taproot
Well-Known Member
I've recently put together a diy led light using 9x "BXEB-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3"
strips mounted onto a aluminum frame I made and driven by a hlg-185h-c1050a. The lights footprint is 18 inches deep and 24 inch wide. It turned out great, It's bright as fuck and I know that doesn't mean anything to plants but just comparing it to other lights it's pretty damn bright. It runs cool even with the driver turned all the way up which according to my killawatt is 220W. The problem is I'm having a horrible time trying to actually grow with it. I'm not a huge experienced grower like a lot of folks here but I have a few under my belt with pretty good success. This is my first time growing with LED! My past grows have used HPS and I did very well with it but damn it's hot as fuck and I live in a state where it's fucking hot as hell in the summertime so I figured a led would help in the summertime. I've never tried this led before and just got it together this winter and decided to try it. I'm not sure if it's too cool to use in the winter or not and I'll touch more on that latter ..if temps are playing a issue in my failure ....but I'm actually have to use a space heater in the room right not to try and keep the room around 80F. I'm wondering if just using hps might be a better option for winter since it put off a lot of heat as a by product...I'm assuming running a space heater is negating my power conservations of the leds. Anyways...I digress...I'm just having a very frustrating time trying to grow with this led lighting. My plants just don't seem to respond and look tired and sick and eventually the leafs tips start to turn brown and that works its way up to eventually turn the whole leaf brown and crunchy. I've raised the leds, brought them down closer ..turned up the watts and turned them down. Sometimes the plants seem like they are starting to respond as in they start to raise their leafs up like they do under the hps instead of droop down. But, a few days will go by and not much growth at all and then I see what looks like nutrient deficiency but it's not. I'm using the same stuff , dynagro, that I've used in dwc and hempy before. I even bought some ph perfect nutes just to make sure and to help take ph out of the question even though my meter says it's fine. What's so frustrating is I can take the plants right from under the leds and put them under my hps at the same wattage and within 24hrs the difference is big. The plants start to respond as in the leaves are perky and the plant seems to get more color to it and there's some little growth. Nothing else changes except just simply moving them from under the leds to the hps. My research so far seems like it might be a heat issue or lack of heat in the case. Since the hps puts off IR it really has that penetrating heat whereas the leds are just warm, I mean you can feel the penetrating heat of the hps with your hand vs the leds just feeling warm. The room with the leds running only is about 70F @ 18% humidity and about 75F at the canopy. I've tried lowering the leds and turning them up a little to get the canopy more in the 80's because with the hps at the same distances put the canopy at about 86/88F. The leds brought down too close or too high to try and get the temps in the 80's seems to be causing what I'm experiencing for the first time as light burn so ...I've found again in my research that keeping leds about 12 inches to 18 inches away from the canopy is best. I've moved the leds up to 12 inches at it's running at 180W ---to about 220W in my testing. I also brought in a space heater and am now heating the rom up to about 78-80F and also I've deployed a humidifier to get the humidity up to about 40-50% This has seemed to help but still the plants just look so stuck and eventually they start to have the brown spots appear on the leaves again...back under the hps and a few days they are exploding again. I'm so frustrated .... anybody experienced this? There's a ton of guys using the same led strips I am and the same drivers and having awesome success. I just have a hard time understanding this.
strips mounted onto a aluminum frame I made and driven by a hlg-185h-c1050a. The lights footprint is 18 inches deep and 24 inch wide. It turned out great, It's bright as fuck and I know that doesn't mean anything to plants but just comparing it to other lights it's pretty damn bright. It runs cool even with the driver turned all the way up which according to my killawatt is 220W. The problem is I'm having a horrible time trying to actually grow with it. I'm not a huge experienced grower like a lot of folks here but I have a few under my belt with pretty good success. This is my first time growing with LED! My past grows have used HPS and I did very well with it but damn it's hot as fuck and I live in a state where it's fucking hot as hell in the summertime so I figured a led would help in the summertime. I've never tried this led before and just got it together this winter and decided to try it. I'm not sure if it's too cool to use in the winter or not and I'll touch more on that latter ..if temps are playing a issue in my failure ....but I'm actually have to use a space heater in the room right not to try and keep the room around 80F. I'm wondering if just using hps might be a better option for winter since it put off a lot of heat as a by product...I'm assuming running a space heater is negating my power conservations of the leds. Anyways...I digress...I'm just having a very frustrating time trying to grow with this led lighting. My plants just don't seem to respond and look tired and sick and eventually the leafs tips start to turn brown and that works its way up to eventually turn the whole leaf brown and crunchy. I've raised the leds, brought them down closer ..turned up the watts and turned them down. Sometimes the plants seem like they are starting to respond as in they start to raise their leafs up like they do under the hps instead of droop down. But, a few days will go by and not much growth at all and then I see what looks like nutrient deficiency but it's not. I'm using the same stuff , dynagro, that I've used in dwc and hempy before. I even bought some ph perfect nutes just to make sure and to help take ph out of the question even though my meter says it's fine. What's so frustrating is I can take the plants right from under the leds and put them under my hps at the same wattage and within 24hrs the difference is big. The plants start to respond as in the leaves are perky and the plant seems to get more color to it and there's some little growth. Nothing else changes except just simply moving them from under the leds to the hps. My research so far seems like it might be a heat issue or lack of heat in the case. Since the hps puts off IR it really has that penetrating heat whereas the leds are just warm, I mean you can feel the penetrating heat of the hps with your hand vs the leds just feeling warm. The room with the leds running only is about 70F @ 18% humidity and about 75F at the canopy. I've tried lowering the leds and turning them up a little to get the canopy more in the 80's because with the hps at the same distances put the canopy at about 86/88F. The leds brought down too close or too high to try and get the temps in the 80's seems to be causing what I'm experiencing for the first time as light burn so ...I've found again in my research that keeping leds about 12 inches to 18 inches away from the canopy is best. I've moved the leds up to 12 inches at it's running at 180W ---to about 220W in my testing. I also brought in a space heater and am now heating the rom up to about 78-80F and also I've deployed a humidifier to get the humidity up to about 40-50% This has seemed to help but still the plants just look so stuck and eventually they start to have the brown spots appear on the leaves again...back under the hps and a few days they are exploding again. I'm so frustrated .... anybody experienced this? There's a ton of guys using the same led strips I am and the same drivers and having awesome success. I just have a hard time understanding this.