mathewscott
Active Member
Is 200 watts of LED light per square ft over kill?
LED overkill
- Thread starter mathewscott
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whytewidow
Well-Known Member
Yes. 30-40w p/sqft of white mid powered leds is plenty.
mathewscott
Active Member
I kinda knew it was. Will it hurt to stay with this setup ?
mathewscott
Active Member
2x3x5 1200 watt LED
mathewscott
Active Member
Not sure
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
LED's are not the same, bro! It depends on the light and which type of diodes are used. E3ay/am4zon blurples for instance are just shitty scrap and not worth the money. Do yourself a favor and invest in one of the better solutions. Blurples are old and outdated! Zhats a fact!
White diodes are the way to go. The newer the better. These blurples are between 0,9 and 1,3μMol/j, latest Samsung diodes offer ~2,5-2,7μMol/j efficiency and Osrams Square goes as high as 3,91μMol/j. Thats up to 3 times more light from the same power draw!
I recommend to read a few LED grow logs here and than make a final decision!
F-strips, EBgen2 strips, H-influx strips, Quantumboards, Luminus COB's or Citizen COB's.... Thats only a few terms you can enter in the search engine.
If you already have such an outdated blurple am4zon/e3ay light send back as fast as you can and get something with more bang. A QB65 kit with HLG-40(45w) or an HLG-60 driver(65w) or a few Samsung H-influx 1ft strips and an HLG-40 or 60 would be more than enough for a small 1sft area and you can build it for ~50-60$ + shipping. You'll get at least 2 times as much light as from a comparable blurple LED light.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Such a blurple fixture maybe draws 200w from the wall and even if the diodes are crap this is much to much for 1sft(12x 12"). For a squaremeter it is not sufficient and you would need two of them.
Is it a new one? Can you send it back? If yes, do it as fast as you can, brother! You will thank us for sure 1000 times when you change it against a reputable light. Even a 2 years old used white light using 4 Cree CXB3590 and an HLG-185H-C1400 would blow this 1200w scammer LED light out of the water.
mathewscott
Active Member
Thanks for the enlightenment
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Whats the name of the fixture? Mars, Viparspectra or something even more worse?
There are a few good blurple like the Unitfarm growlight but they are more costly.
The cheapest way to get up to 190lm/w(~2,75μMol/j) are warmwhite LED strips(3000°k is perfect as all-in-one spectrum) like mentioned above. Even easier to install are Quantumboards. A QB-kit is assembled in 5-10 minutes and a 10years old child could do it while sleeping.
Is you area really only 1sft, bro? Thats only 12x 12"?!? Just enough to join the party cup competition, lol! Also for one single plant you should use at least a 2x 2' area. With just one sft its will be nearly impossible to get ambient temps and humidity where you want it. I've seen macro grows in PC housings(2sft) or 25gal trash bins but they all had one thing in common. Keeping the environment in a healthy range was very difficult!
mathewscott
Active Member
2x3 thanks for the info
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
Okay, for 2x 3' area(6sft) you need around 180-200w. With blurple up to 300w because of its poor efficiency. So from this POV you should at least yield between 5 and 6oz depending on strain and your grower skills.
With 4pcs 2ft H-influx L09 strips and an HLG-185H-48 you would get ~220w at the wall and yield would be up to 10oz./300g.
4 of this strips are 86$
https://www.digikey.de/products/de?keywords=SL-B8V3N80LAWW
And one of this drivers 52$
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mean-Well/HLG-185H-48A/?qs=3IPTn0w/0t/Gz684zkqJrA==
= ~150$ incl. shipping
You can also use one Quantumboard 96elite kit(99$) and an HLG-240H-54(70$). Its a dimmable kit, heatsink included and its brand new on the market. Simple assembling, top notch efficiency and 260 true watts for 170$ means only 66ct per Watt.
Simply google "Horticulture Lighting Groop". They have a few more options for an area like yours..
With 4pcs 2ft H-influx L09 strips and an HLG-185H-48 you would get ~220w at the wall and yield would be up to 10oz./300g.
4 of this strips are 86$
https://www.digikey.de/products/de?keywords=SL-B8V3N80LAWW
And one of this drivers 52$
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mean-Well/HLG-185H-48A/?qs=3IPTn0w/0t/Gz684zkqJrA==
= ~150$ incl. shipping
You can also use one Quantumboard 96elite kit(99$) and an HLG-240H-54(70$). Its a dimmable kit, heatsink included and its brand new on the market. Simple assembling, top notch efficiency and 260 true watts for 170$ means only 66ct per Watt.
Simply google "Horticulture Lighting Groop". They have a few more options for an area like yours..
OLD MOTHER SATIVA
Well-Known Member
1.try it
2.get back to us..
2.get back to us..
Isawthelight
Well-Known Member
@mathewscott The strip build suggested LED driver is 48 Volts & the strips are about 22.4 Volts. You'd wire two strips in series (+ to -). Do that again with the other two strips. Then wire those two series strips in parallel (+ to +, and - to -) to the Led Drivers output. On the LED Driver, you'd probably need to turn the Vo potentiometer counter clockwise before you first turn it on.
Randomblame
Well-Known Member
+1 ... and when switched on ramp up the current regulator at maximum and then the voltage regulator slowly up to the point of the highest brightness and leave it there.
If the LEDs have the required voltage they will not get brighter even if you set a higher voltage. For this they would need even more current. If you adjust the voltage exactly to this point(with max. current) and one strip gets broken the others would continue to run with the same voltage and current because the voltage can not increase any further.
Its limited to the set voltage. For dimming just use the current regulator. I put the rubber nipple back in when done and forget it.