Economical multi LED Chip Projects for Growing

[jpizzle4shizzle]

I already soldered the Ac side of things, is this a problem if already completed? I used them as practice for the dc side. I hope I didnt fudge things up Lol i can always just cut them and rewire if need be

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[jpizzle4shizzle]

I will probably finish the light later on tonight, so do you have any other suggestions on anything? Also I will ask for your complete honest critique once done, so if it sucks tell me it sucks Lol

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[DIY-HP-LED]

Soldering the AC side is OK, but not required. No need to rework, just insulate the connections well and if your using a metal box, use a 3 prong plug and ground the green wire to the metal box. If your going to put the driver(s) in an ATX power supply box, leave the connector and fan in the box to hook up the power cord and the fan to cool the driver.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

I was thinking about attaching a fan above the light blowing down and also attaching computer fans on the heatsinks. As for the drivers housing I have a few old CPU power supplies that I will put the drivers inside and connect to the heat sinks. I also plan on cleaning up the aluminum plate with some steel wool, I marked where the lights would go so I could drill the right holes to hold the leds. Is there any ways to connect the leds other than solder? Silicon or epoxy wouldn't do would it? My soldering gun is crap so im trying to avoid using it again

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Use CAUTION when stripping old ATX computer power supplies, be wary of the 2 large capacitors on the circuit board especially if the power supply was recently on. These 2 large cylindrical electrolytic capacitors are dangerous and can hold a painful if not lethal charge, avoid contact with the underside of the board and use a screw driver with an insulated handle to short out the contacts on the circuit board to make sure they are discharged. If your unsure about this watch a short YouTube video on repairing ATX Power Supplies. The capacitors I mentioned are shown at 1:30 of the video and there are other related videos that show how to do this.

If your going to use ATX boxes in your build, then use the power connector in the box and a computer power cord. Also the fan in the ATX box can cool the drivers and there should be room for a 6 to 12V wall wart power adapter in the box to power it. Either leave it in the plastic case (simpler) solder wires to the electrical prongs and wire tie it to the side of the box, or remove it from the plastic case and wire it in.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

More Street Lamps
I was at the scrap yard today and got another two 50W street lamps for a $10 deposit that I'll get back on Monday when I return the stripped aluminum housings, though the guy at the yard said there might be more lamps there by then. I spent part of this evening stripping them, both were used, but I found one lamp was in perfect working order when I plugged it in, the other had a driver transformer that caught fire in the enclosure, but has useful components on it. The working 50W driver is actually a 44 watt driver according to the catalog number on the enclosure and will drive the 2 X 12 LED arrays at 525ma. This should produce 90Lm/W or about 3,750 Lm for the two arrays. Might make a nice clone cabinet lamp, I think I got a fan, an old ATX power supply box and a piece of aluminum tubing laying around somewhere...

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

Here is something those into DIY LED builds would like: SAG's plant lighting guide linked together

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

Question?
Does anybody have experience with this growing technique and if you do, how is it working?
The Main-Lining Thread

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

A better version offsite for those interested or who have tried this and want to share their experience.
"Main-Lining" Tutorial by Nugbuckets: Train Marijuana Plants for Bigger Yields & Flat Canopies

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

LED thermal management according to an engineer. For those who what to know the difference between efficacy and efficiency this video shows how to calculate efficiency from efficacy. He concludes with the rule of "Burnt thumb".

EEVblog #50 - Solid State Cree LED Lighting, and How Thermal Design Sucks

 

[Positivity]

Love the video hp..i like the way he breaks things down..lol

Interesting thing to come out of salmos link was a comment on power factor correction. I had a feeling it wasn't hugely important..

http://www.dansdata.com/gz088.htm

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

Yet More Street Lamps and started VLR#3
I was at the scrap yard this morning returning the carcasses of the two 50 watt lamps I picked up on Friday, when the guy said there were another two 100 watt lamps. So, I told him to hang onto the $10 deposit and I'd bring these back stripped in a couple of days, cause there might be more arriving by then and since I can get the components and other parts for free, why not. On one lamp I took off the driver cover and lenses and made sure there was noting obvious or dangerous, then hooked it up to 120 for a quick test. One complete side was out, which was strange since it was wired so that if one side of the driver failed, it would shut either the front or rear array down in each panel, not a complete side! Anyway I switched it off and jiggled the wiring harness for the bad side and plugged it in again, worked perfect and it looks like it was never even installed, 0 hours , go figure. I'll have a look at the other lamp tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed. Out of 15 scrap street lights, 3 were working so far and 2 out of the 3 were never installed, and I haven't tested most of the other drivers yet.

Check your local scrap yard and find out where the local utility scrap goes. These lights are a pain to most scrap dealers and the only thing of value in these lamps to them is the aluminum (about 16 lbs of it) and stripping off the plastic lenses, arrays and drivers as well as other parts is a problem and time consuming. That's why they would most likely allow you to put a deposit on the lamps and strip them for him, it's a classic win, win situation, he gets the cleaned aluminum casting plus a few other aluminum parts, you keep the rest, for the cost of your labor. Out of every thousand new lamps there will be a few failures and many communities will have tens of thousands of street lamps that are in the process of being converted from HID. If it works like around here, the failure rate for these lamps is so low that they don't even have a provision made to return or repair them.

VLR#3 Progress
Got the cooling tubes mounted to the support frame (aluminum angle this time) and all squared up for VLR#3. Next I'll drill holes for grommets, mount the arrays, cover them with masking tape and do the rough wiring. Then I'll flip it over to mount the electrical box, the driver, the fan power supply and the terminal block. I'm going to use a salvaged ATX computer power supply with 2 fans for the electrical box on this one, all I have to do is cut a hole in to bottom of the box. I wish I had thought of this instead of monkeying with that cheap dollar store cookie box, would have been much easier and quicker with the fans, computer power cord connector and the switch already taken care of.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

VLR#3 Progress
A few photos of VLR#3's progress.

 

[jpizzle4shizzle]

I haven't really mainlined, but have you tried uncle bens topping method? I like to use it due to being in a stealth cab with a mars 2 400 watt. I would say it can closely compare to mainlining and its faster. Also I like to tie down the 4 tops and it makes for an even spread canopy. Im a new grower so you could probably do this method better but here are some pics

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

VLR#3 Completed
Here are a few pictures of VLR#3, a variation on VLR#1 with the same electrical specs, it's also built using 5000K LED street lamp arrays. Using a salvaged ATX power supply shell for the electrical box greatly simplified the build and about the only major change I made, aside from cutting a 3" round hole in the bottom, was mounting the top fan outside the box. I used 4 conductor phone cable (same gauge as the OEM wires) from the outer arrays to the driver and only contained the wire in woven conduit on the outside of the rig. I did this to avoid congestion in the tubes which impedes airflow, though it doesn't seem to affect cooling too much. The blue outer fans on this rig are eBay ripoffs advertised as 30 cuft/min when they are actually only 10cuft/min, but for this application they are a surprisingly good fit and are very quiet, I'll have to see if I can dig up a couple of chrome fan grills for em.

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

LED Street Lamp Tally
I finally got around to looking at the drivers that I salvaged from the 16 LED street lights, 7 X 50W (SAT 24) & 9 X 100W (SAT48 ). Five of the SAT 24, 580ma X 2 array drivers were working and 2 had fried power supply transformers. Out of the SAT 48's 2ea 560ma X 4 array drivers and 4ea 350ma X 4 array drivers were working.
I got a total of 11 working drivers out of 16 salvaged street lamps, most of these lamps were never installed and have zero hours. I can use these drivers to drive the led arrays that came with them or other LEDs. Only 5 bad drivers out of16 and a couple of those can be repaired.

Check your local scrap yard and find out where the local electric utility scrap is sold, there may be dozens of these LED lamps there.

 

[jpizzle4shizzle]

Any way u could give me some advice on testing the amps on the drivers? I have been trying but I cant get a good reading, am I doing this wrong? I put the + prong on the multimeter to the + side of the Ac and the put the - to the + of the dc side. Is this right at all? Ive watched vids and still dont understand how to get it right

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[DIY-HP-LED]

Any way u could give me some advice on testing the amps on the drivers? I have been trying but I cant get a good reading, am I doing this wrong? I put the + prong on the multimeter to the + side of the Ac and the put the - to the + of the dc side. Is this right at all? Ive watched vids and still dont understand how to get it right

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Measure amps from the DC side of the driver. Hook up the DMM in series between the driver's positive output wire and the positive of the LED. Make sure your meter is on the right range in the amps setting and that the positive (red) probe is plugged into the amps socket on the meter, not the socket used to measure volts & ohms. Amps or current is measured by placing your meter in series so that the current flows through the meter, in this case you'll be measuring up to around 3 amps, so you'll use the 10 or 20 amp range setting on your meter (unless it's autoranging).

To measure voltage, place the DMM probes on the positive and negative LED terminals to find the "voltage drop" across the LED. Now, to find power, multiply V X A =W. IE. 36.5V X 1.5A = 54.75 Watts, a typical reading for a cheap 100W Chinese LED running off a 100watt driver. If you want more light, wire two 100 watt LEDs in parallel off of one 100 watt driver, you'll probably read something like 33V X 3A =99 Watts of power used. Cheap 100 watt LEDs only cost about $5 so adding an extra one won't cost much and light output goes up by about 70%.

 

[jpizzle4shizzle]

You are the shizz brother. I appreciate everything, idk why by in series i thought something completely different but you definitely explained it better than any video I have watched. Idk if you are a teacher or what but you'd be pretty good at it

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[DIY-HP-LED]

200 Watt LED Street Lamp Tear Down
Another day at the scrap yard and 3 more LED street lamps for a $10 deposit, a 200 watt, a 100 Watt and a 50 watt.
200 watt unit, working with no hours on the arrays, never installed.
100 watt unit, half of arrays working (suspected bad capacitor) , no hours on the arrays , never installed.
50 watt unit, working and previously installed.
Out of the 3 street lamps, 2 were working and one can be repaired.

Here are a few photos of the 200 watt street lamp. The two LED arrays are 3"W X 19-1/2"L, have 48 X 3W LEDs and the driver is almost a foot long!

 

[DIY-HP-LED]

An Experimental Flowering Lamp
Here is a flowering lamp I just built for a friend, it uses 2 cheap generic warm white 100W LEDs running in parallel off a 100 watt adjustable driver.
This lamp is composed of:
2 pieces of scrap 1" x 2" aluminum angle cut 20" long
A used ATX computer power supply box
2 X eBay CPU heat sinks and fans, with lenses and reflectors
2 X 100W warm white generic LEDs
A 100 watt adjustable driver.
A 12VDC 1A wall wart power adapter.
A terminal connector strip

The heat sink/lens assemblies pivot on this lamp and can be aimed straight down for two plants or angled inward for one plant. I mounted the driver and fan power adapter with electrical ties and used the adapter power prongs as AC terminal connectors then covered them with heat shrink. Each fan draws .30 amps and the lamp uses 3 fans including the one in the ATX box used to cool the driver.