First time grower experimenting with cheap LEDs

[Bumping Spheda]

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, they all use phosphor. The only method I know of to create "White" light without a phosphor coating is using three chips: Red, Green, and Blue, for example. At the moment, the efficiency of RGB LED's is pretty low due to something known as "the Green hole" which refers to the horrid efficiency of Green LED's. Many engineers are doing all they can to close the gap between Green LED's and other colors. Increasing the CRI of LED light sources holds a lot of hope for growing, imo.

Stolen from another forum:

The holy grail of LED lighting has been always to get white light by mixing pure color LEDs, not getting it by phosphor mixing. But the "green hole" has prevented it for reality in practical lighting applications.If you check the current roadmaps, you can see how many effort is being done at developing efficient green LEDs and improving amber-orange ones.

LED nerds talk about some pretty cool things, imo.

 

[Panelata]

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.

Going to have to keep a close eye on that one ,but yeah completely different strain altogether ,mine are actually autoflowers no chance of cloning as I found out when one of them lost its head to that psycho killer fan that is the single biggest factor in the cock ups that have occurred in this grow, my next panel will have a Glass or plexi screen and a better cooling solution, and yes there will be another panel lol

Edit: Just went through your thread, I hope you have not patented anything cause I intend to infringe on your hard worked ideas bro, I so want to get a small mother box and clone like crazy in smaller pots and get an SOG going, if I like the looks of the 2 new seedlings I will try to use them as mothers, wish I had controlled the THC Bombs growth a little better so I could use her, as I really like the way she has fared so far.

 

[RainerRocks]

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.

Oh I get it...as long as I cut and splice them at 3..6..9..12 and so on I'm good.

I thought they had to be splice at every 3rd led and I thought this was crazy and tedious..LOL.... All this time I was thinking you guys had a lot of patience..LMAO.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me !

 

[RainerRocks]

Yes, they all use phosphor. The only method I know of to create "White" light without a phosphor coating is using three chips: Red, Green, and Blue, for example. At the moment, the efficiency of RGB LED's is pretty low due to something known as "the Green hole" which refers to the horrid efficiency of Green LED's. Many engineers are doing all they can to close the gap between Green LED's and other colors. Increasing the CRI of LED light sources holds a lot of hope for growing, imo.

Stolen from another forum:
LED nerds talk about some pretty cool things, imo.

This post rocks ...well for me it does because I wasn't aware so I just learned something new.

I only been at this since Jan so I'm cramming my brain which tends to get information overload.

Thanks !

 

[FranJan]

Hey Rainer also remember that phosphor based LEDs can be made of 2,3, or even 4 phosphors blends, so choose wisely. Also a UV pumped, phosphor based, true white LED can be created, but because of low efficiency/efficacy and the price/performance of modern white LEDs, no one makes them commercially. There's also another way to make true white LEDs that escapes me at the moment.

Edit: And watch out for blue pumped, yellow dye based whites. Yellow and blue will fool your eyes into seeing white too, and they do make phosphor yellow ones, but the dye based ones aren't the ones you want IMO. Longevity wise their color shifts very quickly compared to phosphor.

 

[jimjim2609]

Subbed up. It's my first led grow too. Love the strip light idea, and you have the proof that they are working.

 

[heckler73]

Panelata,

Is there an update? And have you done anything new to your "zone" ?

 

[Panelata]

Panelata,

Is there an update? And have you done anything new to your "zone" ?

Yeah there will be one soon, sorry , I been really busy with work lately and the light cycle clashes with my work patterns, so have not been able to take any pics. They are doing okish I guess, but will let you folk decide that when I next get a couple of pics up.

 

[Panelata]

Ok here goes, I got some time of work finally.

I had to cut the runt, it was doing absolutely nothing for 4 weeks, growth was stunted and it really did not look like it was going anywhere, plus I needed the space it was taking up for the other plants.

The 2 pineapple express are I believe 1 week away from harvest its day 64 from sprouting, I am not happy with the bud formations looks very small and scattered ,not expecting to get much tbh,and half the pistills are red so I think thats as swelled up as they going to get .



and the thc bomb ,its now in bloom a couple of bud sites, but kind of looking very much like the early stages of the autoflowers,hoping they will fill up better though or we can conclude that the lights just do not cut it for flowering.



And the new babies, kandy kush (left) Northern lights blue (right)


Thats it for now, will have more pics possibly next week when autos are ready for the chop.

Peace

 

[Bumping Spheda]

Noooooo. I really hope things bulk up for you. Don't harvest too soon! Keep a close eye on those trichs. Damn it, though, if you're right that's really disappointing... Fuck. Noooooo. SOB... Your grow happened so fast, it seems, there's no way it's a week away from harvest.

Hrm. Maybe if we can locate a cheap source for strips with specific wavelengths we can zero in on PS peaks and get some bigger buds? Grrr. Well, if it doesn't work out it didn't set you back too much, and like I've said before you still have a killer veg light. If you have enough space for two rooms I'm sure your youngin's and mothers will love it.

Can't wait for the weigh in.

 

[jubiare]

unfortunately things are not going to bulk up greatly for the "photons"/energy those leds put out!

but the best way of finding out is from yourself, so well done on you

you might want to look into more powerful leds for the future

great vay of keeping mothers or vegging, perhaps

 

[valuablevariable]

Dont be disappointed, youve done a great deed for the sake of science! We need these kinds of grows to figure out what works and what doesnt. Whenever a grow doesnt work out and the results arent shown then the next person will just repeat them. Great job pulling through with this!

 

[FranJan]

They look too healthy to chop IMHO. Keep em goin if you can Pan. Have you been looking into COB lights by any chance? Something like these might really help you out with what you're trying to do.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/high-powered/30w-white-high-power-planar-cob-led/1255/

2700 Lumens from 30 watts and easy to cool. Not bad IMO. Good Luck bro!

 

[Panelata]

Guys thanks all for all the positive comments, and thanks for the rep, BumpingSpheda thanks for following this through and contributing a lot of input to this thread ,also thanks to FranJan for your input and telling me the most important thing in this grow( to stop experiment and causing too many variables),and especially for the laughs from your posts in the party cup comp lol, thanks to Chronikool for the headstart, knowing that you already had success with smds which encouraged me to take this grow a little more serious.And thanks to everyone that has followed the thread, its nice to be noticed haha.
I would now like to add that I don't see this grow as anything that resembles a failure,this is my first grow after all guys.
I have not written off these lights to get the job done all the way through, and the experiment is far from done,the yield on the 2 autoflowers will be low no doubt , but these strains are meant to produce 15-25g per plant , and I actually think I will get at least 15 from the one that was accident and problem free throughout the grow.
The real results to look for are from the photoperiod THC BOMB that has only just started flowering properly(about 2 weeks).

Stay tunned guys these light might still surprise

 

[36OhBuds]

+rep too, this entire thread is super badass dude. Inspired me to try some new things with my grow and not be worried if they don't always work out. That's how markets expand!

Ordered a custom spectrum light with a spectrum I haven't seen but I hear is pretty rowdy so we'll see how it works. It's a 240w, 80x3w I'll drop pics here when it shows up..

 

[Chronikool]

Onwardz brother!

 

[Panelata]

They look too healthy to chop IMHO. Keep em goin if you can Pan. Have you been looking into COB lights by any chance? Something like these might really help you out with what you're trying to do.

Yeah only chopping when I have 30-50% amber thrics so far some are milky and a few clear so I think a week + to go , thanks for the link, I am trying to learn as much as I can about growing with led efficiently so am always open to new ideas .

Noooooo. I really hope things bulk up for you. Don't harvest too soon! Keep a close eye on those trichs. Damn it, though, if you're right that's really disappointing... Fuck. Noooooo. SOB... Your grow happened so fast, it seems, there's no way it's a week away from harvest.

Hrm. Maybe if we can locate a cheap source for strips with specific wavelengths we can zero in on PS peaks and get some bigger buds? Grrr. Well, if it doesn't work out it didn't set you back too much, and like I've said before you still have a killer veg light. If you have enough space for two rooms I'm sure your youngin's and mothers will love it.

Can't wait for the weigh in.

Lol you did get that right about it being a badass vegging light, I loved the sight of those plants in their veg phase.As for the flowering hmm well we still have the THC to finish in about 5-6 weeks I guess ,the ones that are almost ready are autoflowers ,hence why it feels its been quick, because it was! Its a 60-70 day seed to harvest strain.
The weigh in will tell if it was a fail or win, and even then its not conclusive because I really did go stupid on these plants with multiple experiments , until FranJan told me off lol.And I think as for the specific wavelengths, I think in my case its more a matter of removing some blue light and adding more red in flowering, I think the red nm reading is a little off from the optimal required wavelength, but the blue is spot on. I will continue to try and get a decent sized yield off these lights ,the next grow , I will tinker with the R:B ratio, think I had way too much blue especially in flowering.

 

[jubiare]

Def no chop let them go they'll be a fine smoke for sure prob very concentrated power in those flowers that are all good just can't fatten up greatly not for your skills coz you got plenty but for the nature of the photons power of the leds!

 

[Panelata]

+rep too, this entire thread is super badass dude. Inspired me to try some new things with my grow and not be worried if they don't always work out. That's how markets expand!

Ordered a custom spectrum light with a spectrum I haven't seen but I hear is pretty rowdy so we'll see how it works. It's a 240w, 80x3w I'll drop pics here when it shows up..

Thanks bro, and please do post those pics

 

[heckler73]

Wait... this is your FIRST GROW?!?!?!

But your plants look so healthy! (gawd knows how many fuck-ups I made before getting anything right)
Either you are a natural, or have some great luck!