you are handy and know how to source the components you can build the light cheaper than a pre made kit. sort of the same as my cob light, you can't tell my light apart from any of the diy and kit builds that site sponsors and others sell. i sourced mine from scratch though, harder to source, but was cheaper to build, and i got a bit better cob as well.

 

[Pennywise]

The only hard part for me would be the frame.

 

[Marzbadrock]

The only hard part for me would be the frame.

I used aluminum L bracket I found at the depot @17.00 a stick and riveted together. Worked very well!

 

[Pennywise]

I could drill and use bolts, I’ve been thinking seriously about going with cobs.

 

[bluter]

The only hard part for me would be the frame.

Marz beat me to it , but yah, the frames are easy. just aluminum L-bracket (cobs) , C-channel (for strips), and some flat stock to mount the drivers. i made a couple simple jigs to help get stuff drilled clean since i built a number of them for people..

 

[Marzbadrock]

Bolts will work to. Don't be intimidated by rivets though, can get a good haND held rivet gun and rivets for $20. Super easy to use, clean and quick!

 

[bluter]

one member here built a strip light mounting the strips to an aluminum cookie sheet. made his own qb !

 

[bluter]

Bolts will work to. Don't be intimidated by rivets though, can get a good haND held rivet gun and rivets for $20. Super easy to use, clean and quick!

agree with the rivets. easier and cheaper to work with over other hardware. i use the hanger mounts to help hold the frame together as well.

 

[Pennywise]

The strips are cheap to

 

[bluter]

The strips are cheap to

yeah they are. you need to know your specs though. that is where success or failure lie. pay close attention to the binning and cri. the same strips and cobs are sold under the same name at different specs. even cree has loads of different specs for the same cob sold by different vendors.

 

[Purpsmagurps]

I would HIGHLY suggest going through rapid and getting a quantum puck setup.
I use them and can attest they are pretty darn cool. they even have ones in blue now too. even hlg has their own 140mm heatsink equivalent pcb,

 

[Nunyabiz]

I see the hlg550 have added far red onto the board with no added cost!

Very nice, makes that a much more attractive spectrum to me.

 

[Weaselcracker]

if you are handy and know how to source the components you can build the light cheaper than a pre made kit. sort of the same as my cob light, you can't tell my light apart from any of the diy and kit builds that site sponsors and others sell. i sourced mine from scratch though, harder to source, but was cheaper to build, and i got a bit better cob as well.

The hard part for me is sourcing the stuff and sorting through all the info . Building it would be easy but I’ll probably end up paying extra for prebuilt just to not be tearing my hair out.

 

[Marzbadrock]

Very nice, makes that a much more attractive spectrum to me.

For sure! They also just listed a 120w bar with added red and higher blue and green spectrum than the 288. Very similar spectrum as the cmh315 but less green and more red. 5 bars and a mean well 600 driver.....maybe my next order!

 

[bluter]

The hard part for me is sourcing the stuff and sorting through all the info . Building it would be easy but I’ll probably end up paying extra for prebuilt just to not be tearing my hair out.

the first couple times it is definitely a headache reducer. once you build one though you'll really see how simple it is and realize the extra savings are worth the effort.

i worked in production lighting for a number of years. we grew under cob before there were any available commercially. it made it super easy for me to source stuff.

 

[Emilya Green]

I am going to be using a combination of 3:1 cxb3590 3000k 90 CRI and 5000k 70 CRI CREE COBs. It appears from the graphs that I will be able to almost duplicate the spectrum of the sun with this combination and I can't wait to see it work. Based on all we know about light response in plants at clearly 4 or more places in that spectrum, I am convinced this is a winning strategy and I am not inclined to think that we are convinced that red and blue is all our plants need.

 

[Purpsmagurps]

I built these pucks for like 1300 bucks. 93 watts per puck over a 9x6x8 used a blurp with it, when the plants got tall i turned it off and ran about 750w of the puck dimmed down a bit. no ac needed.

 

[bluter]

I am going to be using a combination of 3:1 cxb3590 3000k 90 CRI and 5000k 70 CRI CREE COBs. It appears from the graphs that I will be able to almost duplicate the spectrum of the sun with this combination and I can't wait to see it work. Based on all we know about light response in plants at clearly 4 or more places in that spectrum, I am convinced this is a winning strategy and I am not inclined to think that we are convinced that red and blue is all our plants need.

you can likely source better 5k's. 70 CRI is ali-baba level spec stuff. you can also build with a mix of different branded cob if you can't get the binning or CRI you want in all cree.

 

[Nunyabiz]

They sent you 3x the number of diodes that you had to replace at that time, lol? Or are you postulating that, having had some burn out in three years, none will do so within the next seven?

Hey, one thing that I'm having trouble understanding/digesting is: I have been told that a 600-watt HPS might only be producing 180 watts of photosynthetically active light, while a good LED setup - with a custom-tailored spectral/frequency output - should be producing roughly the amount of wattage that it is consuming (after any electrical inefficiencies of the equipment have been accounted for, of course). Okay, that kind of seems to make sense. LEDs... WAAAAAAAAY more efficient in terms of PAR output, right?

So tell me, please... A skilled cannabis grower - and I'm talking about traditional "light above plants" setups, not one of Heath Robinson's 2+ grams per watt "multiple vertical HIDs in and around the plants" kind of thing here - with the right strains, can attain 1.0 gram per watt - for a 600-watt HPS, that'd be 600 grams. How many watts of LED, then, does it take for a skilled grower, with the right strains, to produce 600 grams of bud? 180? 200?

Actually they sent me enough to replace every single diode.
They are only like .5 cents each and they sent a crapload

I dont believe "watts" is really the metric to be measuring your LEDs by today.

You can attain very high PPFD/PAR from less watts than HPS.
So a gram per "watt" should actually be a far easier task with LED than it is HPS.
Myself my best has been just under that at .93gr/watt with the less efficient LEDs
But I am also growing 100% organic no-till so I am not pumping them full of nutrients.

 

[Emilya Green]

you can likely source better 5k's. 70 CRI is ali-baba level spec stuff. you can also build with a mix of different branded cob if you can't get the binning or CRI you want in all cree.

hmmm...