DIY Primitive sunrise/sunset 3 channel spectrum tunable light

Hey Growers and light enthusiasts, I just wanted to share a little DIY project I’m currently working on for a small veg/mother space. I’ve always been curious if plants would respond differently to changing spectrums and intensity throughout the day, and I’ve built a fixture to try to find out.

The fixture is made up of:

5 Bridgelux Vesta TL Thrive 2750K 98CRI 560mm strips
(Each strip is half 2700K and half 5000k in alternating order)
4 Bridgelux Gen 2 EB 3000K 80CRI 560mm strips
2 Meanwell ELG-75-C500B drivers
1 Meanwell HLG-80-C700B driver

The Vesta Thrive 2700K & EB 3000K are driven at 500ma and the Vesta Thrive 5000K is driven at 700ma. I have potentiometers ordered so each channel be adjustable. Full output is is around 160W of light. I don’t have a watt meter but it’s likely around 180W at the wall when at full power.

I currently have each driver on its own timer, which is the super primitive part. I have the 2700K Thrive set to come on at “sunrise”, then the 3000K 80CRI at “mid morning”, then the 5000K Thrive set to come on for “midday” light. It’s actually a really nice color when all 3 lights are on full blast, but the plants will decide when they get in there.

My goal eventually is to get a handheld spectrometer and set the drivers up on a smart controller like an Arduino or something, so each driver can slowly ramp up and down independently throughout the day. I may eventually also add some 660nm, 670nm, and 730nm diodes on their own channel and play around a bit. When it comes to smart controllers, programming, writing code, hardware, my knowledge is fairly limited, so if any of you more technical savvy people out there had any ideas, I’d love for you to chime in.

Now for the photos…


You’ll have to forgive the wiring mess and improvised driver & fixture mounting. All temporary until I can clean it up a bit.

Just the 2700K Thrive




2700k 98CRI & 3000K 80CRI both at 500ma




All 3 Channels




I’m super excited to see how plants respond!
Thanks for checking it out!

Here are some loose intensity readings at different distances, with the different channel combinations.

36” 2700K channel only


36” 2700K channel & 3000K channel


36” All 3 Channels 2700K/3000K/5000K


24” 2700K only


24” 2700K & 3000k


24” all 3 Channels 2700K/3000K/5000K


12” 2700K only


12” 2700K & 3000K


12” all 3 Channels 2700K/3000K/5000K

also

Bridgelux EB Gen 2 3000K 80CRI Data Sheet and Spectrum




Bridgelux Vesta Thrive EB TL 2700K/5000K 98 CRI

Fantastic build, very nice looking. Theres some tests of regular vestas if you havent found it already:

Would love to see them grow

Rocket Soul said:

Fantastic build, very nice looking. Theres some tests of regular vestas if you havent found it already:

Using and Testing Vesta Strips

So this is my first go at a thread. I hang out and read the threads mostly, with occasional comments. I am a small hobbyist grower. I grow vegetables, herbs and our favorite herb. Electronics and DIYing have always floated my boat. One niche that I like in our very large LED DIY...

www.rollitup.org

Would love to see them grow

Click to expand...

Thank you very much! I did check out that link to the previous testing that I believe LED Teknik put out some years back. The older data sheets even had the spd for the regular vestas if I remember correctly. That along with the CCT vs Current chart were what helped me guestimate the color temp of the thrive strips with both channels on.

I should hopefully have some plants under the new light in the next 6 weeks or so. I’m popping some new seeds, but didn’t have my veg space put together on the last run, so it was a one and done. Now I should be able to find some new hunted plants and keep some happy mothers!