DIY LED CREE under 100$ Build. Max 40,000 Lumen

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1212ham

Well-Known Member
jaggwaa said:
Also a couple watt off will do what..... its not a heart surgery we are working so that every thing has to be preeeeecise...... and any voltmeter you take, you never know if that one is exact.
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jaggwaa said:
So basically iam losing around two watts from wall to led, what will be the efficiency of this driver?
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jaggwaa said:
7% of 32 is 2.24, which means this chinese led driver is 93% efficient right???
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Only if your meter is accurate. ;)
 
jaggwaa

jaggwaa

Well-Known Member
Well if the meter is not accurate... then why it show 0 when there is no load. Dont you think if watts or amps are different lets say +2 for example, then at no load it should show 2 watts because it is off by 2 watts ?
Amp are also zero when there is no load, the no load reading should not be zero if the meter is not calibrated right?
 
nfhiggs

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
jaggwaa said:
Well if the meter is not accurate... then why it show 0 when there is no load. Dont you think if watts or amps are different lets say +2 for example, then at no load it should show 2 watts because it is off by 2 watts ?
Amp are also zero when there is no load, the no load reading should not be zero if the meter is not calibrated right?
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That logic is ridiculous. It simply does not work that way. Meters that are "off" will vary from the actual value by a percentage. Any percentage of 0 is still 0.

I've got a handful of useless meters because they are off by as much as 50%.
 
jaggwaa

jaggwaa

Well-Known Member
nfhiggs said:
That logic is ridiculous. It simply does not work that way. Meters that are "off" will vary from the actual value by a percentage. Any percentage of 0 is still 0.

I've got a handful of useless meters because they are off by as much as 50%.
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That was just a thought my friend. u r right. I agree with you8)
 
ANC

ANC

Well-Known Member
Randomblame said:
Yea, I have a few similar drivers from 18w LED tubes(1$, e3ay), uninsulated and they also claim 91% effiency and power factor above 0,9 in their describtion. 80v/240mA max. but unfortunately not dimmable.
I think I'd use them for 2 or 3 BLX Vesta strips (one for each color channel). So I could use them for my living room and use either 5000k, 2700k or both channels together depending on the time of day. But I do not like the solution yet! For my living room I actually want something dimmable, you know, both channels steplessly dimmable so I can mix both spectrums individually. I can not achieve that with these drivers. Although there are dimmable tube drivers(dali) out there, but not for just 1buck like this.

At least they seem to use better chips now in this little tube drivers and have significantly improved the efficiency.
View attachment 4154566 View attachment 4154567

I can easily imagine how a 2nd bar like this could be used in flowering when you switch to a 12/12h light regime.
One bar for veg = 18h with up to 128w and two bars for flowering =12h x 256w.
Assuming 140lm/w are ~2,0μMol/j you have ~ 250μMol/s PPF from one bar, or around 500μMol/s/m² PPFD on your 0,5m². (40x 20")
With two it would be already around 1000μMol/s/m².. of course with the usually used 10-20% less it's only around 800-900μMol/s/m², but that's just the amount of light the most growers are looking for.
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I'd swap out the electrolytics with genuine, preferably, higher voltage ones and they should last.
 
ANC

ANC

Well-Known Member
Well you can look through the catalog at Digikey at least those are real. When choosing, look at expected lifespan VS price as there will likely be a few in the same size, parameters, and pin spacing.
 
Randomblame

Randomblame

Well-Known Member
ANC said:
Well you can look through the catalog at Digikey at least those are real. When choosing, look at expected lifespan VS price as there will likely be a few in the same size, parameters, and pin spacing.
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I found an electronics shop nearby. I'll just solder it out and take it with me. Then I ask there for a one with higher rating and in better quality. Thanks for the tip!
 
CobKits

CobKits

Well-Known Member
jaggwaa said:
Well if the meter is not accurate... then why it show 0 when there is no load. Dont you think if watts or amps are different lets say +2 for example, then at no load it should show 2 watts because it is off by 2 watts ?
Amp are also zero when there is no load, the no load reading should not be zero if the meter is not calibrated right?
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zero is gonna be zero on almost all meters. they will diverge in scale usually as a % of reading
 
ANC

ANC

Well-Known Member
That is a good idea... The electrolytics are the Achilles heel in that design... I used to design LED drivers back in the day before electrolytic free driver chips were available in high powers.

The thing to remember is when you come home try to look up the numbers on the case to find the datasheet, this way you can calculate how many hours you can safely put on the driver...
 
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jaggwaa

jaggwaa

Well-Known Member
Hey folks, time to update some results. Little background first. So in feburary 2018, i got seeds for 6 strains,
Green Crack(GC) by Humboltd
Amherst Sour Diesel(ASD) by Humboltd
Critical Kali Mist(CKM) by Delicious seeds
Dinachem(DC) by Dinafem
Amnesia Platinum(AP) by Bulk Seed Bank(this was an experiment because seeds are extremely cheap, 5 for like 13 euro. So i wanted to see how cheap seeds compete with expensive seeds)
AK48(AK) was free gift and i guess it was by Nirvana not sure

Initially my plan was 3 plants, GC,DC and included AP as test.
GC never sprouted, AP and DC went along and sprouted. I tried another seed of GC, didn't sprouted, and i tried on another one, GC was one of my main strains. The 4th seed sprouted. For some reason, GC need higher temperature to sprout. But in frustration, with the 4th GC seed, i sprouted one seed from all strains and i thought ok, maybe when u germinate 10 seeds, u get 3 or 4 that will work, so let me include one seed from all strains so one or two will sprout. First time experience, but guess what all four, GC,ASD,CKM and AK sprouted and now i had 6 plants altogether. First two were 15 days older then the rest 4, i call them late comers.
Long story short, late comers had 3 or 4 nodes and couple of flowers on each and i decided to reveg them after 40 days of flowering. There was no crown on any of them. I belive reason was a short veg like 20 days and that purple light:wall:

First thing i did was ditch that light ... hence the led build. Pics coming week 2 and 3 in next post
 
jaggwaa

jaggwaa

Well-Known Member
So the last pic in above post is Critical Kali Mist, it is actually its sativa thing. But man, Amherst sour diesel and green carck, both by humboltd seeds, they feel some really good genetics, all the stems and thick and plenty of flower nodes. Thats a first for me to see, Its good i have clones from all of them, but GC and ASD seems to be the best so far yeild wise. AK48 is not in these pics, it is in week 2 pics, the smallest plant in the middle, acutally AK48 was small since day 1, i dont know whats wrong with it, it never grew the way it should, i did an experiment on it. Air injection, within one week, the whole top of the plant was yellow, complete dull yellow, i repotted it and now its back on track, all yellowing has turned green. Atleast i will never mess with hydroponics or air injection techniques:-)
 
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