SMD LED Grow Lights assistance required please

[Sharple420]

Hi there

I have found some LED strips that I want to use, but I wanna be sure they will work. Here are the specs:

5m LED strip
60 x 6000k - 6500k SMD chips per meter
50 lumen/chip
30w per meter
Beam angle: 120 degrees
15 000 lumens per 5 meter

So here's what I have as a set up:

Today I got 4 pots, I transplanted 4 of my plants into the new pots with a new soil mix of coco peat potting soil mixed with worm compost, veg compost and bone meal. I have 1 of each of the following:

California Orange
Ice Cabbage
Blueberry
Super Greenhouse
Jamaican Pearl(busy germinating)

So I live in South Africa, so it's illegal, but I love these strains and I want to grow my own. They are small still, but are in 25cm pots getting light with some sugar/yeast co2 under 18/6 light cycles with a cfl that's not too great. I want to put each plant into cardboard silos that are 60cm in diameter and 1,1 m tall(I will add height when they've grown more). I want to line the silos with tinfoil(dull side out) and put 2 PC fans, one for blowing in and one blowing out. I also want to buy co2 canisters and set up a co2 piping system. I want to run 3 of the above mentioned 5m led strips meter strips around the inside of the silos. All together they will provide 45 000 lumens around the plant.

Will this work? I live In S.A so we have a good climate, but will this work? If not, why and how can I make it work? Please help, I'm also tryna keep on a budget with lighting, and it's expensive for us here.

Help would be much appreciated peeps.

Peace
Sharple420

 

[Sharple420]

Hi again, I forgot to put up some pics. My bad, so here are 2 pics. The first is what the silos I'll be growing them in looks like. They are 61cm in diameter and 110cm tall.

The second is the LED strip.

 

[Mike Wright]

Hi Sharpie420 and welcome to the number one internet resource for cannabis awareness and fighting cannabis prohibition


I'm not an expert on stealth or LED's so I'll just limit my comment to the welcome and mention that you might try posting in the FAQs section for visibility. If you get a chance you could also post a bit about yourself in the Introduce yourself forum as lots of people keep an eye on that too.

If you need any help using or navigating the site New Member Start Links is the place to go.

 

[David Bowman]

to

Cool LED strip. So you are thinking of lining the silo with these strips? One 150 watt strip per silo should be more than enough for one plant. My main concern would be fitting one plant into that size space, it can be done but you could run into space issues. Also make sure that the silos have adequate air flow.

 

[Hosebomber]

Again, welcome Sharple. I have actually tested SMD 5050 diodes and they will work. The key is to keep them very close to the plant and have good airflow as CH mentioned. The use of a tomato cage or similar inside your cardboard shipping drum to act as a screen will work great. If you have seen some of the screen of green (sometimes referred to as scrog) grows you will know what I am referring to. A lot of LST or low stress training and the use of a screen will result in a nice uniform growth inside. A small fan near the bottom tilted up at about 15 degrees will cause the air to roll around the inside of the can like a vortex and as long as you have proper venting at the top (or a exhaust into a carbon filter for smell) will help keep the heat down and good air exchange for the plant.

Don't forget, only one day left in this months contest for plant, nugget, and member of the month. Link in my signature for easy access.

 

[Sharple420]

Hi Colorado

Thanks man. Yea, I want to line the inside with reflective material and then run the lights in a spiral inside. They come in 30w max strips, but I'm going to use 3 or 4 in each silo. The space issue is why I am doing the silos. The only places my apartment gets sunlight, is out in the open that people from the street can see. I'm also on quite a tight budget, but so far I've spent about R350 (about $35) for my pots, soil mix and some foil for the temporary grow box. I made co2 bottles usingwater sugar and yeast, with 4 pin holes poked in, each hole facing 1 of the plants. I want to make a co2 supply sytem using a paintball gun co2 cannister(closest to co2 I can get) and run from a nozzle through pipes to each silo.

the lights are $3.5/5m from an old supplier of mjne overseas. The expensive part is shipping and the power supply that can handle the load of 16 - 20 x 30w strips. As for the airflow, working in I.T I have an abundance of old pc fans that I'm going to use.

Thanks for your imput though man, I will put up pics once my set up is complete.

 

[Sharple420]

Hi Hosebomber

Thank you for your assistance, I just wanted to ask, why is a scrog helpful, and how big should it be? Secondly, you mentioned a carbon filter for the smell, where can I get one andhow much will it cost?

Will 3 x 30w 5m strips be enough? 45 000 lumen combined.

 

[Hosebomber]

The 5050 SMD chips have pretty good efficiency, but they are ran at a low current. They simply don't have a lot of penetration power to reach deeper into the plant.

There are a few post in the Do It Yourself forum on how to make a carbon filter yourself, or you can buy them from any of the hydroponics shops online.

The number of lumens isn't as important as the spectrum of light the plants are receiving. I covered this a little bit in the sticky at the top of this forum or in my signature. Yes I do think 3 strips in one silo will work well for growing a single plant with a screen or cage around it as I mentioned in the previous post.