Help with DIY LED lights for veg only please :)

rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
Aloha LED heads (on a quick side note, I live in Hawaii so "Aloha" is normal, I'm not just trying to be a cool hippy),

I was pretty set on upgrading to an Inda-gro 200 or 420 or even possibly the Phillips 315 CMH until I read some post by @SupraSPL on THCFarmer (I think it was) where he said you can get vigorous vegetative growth with 10 watts of LED lighting per sq. ft. and he had some nice pics to prove it too. I was originally looking to expand my indoor veg area from the coverage area of an 8 bulb T5HO (basically 2'x4', kinda lame) to at least a 4'x4' or 5'x5' area, but with this new info and some of the rad DIY lights I'm seeing aaaaand the cost being reasonable looking to DIM (Do It Myself, unless someone wants to do it for me for a nominal fee, ha ha) I figured I'd ask the LED pros here what would be some good equipment to get and how much would it cost to have some vigorous plant growth.

It would be cool if it were possible to add lights as time goes on. I should keep it to around the same amount of watts I pulling now (432), but it would be super rad if I could be using 40 sq. ft.-ish to veg and if I could be vegging plants to at least 3-4 ft. tall that would be cool too. It may be a month or two before I can get started on this horse, but at least I can start making plans. I don't know that much about building LED lights, but I'm sure I can learn and YouTube probably has some helpful videos I'd guess. Anyway, thanks a lot for any advise, it is much appreciated.
 
Positivity

Positivity

Well-Known Member
Well you could easily build a single strip cob light that would cover a 2 x 4 for veg. Just build more for each extra area.

Haven't looked at heatsink usa in a bit but one of the thinner profiles at 3' - 4' length would make a nice clean light.

Could use a driver like one of the earlier threads i just looked at. Meanwell 150 at 700ma with 6 cobs in series spaced down the length of sink.

I actually got some extra parts i need to get rid of in the 808. Would be a 2' Heatsink though and a 200w t5 killer.

Alojah
 
C

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
A veg lamp is the best place to invest in LED lighting since it's on 18-24 hours a day. vs only 12 for flowering. That gives you up to double the value for your money!

I would aim to build a 45% efficient or higher lamp for veg. Higher efficiency means a higher start-up cost in leds since you would need to run more leds at a lower current to get the same total output power.

With vero 2.0 and cxb, it should be getting cheaper to get parts for an over 45% efficiency lamp.

4-5W/sqft PAR is a good amount of radiant power for vegging plants under 2 feet. At 45% efficiency, that means you'd need 11.11W dissipated to get 5W PAR.
 
rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
Positivity said:
Well you could easily build a single strip cob light that would cover a 2 x 4 for veg. Just build more for each extra area.

Haven't looked at heatsink usa in a bit but one of the thinner profiles at 3' - 4' length would make a nice clean light.

Could use a driver like one of the earlier threads i just looked at. Meanwell 150 at 700ma with 6 cobs in series spaced down the length of sink.

I actually got some extra parts i need to get rid of in the 808. Would be a 2' Heatsink though and a 200w t5 killer.

Alojah
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate it :) I'll PM you about the extra parts and what-nots.

When you say thinner heatsinks would that include one that's 4.850"? Here's a link to it: http://www.heatsinkusa.com/4-850-wide-extruded-aluminum-heatsink/ It's pretty cheap per linear ft.

And that one Meanwell driver can run 6 cobs? Thanks again brah :)
 
rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
churchhaze said:
A veg lamp is the best place to invest in LED lighting since it's on 18-24 hours a day. vs only 12 for flowering. That gives you up to double the value for your money!

I would aim to build a 45% efficient or higher lamp for veg. Higher efficiency means a higher start-up cost in leds since you would need to run more leds at a lower current to get the same total output power.

With vero 2.0 and cxb, it should be getting cheaper to get parts for an over 45% efficiency lamp.

4-5W/sqft PAR is a good amount of radiant power for vegging plants under 2 feet. At 45% efficiency, that means you'd need 11.11W dissipated to get 5W PAR.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot also for your reply churchhaze, I really appreciate the input.

Is the Vero 2.0 different than the Vero 29's I've been reading about and is the CXB's a newer version from the CXA's? And do you have a recommendation of where to buy these?

What would be your recommendations for vegging plants up to 4 ft.?

On a sidenote, have you ever grown out Kali Mist with a name like "churchhaze"? I have two phenos of it that I keep and one smells like church incense. Do you have any church haze strains you grow?
 
rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
Hey guys thanks for your input so far. I have the money now to start ordering stuff. My first question is:

Are the Cree CXB 3590's much better than the Vero 29 V2's in the 5000K spectrum?

I'm thinking of putting 2 cobs per heatsink running them at 50W each, which I believe I was told was at 1.4a. I was told that each cob should be able to cover about a 2'x2' area running at that voltage and should be able to grow some decent sized plants. It would be cool to Would it be better to run each heatsink (2 cobs) on it's own driver or just run two heatsinks (4 cobs) on one driver? I'd guess it would be cheaper to use one driver for all four cobs and maybe use a relay switch or something to turn off one light if necessary? Though I doubt I'll ever turn off both lights. Eventually I'd like to fill my whole veg space with COB's which is about an 8'x7' area.

And what might be a good heatsink size for these? I'm thinking of use fans, but I don't mind going a little overboard on keeping them cool since my veg room gets pretty warm (with HOT5's anyway).

I'm just getting started, but I'd like to start ordering stuff soon.

Thank you guys for any help in the right direction.
 
HiloReign

HiloReign

Well-Known Member
Howzit rik...

There's about a 7% difference in efficiency when comparing Vero29s and CXB3590s 36v at 1.4a.

As far as heatsink surface area recommended figures would be:
Passive = 75 sq cm /W or 11.62" in/w
Active = 25sq. cm/W or 3.87" in/w
Semi = 55sq. cm/W or 8.52 in/w

I believe recommended PARwatts/sqft for higher efficiency COBs and for vegetation purposes began at 10PARwatts/sqft. So for example: 4sqft=40PARwatts(around 80dissipated watts for your CXB3590 36v at 1.4a).

You could also try a driver with dimming options for when you don't want to be blasting away with the photons~ I believe an HLG-185H-C1400A can drive 4x 36v CXB3590s and is also dimmable but I'd get a second opinion on that if I were you!
 
guido420

guido420

Well-Known Member
rikdabrick said:
Hey guys thanks for your input so far. I have the money now to start ordering stuff. My first question is:

Are the Cree CXB 3590's much better than the Vero 29 V2's in the 5000K spectrum?

I'm thinking of putting 2 cobs per heatsink running them at 50W each, which I believe I was told was at 1.4a. I was told that each cob should be able to cover about a 2'x2' area running at that voltage and should be able to grow some decent sized plants. It would be cool to Would it be better to run each heatsink (2 cobs) on it's own driver or just run two heatsinks (4 cobs) on one driver? I'd guess it would be cheaper to use one driver for all four cobs and maybe use a relay switch or something to turn off one light if necessary? Though I doubt I'll ever turn off both lights. Eventually I'd like to fill my whole veg space with COB's which is about an 8'x7' area.

And what might be a good heatsink size for these? I'm thinking of use fans, but I don't mind going a little overboard on keeping them cool since my veg room gets pretty warm (with HOT5's anyway).

I'm just getting started, but I'd like to start ordering stuff soon.

Thank you guys for any help in the right direction.
Click to expand...
i was looking at cx3070s myself. I think the meanwell part would do 2ea. Love to hear
 
guido420

guido420

Well-Known Member
Hey man...like to hear how the project went. If you wanna do some more experimenting could go in on parts and split shipping if your interested. Add a gmail dot c0m to my sig.

Mahalo
 
rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
HiloReign said:
Howzit rik...

There's about a 7% difference in efficiency when comparing Vero29s and CXB3590s 36v at 1.4a.

As far as heatsink surface area recommended figures would be:
Passive = 75 sq cm /W or 11.62" in/w
Active = 25sq. cm/W or 3.87" in/w
Semi = 55sq. cm/W or 8.52 in/w

I believe recommended PARwatts/sqft for higher efficiency COBs and for vegetation purposes began at 10PARwatts/sqft. So for example: 4sqft=40PARwatts(around 80dissipated watts for your CXB3590 36v at 1.4a).

You could also try a driver with dimming options for when you don't want to be blasting away with the photons~ I believe an HLG-185H-C1400A can drive 4x 36v CXB3590s and is also dimmable but I'd get a second opinion on that if I were you!
Click to expand...
Hey HiloReign, thanks for the input. Somehow I never got notified of your post. I'll look into it a little more later, but thanks again.
 
rikdabrick

rikdabrick

Well-Known Member
guido420 said:
Hey man...like to hear how the project went. If you wanna do some more experimenting could go in on parts and split shipping if your interested. Add a gmail dot c0m to my sig.

Mahalo
Click to expand...
Hey brah, I haven't finished it yet. I still need a couple more parts. I ended up putting the lights on the back burner because I was in the middle of building a greenhouse and making other upgrades and I have some other lights and a friend of mine let me borrow a Spectrum King LED light too. I'll get around to building them pretty soon though.

You're on Maui?
 
guido420

guido420

Well-Known Member
rikdabrick said:
Hey brah, I haven't finished it yet. I still need a couple more parts. I ended up putting the lights on the back burner because I was in the middle of building a greenhouse and making other upgrades and I have some other lights and a friend of mine let me
Click to expand...
Nope...Oahu
 
C

CPR

Member
Positivity said:
Well you could easily build a single strip cob light that would cover a 2 x 4 for veg. Just build more for each extra area.

Haven't looked at heatsink usa in a bit but one of the thinner profiles at 3' - 4' length would make a nice clean light.

Could use a driver like one of the earlier threads i just looked at. Meanwell 150 at 700ma with 6 cobs in series spaced down the length of sink.

I actually got some extra parts i need to get rid of in the 808. Would be a 2' Heatsink though and a 200w t5 killer.

Alojah
Click to expand...
 
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