Cheapo DIY Chinese LED grow. 200w

1 panel is in and operating and a ballast box added. I'm going to go solder that 100w ballast cord - meant to weeks ago and totally forgot.

I don't know what to say about the ladies... pretty scrawny imo. I really think it was due to the overload of alfalfa tea but who knows. I'll be germing two harlequin crosses tonight so we'll see if I can't get the next batch of 12/12ers to be a bit more substantial.

I think the next on your wish list should be a roll of cheap mains cable,
so the cables are long enough to go up with the hanging wires and down
all together to the "Driver" box -ballast is for old HPS/MH lights.

And I would recommend using cable joins like these,
where you cut two out from the row and use the center hole
the fix it firmly to to something with a screw.

If you don't use Cable Glands to fix the cables to the box, then I
would drill a 6mm hole to a 5mm cable and put some big strips
on the cable inside the box to make sure that the outgoing cables can't be pulled out by accident.

Good idea with lifting the drivers up from driver-box,
and I wonder what that wooden box was original made for, can't be anything in this century

The DIY MODDING mania continues and today I'll introduce the RL10 Cryogenic Lightning Propulsion System



Both a star pcb and a single LED fits perfect to the reflector.
- fitting a sticky heatsink to the star pcb would maybe work well since, the cpu fan just above will blow air down on it.

Looks nice from the front, the color of the LED chips is reflected.

Rasser said:

I think the next on your wish list should be a roll of cheap mains cable,
so the cables are long enough to go up with the hanging wires and down
all together to the "Driver" box -ballast is for old HPS/MH lights.

And I would recommend using cable joins like these,
where you cut two out from the row and use the center hole
the fix it firmly to to something with a screw.

If you don't use Cable Glands to fix the cables to the box, then I
would drill a 6mm hole to a 5mm cable and put some big strips
on the cable inside the box to make sure that the outgoing cables can't be pulled out by accident.

Good idea with lifting the drivers up from driver-box,
and I wonder what that wooden box was original made for, can't be anything in this century

Click to expand...

Haha, Yeah a bit sloppy atm. Right now the power comes in the back of the box where it's anchored in. The out cables aren't passing through the box but will be once I hook up the other three ballasts - and like you say, they'll also be anchored down. Now that I know how I want it all I'm getting rid of those cheap quick connects except for where they hook to the toggle switches. All other wires will be soldered and heat shrinked. I don't follow on the mains cable comment - the power to the box is fed by a single 15' main and each array needs it's own wiring if I'm going to be using the toggle switches and mounting the ballasts remotely. If I get to it I might wrap the entire length of 20 gauge wires but we shall see - at the moment they are being held together with color coded zip ties. Hahaha on the wooden box: It was a 5th grade wood-shop project.

damn not from this centurey and 5th grade shop project for you must be old GT.

Oh the roll of mains cables was be to used for all connections also the output from the drivers to the chips, if they where external that is.

Rasser said:

Oh the roll of mains cables was be to used for all connections also the output from the drivers to the chips, if they where external that is.

Click to expand...

Ah. Right now I think I'm going to have a few different mains. The two 50wx3 panels will be wired together but the 100w arrays will stay separate as I plan on moving them around for veg and perhaps to supplement one of my fish tanks.

Your project looks great btw. I want to see it all fired up with the smaller LEDs around the rim. What was that from again? A halogen bulb reflector? A flashlight? Really That's one fucking big flashlight huh?

A rechargeable spotlight is properly more correct.

Here is another one.

And now reviling the RL10 CLPS with power on.

It make a darker ring in the center, don't know if thats good or bad, if the light is very close to the plant-



Anyway the lights get confined to something like 70° from the normal 140° and it looks high plastic tech.

Gastanker said:

Ah. Right now I think I'm going to have a few different mains. The two 50wx3 panels will be wired together but the 100w arrays will stay separate as I plan on moving them around for veg and perhaps to supplement one of my fish tanks.

Click to expand...

If you had heat problems then the best you could do was to mount all the drivers with thermal paste
in a external metal box(old computer chassis) with a slow silent fan blowing on them,
and use good mains wires to supply the chips.

When I was testing the VL-10 spot the tiny test wires got warm from the 1000mA current going through,
so when drawing the current needed to power 100W chips the wires better be mains supply graded.

The DC wires on a PC power supply is ok for short distance but not great for 10 feet or above.

And your right on the flexibility, there is always this one plant thats way higher than the rest,
forcing the hole panel to be moved higher.

The two 100w arrays are wired with heavy duty 2000w+ power cords I had laying around but the 50w arrays are just solid 20 gauge... You think solid 20 gauge isn't heavy enough? Fuck... I was just going by the rating and it's rated to 300v and my drivers are only discharging 28-40v. I was thinking with such a low voltage that even at 1.5amps there wouldn't be a problem. They aren't warm to the touch at all and are ~4.5' in length. Let me know if I need to rewire those.

I'm not really having any heat issues I just raised the drivers to make sure I never did.

Have Gastanker and Rasser had any problems with the cheaper Chinese drivers?

Chronikool said:

Have Gastanker and Rasser had any problems with the cheaper Chinese drivers?

Click to expand...

Not so far...

Eh, just looked at some wire resistance charts and now I feel a bit silly. Just went and picked up some 18 gauge which should be much better.

Gastanker said:

The two 100w arrays are wired with heavy duty 2000w+ power cords I had laying around but the 50w arrays are just solid 20 gauge... You think solid 20 gauge isn't heavy enough? Fuck... I was just going by the rating and it's rated to 300v and my drivers are only discharging 28-40v. I was thinking with such a low voltage that even at 1.5amps there wouldn't be a problem. They aren't warm to the touch at all and are ~4.5' in length. Let me know if I need to rewire those.I'm not really having any heat issues I just raised the drivers to make sure I never did.

Click to expand...

It's not the voltage but the current that makes a cable warm up and have loss.

A typical mains cable (2x0.75m2) can safely handle 10A and can either be used for 12V drawing 10A = 120W or 120V drawing 10A = 1200W (thats why high voltage is used in transmission lines)

What voltage a cable can handle has to do with the thickness of the isolation materials separating the two wires and/or covering a single wire from the environment.

Gastanker said:

Eh, just looked at some wire resistance charts and now I feel a bit silly. Just went and picked up some 18 gauge which should be much better.

Click to expand...

Just looked and the difference in resistance and calculated what it would mean in loss, and it's not much.

I used 3A when using 20ft.

10ft - Gauge 18 - 0.064 ohm *2A = 0,128 voltage drop 2A*0.128V = 0.256 watt loss
10ft - Gauge 20 - 0.162 ohm *2A = 0,324 V 0,648 watt

20ft - Gauge 18 - 0.128 ohm *3A = 0,384 voltage drop = 1.152 watt loss
20ft - Gauge 20 - 0.203 ohm *3A = 0,324 V 1.848 watt

Adding that to the ~10W loss in the driver.

A 100W white LED chip is drawing 3.5A so depending on the length and size this is the neighborhood,
not something that makes you what to rewire the hole smack, but when buying cables one might as well chose the right ones from the start.

Edit:
20ft - Gauge 24 - 0.513 * 3.5 = 6.2 watt loss
30ft - Gauge 24 - 0.513 * 3.5 = 9.6 watt loss

Wire resistance calulator

Good subject you got us into.

Gastanker said:

The two 100w arrays are wired with heavy duty 2000w+ power cords I had laying around but the 50w arrays are just solid 20 gauge... You think solid 20 gauge isn't heavy enough? Fuck... I was just going by the rating and it's rated to 300v and my drivers are only discharging 28-40v. I was thinking with such a low voltage that even at 1.5amps there wouldn't be a problem. They aren't warm to the touch at all and are ~4.5' in length. Let me know if I need to rewire those.

I'm not really having any heat issues I just raised the drivers to make sure I never did.

Click to expand...

Oh I meant in the grow room in general, if each driver is dispensate 10W of heat then 4-5 of them start to look like a heating element.

Heat wise I should be ok as none of the drivers will be in the grow area. I grow in tents so all i really have/need is ~5' between driver and light to keep them separate. I found a similar calculator and I think I should be ok as is, although I might rewire that one panel to 18 gauge regardless. Good thing I wired the 100 watters with more significant wire.

The wattage loss is maybe not much, but the voltage drop is enough for my 2x2x10W chips running directly on a 12V power supply to go from drawing 2*700mA
when connected with a short mains cable and down to 300mA when used with a 12ft long one.

There is 12.02 Volt and the output of the power supply and 11.85 at the LED end, enough for the chips to go down to half the power.


nb. This will not happen with constant current driver only with fix voltage psu's.

from my calculation 1000w hps has 192000 lumes. you would need a light with 200 lumes per electrical watt to be more efficient. the most efficient one i found like his leds were 83-100 lumes per watt and the 30w one being the smallest. i was thinking of useing the leds for side wall lighting ??? i guess leds are a long way off but i guess the heat factor is that its about with these.http://luckysunny.en.alibaba.com/product/594014986-213868769/30W_COB_LED_round.html