Cheapo DIY Chinese LED grow. 200w

I had a look on the back side of my old 8800GTS graphics card and there can be placed a big chip on the big copper sink and perhaps some smaller chips on the 'Ram coolers'.
it's a powerful but noisy heat pipe system, but it should be able to handle a lot of heat.



The power consumption of the card, what is the heat sink designed to handle.





I looks like the best cpu coolers are the old ones like mine, with a big flat bottom, where the new ones have cut outs.
Amd 939/AM2 and Pentium 4 coolers are what we are after if recycling old computers has your interests.

This is amazing. Fantastic job and thank you for posting links to your sources! I freakin' love DIY. Too inspired to try this! I need a nice project to work with. I don't have a journal for it... But I'm currently doing a T5 PLL TEK/CFL mixed spectrum grow @ 25k lumens/362 watts in a 5x3x2 tent. Looking for the best possible setup to supplement the area with red, blue and uv using 50w arrays. I noticed you work with 5500k-6000k and 2800k-3000k arrays instead of the 'colored' ones I mentioned. Is this a better method in terms of beneficial spectrum readings? Sorry for being ignorant.. Still a noob. It's certainly cheaper from what I've noticed.. But I've seen most 'mainstream' LED companies using red, blue CREE led's with some UV here and there.

I also have a small steel cab (3x2x1.5) that I would like to start using for vegging/mother or for a small autoflower setup with ONLY multispecrum led's. I would imagine 2x 50w (2800k - 6000k like yours) on individual heat sinks would be perfect and blindingly white for that small space.

Any recommendations or advice you could throw my way? That would be appreciated. Gonna follow along and keep learning. You are the LED wiz.

Looks like an awesome job on those Rasser. I defiantly think CPU and graphics card cooler would do a great job with the LEDs - it is after all what they were designed for. I'll have to keep my eyes out for people scraping their computers.

Thanks MaJigga. I went with whites because I am a believer in full spectrum and because they are cheap and easy. I find cheap and easy solutions are often the best solutions

Cheap and easy.. Just the way I like my girls. lolol. With that aside... I was wondering how hot your heat sinks get. I'm planning on putting a 50w array onto this little heatsink I found here: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=073-062

They get pretty hot and I'm using really large heavy heatsinks. I do not think that the one you linked to would be sufficient - it looks fairly small.

Yep I think Gastanker is right, those seem too small for 50w LEDs. I'd go with at least that:http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-CPU-Athlon-64-HEATSINK-FAN-SOCKET-754-939-940-K94-/120886996919?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c256d2fb7and even that I don't think that's enough for 50w. Something like that would be OK imo:http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Socket-AM3-AM2-AM2-1207-939-940-754-CPU-Heatsink-and-Fan-/140798054994?pt=US_CPU_Fans_Heatsinks&hash=item20c837d252#ht_735wt_905

ma jigga said:

Cheap and easy.. Just the way I like my girls. lolol. With that aside... I was wondering how hot your heat sinks get. I'm planning on putting a 50w array onto this little heatsink I found here: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=073-062

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You don't say if you planning to have a fan blowing on that thing but it looks to small either way,
and I think a normal CPU cooler would be better[based on my test in the thread 'Led under the microscope'] or a very large passive sink(noise less).

I think there is a relationship between active and passive cooling like say, 1-Active to 10-Passive in the size and surface area needed for cooling the same amount,
,don't know the numbers, but when I looked into passive PC PSU it quickly got ridiculous, the same with passive graphics cards, where it's only possible op to a certain size.

has anyone though obout just mounting them to a transmission cooler much like a DIY water cooler for a light. and water cooling..... http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/60370/10002/-1?CT=999

Thanks guys. +Rep. I will be planning on using a fan. Those CPU heat sinks look pretty good. I'll keep my eyes open for something equivalent or better. Trying to look for something low profile for a cab that is 3 feet high (it's for a mother and clones). May even try an LST circle 'bonsai' experiment.

patrikantonius said:

Yep I think Gastanker is right, those seem too small for 50w LEDs. I'd go with at least that:http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-CPU-Athlon-64-HEATSINK-FAN-SOCKET-754-939-940-K94-/120886996919?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c256d2fb7and even that I don't think that's enough for 50w. Something like that would be OK imo:http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Socket-AM3-AM2-AM2-1207-939-940-754-CPU-Heatsink-and-Fan-/140798054994?pt=US_CPU_Fans_Heatsinks&hash=item20c837d252#ht_735wt_905

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Damm that's cheap, even if tax and vat will double the price, 10 of those with 30-50 watts chips would make a relative cheap, easy and very flexible DIY light,
only thing missing is reflective barn doors.

I like the look of the heatpipe one there patrikantonius....I also like the layout of this one... http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/543813289-Dual-towers-Heatsink-With-80mm-ultra-silent-LED-fan-2-high-efficiency-heatpipes-CPU-cooler-wholesalers.html

Chronikool said:

I like the look of the heatpipe one there patrikantonius....I also like the layout of this one... http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/543813289-Dual-towers-Heatsink-With-80mm-ultra-silent-LED-fan-2-high-efficiency-heatpipes-CPU-cooler-wholesalers.html

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Yes obviously the bigger the heatsink, the better the performance. But prices can get high very quick too.

I think I've just done a great deal on heat sinks(don't know if that is the case for you guys),
I spend half an hour searching for a large cheap sink, but every time it had to do with LED's
the cost was double or worse, but then I just spend time scroll browsing the site, and found
this 'Non-Standard Extrusions' 125x200x25mm black heatsink (5x7.5x1") and it cost me only 22$ a piece,
that's very cheap for me with 25% sales tax and such included.

A fellow from GLS has just delivered a package with 5 of those, I think I planed to cut them in half and make
10. 125x95mm(5"x3,6") sinks with a 80mm fan on top, but that was days ago, before my heatsink mania and
the 4 1U audio units had come to mind, and the LED workbench CPU cooling test and so.

Picture of the sinks with a 120mm fan on top.



Now I have a lot more options on combinations of big-chip LEDs and the Apollo modules,
the drivers and PC power supply's, lenses and optics. So I'm in LED nerd nirvana or close to it.

I have about a week or two before some plants are going to need some more light than what the 5x10W flood light can deliver.

polyarcturus said:

has anyone though obout just mounting them to a transmission cooler much like a DIY water cooler for a light. and water cooling..... http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/60370/10002/-1?CT=999

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Don't know what a transmission cooler is, sounds like something from a car's gear box or something,
but looking at the picture I can't see anywhere to mount anything ?
it's maybe a good cheap radiator for water cooling thou.

thats what im saying.... you use the aluminum bluck, a submersiblem pump 2 hose line and a small fan your talking about a very efficient heat sink. this is for making a 200w LED without going huge or $$ on the heat sink you can water cool for a few watts. i agree the hardest part about th design would be mounting and where to put the driver(probably on the back of the aluminum block, and you would still have to figure out how to cap the ends and makes holes for the hose and seal them

Nice heatsinks Rasser.
I've ordered a couple of those: http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170726264609&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
A bit more expensive but larger as well. It's for my DIY panel project which will certainly use the smaller Osram chips and 680mA drivers.
I've not bought the LEDs yet but it will most certainly be Oslon SSLs 80 for the reds (40+% efficiency) and Oslon Square's for whites and blues (45%+ efficiency).

I think many of those processor heat syncs would work wonders. It blows that you guys in Europe seem to be fairly limited with heatsinks with high prices on what is available.

I was out of town this weekend and didn't get anything done on my LEDs. Actually just burning them in now. With all three running the heatink gets a bit warm but with a single fan in the middle the entire block stays quite cool. I even chose to go with a low flow quite fan and it's more than enough. I'll have to post a video showing how much air it pushes all the way down the channels. Fan I put on top - http://www.ebay.com/itm/330703143999?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I'm thinking that once I get the other panel up I'll toss that fan onto one of the 100w arrays and just have my circulating fan blow over both panels.

HSS (haigth solid state) gets away with no fans on their light, is it possible to build a DIY panel in a similar way? you get better coverage with a bigger panel and less diodes anyway, and they run 6W leds

Endur0xX said:

HSS (haigth solid state) gets away with no fans on their light, is it possible to build a DIY panel in a similar way? you get better coverage with a bigger panel and less diodes anyway, and they run 6W leds

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They run fine without the fan but cooler temps are always better. If I was using the same large ass heatsinks with smaller diodes instead of the big arrays then the heatsinks would say quite cool without a fan. And I hate to bash but imo the HSS are some of the worst LED light panels out there right now. They look cool...but that's about it.

lol i always wnat a fan on my lights unless they are my house lights. plant get too close too often to not have airflow having fans built into the hood is worth the watts adn cost in matieral plain and simple. if i bought one of their lights i would have to buy a fan too or use one i had.