Well, I'm new here, but OLD to LED... anyhow, for a cheap setup i used some 100w cob ER chen from amznDOTcom and they did a good job for the space i have, not impressive, but more impressed than the vero29 3500k i'm using now. so go FIGURE, it's NOT about the amount you spend but it's about the quality of light, the ER CHEN from
Carol Zuo ... Epistar did a great job for 2 at ~80watts each. and the smoke great. they had very good penetration. here is some pictures.
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the setup, water cooled 100W cobs from epiled on amznDOTcom, I DON'T support the seller or the brand or anything, it was the cheapest cob i could afford at the time. that's why i used them
3500k with about 8000-9000 lumens as per description. used at
~75-80W a piece. 29.5V @ ~2,5Amps (they seem to run best here, less heat and equal amount of light, as if you ran at a higher voltage, there was no benefit, so I left it there.) And again this was a cheap setup, you can see the coat hangers, and Styrofoam cup spacers.... survival blanket mylar... LOL.
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the results, this a few weeks before the harvest was done. see the penetration as all the plants even the lowest ones about 1ft off the ground were full of trikes. they all were equally potent. BTW this is all from bag weed from where I'm located. it's mostly colombian and jamaican.
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This is the
temperature 47.6C of the LED section, where the light comes from, it's water cooled so don't fooled by lower temperature. I'm sure this helped to boost some lumens out of these babies. I used CLIPS to hold the LED cobs on the heatsinks, it was a damn good solution. Applies a lot of pressure and holds them firmly and allows you to attach easily.
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As you can see the
temperature 39.5C of the BACKSIDE of the heatsink. LOW again, they are water cooled. PC power supply....
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I ran these at that distance, 12CM, from the led, NO ISSUES when in Flowering, this plant genetics love the light they can get.
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Better overall view of the distance vs penetration vs buds. I did not know these plants genetics so I let them grow as they would no topping or pruning of any sorts, some produced more some less, in the end about a good ounce dried. It was all TOP SHELF.
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Bud shot, just look how beautiful the leaves changed and the production of Trikes was great. Overall all had great taste, great HIGH and excellent smell, burned well also..
SO there you have it, you don't need expensive LED's to make a some good smoke, as this EPILED was great, I ordered more after seeing the vero29 is not really good for this genetics I fee bad for that but it's all good. I'll see what happens in the next 30 days and put up results for the same genetics. This however was a great experience for first time using cheap COBs that didn't break a bank and that could actually be improved upon, may be 4 of these at lower wattage will produce some good bud too with some topping.
I will be using 6x of these leds next time at 25w each
Thanks for looking, hope I didn't HI jack this thread just wanted to show what I did with
2x 100W COB epiled $20 @ aM@znDOtcom. keywords=erchen+100w
I guess that's what people want to see anyhow.
Happy Budding!
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thought i would conclude this with one last picture of what the plants saw at night. that is how i mounted the LEDs on the heatsink then on the closet rack with coat hangers. pretty simple, i say. and Yes... that is a green LED strip of smd lighting up the place in the night cycle.