TheHypnoToad
Member
I finally finished my first grow light! Big thanks to this forum for making it possible, especially Robincnn at Northern Grow for supplying parts I couldn't find locally and giving me a lot of great advice. I would highly recommend buying from Northern Grow if you are looking for parts!
Also wanted to thank growmau5 for his amazing videos and Danielson999 for his help!
I made quite a few mistakes that I will learn from for next time. Unfortunately I couldn't find any 18AWG solid copper wire locally and ended up using some 14 AWG wire that was very stiff. I accidentally snapped off a couple of the solder pads on my COBs while trying to bend it, not realizing how fragile their attachment to the plastic COB holder is. Used some hot glue and electrical tape to put them back on and they seem to be holding after running the lights for about 10 hours now.
Also screwed up the orientation of two of the cobs (was originally planning to run them through the heatsink holes) and had to run some wires across each other which looks a bit messy.
I ran out of my usual thermal paste halfway through (Gelid GC-Extreme) and picked up some Arctic Silver 5 from a local computer store. Unfortunately the Arctic Silver 5 oozed out of all the gaps and holes in the COB after screwing it in, and was a complete pain to clean up, leaving big stains all over the white plastic. The GC-Extreme worked great though and would highly recommend it to anyone, just heat it up a bit first and it spreads on really nicely.
Despite the mistakes I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, now I just have to learn how to grow for the first time!
Comments/criticism appreciated! Hoping to build another set in the near future to run seperate veg/flower tents.
Oh and if anyone can recommend a good hanging height to start my 4 seedlings at I would appreciate it!
Also wanted to thank growmau5 for his amazing videos and Danielson999 for his help!
I made quite a few mistakes that I will learn from for next time. Unfortunately I couldn't find any 18AWG solid copper wire locally and ended up using some 14 AWG wire that was very stiff. I accidentally snapped off a couple of the solder pads on my COBs while trying to bend it, not realizing how fragile their attachment to the plastic COB holder is. Used some hot glue and electrical tape to put them back on and they seem to be holding after running the lights for about 10 hours now.
Also screwed up the orientation of two of the cobs (was originally planning to run them through the heatsink holes) and had to run some wires across each other which looks a bit messy.
I ran out of my usual thermal paste halfway through (Gelid GC-Extreme) and picked up some Arctic Silver 5 from a local computer store. Unfortunately the Arctic Silver 5 oozed out of all the gaps and holes in the COB after screwing it in, and was a complete pain to clean up, leaving big stains all over the white plastic. The GC-Extreme worked great though and would highly recommend it to anyone, just heat it up a bit first and it spreads on really nicely.
Despite the mistakes I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, now I just have to learn how to grow for the first time!
Comments/criticism appreciated! Hoping to build another set in the near future to run seperate veg/flower tents.
Oh and if anyone can recommend a good hanging height to start my 4 seedlings at I would appreciate it!
I'm about to build one just about the same myself. Can you give me some stats on the cob's and how hard you are driving them ? What kind of heat sinks you using ??
