First time grower experimenting with cheap LEDs

[pbjsammich]

Just found this grow, kind of new. Very interesting so far, I applaud your ingenuity. Looking forward to see how this turns out!

 

[Panelata]

Just found this grow, kind of new. Very interesting so far, I applaud your ingenuity. Looking forward to see how this turns out!

Welcome hope you enjoy the show .

Now was wondering if anyone can make out from the next couple of pics if this plant is male, I know in a few days I will probably know but just for the hell of it here goes (and I am leaning towards male for the record).

 

[Galvatron]

i want to build a mother/veg rubbermaid tub using 1 5m roll of red and 1 5m roll cool white smd 5050 strips and was wondering if the power supply is just a plain laptop charger with the circle input? from all the pictures ive seen it looks like thats what it is. i have a few of those laying around at home and would like to save the 20-30 bucks and buy more lights if i dont have to spend on the power supply. can anyone confirm that for me?

 

[Panelata]

i want to build a mother/veg rubbermaid tub using 1 5m roll of red and 1 5m roll cool white smd 5050 strips and was wondering if the power supply is just a plain laptop charger with the circle input? from all the pictures ive seen it looks like thats what it is. i have a few of those laying around at home and would like to save the 20-30 bucks and buy more lights if i dont have to spend on the power supply. can anyone confirm that for me?

I dont think so , laptop chargers are usually 19 v rated at 5 amps or thereabouts and you need 12 v for these strips, for 2 rolls you will need about 10amp 12v dc power supply,if you don't want to buy one , you can easily mange this with a normal desktop computer psu, just use the 12v+ and make sure on the psu it can handle 10 amps on the 12+v , you have to look for instructions on how to convert your desktop PSU online, e.g. youtube .

 

[Bumping Spheda]

Last pic looks like a male preflower to me. The first pic looks borderline to me, I think it could go either way, and I can't make out the second pic. Preflowers don't always determine the sex of the plant, but they're a good indication. Fingers crossed for a girl!

 

[Panelata]

Last pic looks like a male preflower to me. The first pic looks borderline to me, I think it could go either way, and I can't make out the second pic. Preflowers don't always determine the sex of the plant, but they're a good indication. Fingers crossed for a girl!

You might think there's something wrong with me for saying this, but I am actually hoping its a guy , Plants are overlapping eachother now in my tiny growspace with my overambitious plantation, and I really need to take out 2-3 plants soon, I never did think I would get this far without any casualties, even the germination was 100% so I guess next time I will stick to planting only 1 or 2 seeds tops, I have had to trim side branches on most plants now to encourage upwards growth only, so that they dont start getting in each others way .

I have built a separate dark area and will be taking out 2 plants of the closet for 12 hrs dark, will alternate with all 4 photos so that I can get them to show sex,and will have to continue flowering them this way until, I can harvest my autos, that's another thing growing autos and photoperiods in one closet is a bad idea.

 

[420dj]

Hey Pan lookin good my friend!!

I'm new to all this too got my first grow up on here the other day. Im subbed in for this one man, keep up the good work, lookin real nice!

 

[Bumping Spheda]

Saw this and thought I'd share:

http://www.vanqled.com/ledgrowlight/index_xx.asp?id=605

They even do custom spectrum.

 

[Panelata]

Update Time.

I managed to resolve my space problem, out of the 4 photo plants 3 were male (both sleestacks x skunk and one THC Bomb). So I am now down to 3 autos and 1 photo , and am really glad with the male ratio, because space was really tight ,and I had to be constantly moving plants about, which is not a good thing as I keep screwing up the plants on the overhead fan.
My best autoflower, got its head chopped again in that bloody fan, and this kind of really pissed me off with the all thing because that was going to be my best yielder of the autos, and now it lost its main cola. Anyways here are some pics of the progress of whats left.They all been transplanted to 10L Air pots.

Pineapple express autos Day 43


The one that lost its top


And this one is the runt dont know if its a different pheno or that it was in a shitty pot whilst the other 2 got the Airpots, but its getting frostier than the others though.


And here are the 3 PExs side by side


Here is the only remaining photperiod, which by the way is in 12/12 for the last 5 days.THC Bomb


I gave up on moving plants about after rubbing the auto against the fan, so I switched the light to 12/12, for all the plants, this will probably affect the auto yields, but I have no choice,as I still have this one photo thats flowering now.I imagine in about 30 days I should be harvesting the autos, will try to get 2 fem seeds going once this grow is over and keep it manageable, so I can have better conclusive results from these lights, but so far I think they good as gold, and I am sure next grow will be even better as I will be able to improve on the mistakes , I made.

Anyways here they all are, in their slightly less crowded home.


Enjoy

 

[Panelata]

Hey Pan lookin good my friend!!

I'm new to all this too got my first grow up on here the other day. Im subbed in for this one man, keep up the good work, lookin real nice!

Welcome bro, sit back n enjoy the ride

Saw this and thought I'd share:

http://www.vanqled.com/ledgrowlight/index_xx.asp?id=605

They even do custom spectrum.

Yeah think some manufacturers are catching on , fairly sure we will be seeing these smds, taking a bigger part in budget led grow lights in the near future.

 

[Bilgerat]

Good luck mate!

 

[Panelata]

Just a quick update ,its day 45 from germ, and the smell is now becoming a little obvious, so I had to get a carbon filter am hoping it will be enough as the smell is really strong, I think the runt despite being the smallest is the biggest stinker,of them all, its also developing some nice tricomes, I imagine the yield on her will be tiny but will pack a serious punch.
I also got me a new toy, got this digital microscope which can magnify either at 20x or 200x and been playing with it, should have no problem checking trics to determine harvest readiness.
Here is a tiny bit of leaf from the runt magnified 20x and 200x


Anyways thats it for now just wanted to show off my new toy and I am so happy to see real life trics for the first time haha

Will have some pics of the family when I next get them out of the box for some watering.Stay tuned

 

[Panelata]

50th day update:

Right so what begun as an half arsed attempt at growing some medicine is actually now beginning to look a little more serious.
My closet got a small makeover ,in that I have installed a carbon filter and extractor fan , I also started 2 feminized seedlings and added a tiny light panel drawing under 10 watts.



And here are the residents starting with the THC BOMB which is only showing a few pistils so far and has been doing some fairly serious stretching.



Pineapple express auto 1 (the one that did not eat its vegetables when growing up and has grown to adulthood as a midget)



Pineapple express 2 (the one that was doing really well until the fan chopped its head off)(I am absolute gutted at this one and its fate)



Pineapple express 3 ( this one had its leaves trimmed by the fan and also had the burnt tips from overfeeding early on ,I dont really like the stretch and the buds look airy , don't know if this is normal and the calyxes will swell enough to cover those empty spaces)



And here is the 2 babies Kandy Kush fem and Northern Lights Blue fem ( they will be taking the space made when the autos get harvested which I imagine will be 2-3 weeks)



And here is the full house (a little too full, I really need a lot more horizontal space, but ideally this will be good for a single or at most 2 plants)




Ok people of the herb hope you likey like me likey , harvest time for autos is approaching, I think tops 3 weeks as they are said to be a 60-70 day strain and this is day 50, so this is the interesting part , I really hope those buds start swelling soon as they look a little on the slim side, but I guess time will tell, will have another update hopefully in a week when I next get them out for watering.
Peace.

 

[RainerRocks]

Have you considered using some reds as well, the white leds are really just blue diodes coated with phosphor from what I understand.
good luck with the cup grow, I saw the thread a little too late for me to join but will be keeping a look out for the next one, will definitely like to play as well.
Oh and I like what you doing with the SOG , that's going to be my next adventure after I am done with my current project

Hi Panelata


You said "white leds are really just blue diodes coated with phosphor"

So does this mean true white LED strips don't exist as of yet ?

Are all the other colored LED strips the true color spectrum or are they also coated ?

Thanks !

 

[Bumping Spheda]

Just the Whites, and maybe the Pinks/Purples. Most "White" LED's are Blue chips coated with phosphor, that's not specific to 5050 LED strips.

Have you seen these?
http://www.vanqled.com/ledgrowlight/index.asp?bigclassid=49&class=234

 

[Chronikool]

Right so what begun as an half arsed attempt at growing some medicine is actually now beginning to look a little more serious.

Hahahaha.....Welcome to the world of growing Panelata! This sentence made my day!

Oh sweet...i get a taste for what my Pineapple Express's might look like one day. They are looking good bruv!

 

[RainerRocks]

Just the Whites, and maybe the Pinks/Purples. Most "White" LED's are Blue chips coated with phosphor, that's not specific to 5050 LED strips.

Have you seen these?
http://www.vanqled.com/ledgrowlight/index.asp?bigclassid=49&class=234

Hey BS

Does this coated with phosphor of the white LED's only apply to Strip Led's or all LED's regardless if they are of the strip type ?

What I mean is..Say I was to buy some 3w white ( WW NW CW ) CREE led's for my DIY project are they also coated with this phosphor ?

Yes I have seen these strip LED's encased in some kind of rail but they weren't from China and they were freaking expensive ! Only worry I have with the rigid strips in a rail is heat... if it's a plastic rail that wouldn't be good. But I have some ideas about incorporating some kind of rigged up system in my mind.

Can someone tell me why these strips if bought have to be cut in 3's then spliced together ?


Why not just splice them at say every 10th or 20th ?

Thanks again ..

PS: I'm going to be building my LED panel using RapidLED LED's solderless kit which will be hanging from above and want to surround the grow tent with strip led's so this is why I'm interesting in the strips.

 

[Panelata]

Hi Panelata


You said "white leds are really just blue diodes coated with phosphor"

So does this mean true white LED strips don't exist as of yet ?

Are all the other colored LED strips the true color spectrum or are they also coated ?

Thanks !

Yep if you scroll down on this wikipedia link you can find out which leds are true and which are coated and what semiconductor components are used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

Hahahaha.....Welcome to the world of growing Panelata! This sentence made my day!

Oh sweet...i get a taste for what my Pineapple Express's might look like one day. They are looking good bruv!

Yep I am now officially a cannabis junkie with a major addiction , not so much as far as consuming is concerned, but when it comes to growing ,its got me hooked good and proper.
Pineapple express are the very first seeds I ever bought, so they have that cherry popping factor, and I think they will be present in my arsenal of seeds for some time, which ones you getting? There are 2 completely unrelated strains one from Barneys which is what I got and one from G13 which I hope to try sometime in the future.Thanks for the compliment, hope they will perform as good as they look, not long to go now

 

[Panelata]

Can someone tell me why these strips if bought have to be cut in 3's then spliced together ?


Why not just splice them at say every 10th or 20th ?

Thanks again ..

Its optional where you want to cut them up but the connectors to the power supply are only available at every 3 LEDs, so you can have 3, 6, 9 etc you can even connect all 300 but if you are buying the cheaper Chinese version, there will be to much resistance on the strip,due to its quality and the volatage decreases the further along the strip you go, hence why I cut them up into smaller lengths, so I can get a consistent output throughout and not have cold spots.
The difference in price between Chinese made and the local ones you are talking about is phenomenal as much as 5x more, and quite frankly ,if you are able to use a solder iron, I really don't see much benefit in paying all that extra money, but thats just me being a cheapskate.

 

[Chronikool]

Mine was a freebie. It is the G13 'pineapple express' strain. And currently the mother to 6 freshly rooted clones. They will be the 1st to enter my flowering arena in about 4 weeks.