The LED Experience

[ScaryGaryLed]

my LED experience off one plant

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you did well, those are cree and which drive did you use? it's meanwell?

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

id like to see a plant botanist join these forums. so we could get some real answers.. like what is the actual nutrient requirements for a cannabis plant.. IE how come maxi bloom and GH micro have the same results as a full nute suite from advanced nutes?

ive basically come down to these truths about cannabis.

there are only 3 variations of plants. Sativa indica Rudialis and any mix of the three.

most plants regardless of strain will grow to the size of pot provided.
Light is more important than nutes.
the longer you wait for it to mature.. the better in most cases..

I use natural stuff. plantain tea, compost with worms, ash, cane honey, sugar water, etc.. nothing from a grow shop.


use green plantains!

 

[Psyphish]

That's really good for 1 of those. how many watts was it? what was it's lumen rating? what's the color temp, looks like 5K from the picture? is there a thread about those ?

It was sold as a 25 watter with a lumen output of 2500 @ 6500K. It was about 15 euros when I bought them, but I can't recommend them due to the bad build quality and varying light outputs, it's like some of them weren't made out of same parts.

 

[BuddyColas]

yeah i've seen those, the ones that i used were all uniform. there as some really really really crappy ones called LOHAS on amazon, I don't recommend those at all.

OK...so that's where NOT to get budget cobs...where did you get the ones you were happy with? Thanks.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

OK...so that's where NOT to get budget cobs...where did you get the ones you were happy with? Thanks.

http://www.amazon.com/EPISTAR-White-Power-Energy-Saving/dp/B00J4HPOU6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462294475&sr=8-3&keywords=er+chen+100w

those are the ones i used from that buy, they were cheap at the time, $20 seems high now, so i got some more but from another vender, hope they are the same quality. they say 32v but at 27v they all (ALL the diodes not a patch works of crap) light up at once. epistar is good regardles what the haters say. i sure they were pumping out at least 120 lumen per watt when water cooled 36C was the water temperature at full tilt.

These should be arriving soon. $14.95, not a bad price, i'm going to use white and warm white and see what happens.
http://www.amazon.com/CHEN-White-Power-Energy-Saving/dp/B015XP7O1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462294475&sr=8-2&keywords=er+chen+100w

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

It was sold as a 25 watter with a lumen output of 2500 @ 6500K. It was about 15 euros when I bought them, but I can't recommend them due to the bad build quality and varying light outputs, it's like some of them weren't made out of same parts.

that's a good deal, hopefully the quality has improved, i saw some hyperikon PAR 38 that looked interesting with really high CRI and good prices.
http://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-equivalent-1220lm-Medium-Dimmable/dp/B00RMK01E6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462294817&sr=8-1&keywords=hyperikon+par

good price considering you just plug and play. would be a nice try in a tight spot.

 

[BuddyColas]

http://www.amazon.com/EPISTAR-White-Power-Energy-Saving/dp/B00J4HPOU6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462294475&sr=8-3&keywords=er+chen+100w

those are the ones i used from that buy, they were cheap at the time, $20 seems high now, so i got some more but from another vender, hope they are the same quality. they say 32v but at 27v they all (ALL the diodes not a patch works of crap) light up at once. epistar is good regardles what the haters say. i sure they were pumping out at least 120 lumen per watt when water cooled 36C was the water temperature at full tilt.

These should be arriving soon. $14.95, not a bad price, i'm going to use white and warm white and see what happens.
http://www.amazon.com/CHEN-White-Power-Energy-Saving/dp/B015XP7O1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462294475&sr=8-2&keywords=er+chen+100w

So everyone talks about grams per watt...if they ever have a contest for grams per dollar spent, I'm putting my money on you! Thanks.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

Sure man, you're welcome! Glad you like my work.
I guess I could make a list of BOM "bill of materials" if you want.

I'm sure what i used to build those lights is like next to $200 including the power cost. So, yeah you can get easily 80 grams with that setup, more if you scrog and top the plants early. and from then on out, your basically just investing in soil, time and some power about $5-8 a month depending what cycle you are in.
Trust, I did the math on all the power drivers and how much the cost would be etc, I'm ultra thrifty when it comes down to it. I don't care if it has a name brand on it either. people that do that are really just cookie cutters, when you can do the same for less at the end of the day. It might not look pretty, but I sure a heck know it's gonna work with out a hiccup. I never had one working with this.

Some say it's a fire hazard, but all honesty when you mix water and electricity you have a fire hazard regardless. and if your planning on splashing water on lights then you should not be growing anything inside anyhow. IP ratings are over rated, if your concern is humidity or water, then move all the electrics outside or mount them high above the waist.

That's for all the haters out there. water and electricity never MIX, DUH.

So it's definitely better than paying $300+ every month on herb from dealer, with unpredictable quality and price jumps and unknown strains. I like THC mainly, that's what I grow, most people like KUSH OG, So that's how I keep my meds under control.

And honestly I don't want anybody to payout out the rear-end for herb ... I'm sure more than one of us has had a bad experience buying weed.

So everyone talks about grams per watt...if they ever have a contest for grams per dollar spent, I'm putting my money on you! Thanks.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

OK...so that's where NOT to get budget cobs...where did you get the ones you were happy with? Thanks.

So you get an idea, I just took some pictures of how this cob worked from 24v to 29.33v. You will see that there is barely noticeable if any patch work starting at 24v. So you know, LED diodes are made to work from 2.7 volts to 3.4 volts each, hence the specification 32-34v at max current, in this case. you will also notice the current draw as I'm showing the amount of current they use at those voltages.

This was done quickly just now for the show, and the water was not running through the heat sinks, that's why they draw more current when they get up to 29+ volts.

Under water they only draw 2.5Amps at 29.5v. Go figure, it's more efficient than pin fin heat sinks and big old extruded aluminum expensive junk. Might look cool but it's not what i'm going to do if i can squeeze more lumens by just running cooler and cheaper. LOL. some people just don't get it.

Since your interested, you can get a good deal on those liquid cooling sinks on
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3XT1NM7709&cm_re=Aluminum_Cooling_Block_For-_-9SIA3XT1NM7709-_-Product

yup $6.29 each, that's more like my cup of tea, cheaper than CPU aluminum heat sinks... LOL...works phenomenal. and as a reservoir any 30L to 40L container is enough, think Rubbermaid tub $10.

Anyhow here are the pictures, so you get an idea.
Here we go...


running at 24.01 volts,

It's not drawing enough current to move the meter...no patch work like those crap LOHAS leds... these babies are EPISTAR, made in Taiwan for all those Chinacob haters and CREE lovers... ... read about them and learn something, do the math most importantly.




Now since it's in the operating range for the diodes, it's now running at 27.03 V and drawing 0.56 Amps. or using about 15watts of power.


Here at 29.11V it's now getting warmed up, and pulling ~64Watts of power. Good deal, Extremely bright, lights up the entire room, I would hope so anyhow! LOL.




And here we go the sweet spot, 29.33v and 2.89 Amps, okay so yeah, like I said before you can do this under water cooling and it's pulling only 2.5 amps. In this picture, I have to reiterate, WATER is not flowing through the system. Just passively cooled for the demo. I would also like to make a note of the CRI, it's seems to be at least a minimum 80CRI, usually anything under that number comes in really fuzzy or blurry when you take a picture.

Hope you like my quick write up.

Happy Budding!

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

I’m going at it again. But this time with “real” genetics…. So far not impressed but we’ll see what happens. ‘Upgraded’ hardware. Here’s what’s going on at week#7.

10 gallon pots, just transplanted, add bone meal going to start flowering end of the week.Last week i defoliated them and it’s gonna be that time this week at some point.
150 watts led various efficiency (greater than 150 lumen per watt), mixed spectrum. 300 cfm per minute. 4x2 space. ‘Organic’ soil mix, coco, moss, potting mix, worms and castings, bone meal. Some perlite. Excited to see what happens, not sure about the sex, don’t really care if there is a male. I’m looking forward to making seed as supply chain constraints are a bitch, if no male then let it bet clones. Panama red, northern lights, chemdawg.
As i said before not impressed, plants looks tiny for seven weeks. Expected much more from genetics. Seen better examples from bag seed. They don’t smell good or bad they don’t seem distinct in any feature, and growth has been slow under optimal conditions. I’ve seen bigger plants in 1 gallon pots i. Less than 5 weeks. I would have already flowered but these are lagging.! Anyhow just thought i would share.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

There going good after the transplant, a little shock, too much light i guess. Seems to be hard to dial this in with those new Samsung leds… never seemed to be a problem before, maybe i need to start the co2 gen.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

Update. The transplant went great. However it’s been a pain to dial in the lighting. They get burn really easy but it seems to happen only with the Vipar spectra light when its on at about 50% about 55watts. The other leds are vero29 and even those are not anywhere near running full tilt, about 55 watts each. I’ve never grown in a tent so not sure if they reflect the light a lot or what the heck is going on. My worry is when they go into flower, no clue what I’m going to do then. As they should double in height. I added co2 to the tent and seems to leveling out. So maybe that was the trick.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

Defoliated them a little they are recovering nicely.

 

[ScaryGaryLed]

Well unfortunately or fortunately for me they all turned out males. Since then I harvested them. Keep the pollen from the panama red strain and started a feminized crop. Random feminized stuff nothing really note worthy except one panama red x sour apple. So at least I’ll have a more panama red dominant hybrid coming out of this soon using the pollen from the previous harvest. I will pollen8 these feminized ladies once they flower. I’m sure what comes of them will be much better than the indica crap a lot of growers like to use. Sorry to be a hater but indica sucks IMHO, never had any of the desired effects. Anyhow here’s how went and it’s going.
fyi the panama red hybrid was the one in the middle very bushy and sativa like structure, worth keeping, it was the first to show signs of sex and to mature. Impressive for a male can’t wait to get some nice pheno females from that. It also smells of fruit loops cereal. Nice and tropical no gas!