BodhiKarma
Active Member
Hey guys, lighting question and hoping for a "math based" answer basically.
Some background you can skip if you want
. Have about 9 or 10 years with MH/HPS. Moved in 2012 and was limited in space and no good way to vent heat so I made the jump to LED. Tried that for about 6 years but only halfheartedly. Used the purple crap and never made anything that compared to my past results.Did a little reading and bought a cheapo COB off of Amazon that had Epistars and there was a noticeable difference between the COB and the purple crap. So that lit a bit of a fire and I've spent the last several weeks to a month reading, watching videos etc and I've landed on the idea of making my own.
My environment is 30" x 60" x 86". I'll be using the bottom 18" or so for a reservoir so really I only have about 68" vertically. My lighting goal is to have consistent coverage across the 30" x 60" and the correct amount of PPFD for room temperature ( say a range of 72 - 84 ). I don't know how to do the math. I believe I will go with Rapid LED 48 x 22 substraight. That is basically two rails. My plan is to do 4 lights per rail for a total of 8. Lights will be Cree CXB 3590's. Probably 3500K ( Happy for any input on that as well). Those rails coupled with 8 lights will allow me to have each light 7.5 inches from the wall and 15 inches center to center to a neighboring light. So I'm looking for each one to cover just a little over a square foot and still have enough photons to hit under the neighboring lights at an angle. I'm at a loss as to the wattage or milliamps I should be looking at.
I like the idea of a single controller but that isn't a requirement. Also considering the number of COB's, the proximity to neighboring COB's and reflectivity, as well as limited vertical space, should I even mess with a lens on them?
Some background you can skip if you want
. Have about 9 or 10 years with MH/HPS. Moved in 2012 and was limited in space and no good way to vent heat so I made the jump to LED. Tried that for about 6 years but only halfheartedly. Used the purple crap and never made anything that compared to my past results.Did a little reading and bought a cheapo COB off of Amazon that had Epistars and there was a noticeable difference between the COB and the purple crap. So that lit a bit of a fire and I've spent the last several weeks to a month reading, watching videos etc and I've landed on the idea of making my own. My environment is 30" x 60" x 86". I'll be using the bottom 18" or so for a reservoir so really I only have about 68" vertically. My lighting goal is to have consistent coverage across the 30" x 60" and the correct amount of PPFD for room temperature ( say a range of 72 - 84 ). I don't know how to do the math. I believe I will go with Rapid LED 48 x 22 substraight. That is basically two rails. My plan is to do 4 lights per rail for a total of 8. Lights will be Cree CXB 3590's. Probably 3500K ( Happy for any input on that as well). Those rails coupled with 8 lights will allow me to have each light 7.5 inches from the wall and 15 inches center to center to a neighboring light. So I'm looking for each one to cover just a little over a square foot and still have enough photons to hit under the neighboring lights at an angle. I'm at a loss as to the wattage or milliamps I should be looking at.
I like the idea of a single controller but that isn't a requirement. Also considering the number of COB's, the proximity to neighboring COB's and reflectivity, as well as limited vertical space, should I even mess with a lens on them?
