100x3w LED and grow question

Michael Huntherz said:

Are you saying I'm a troll? If not, what are you replying to?
I guess I'm just opinionated, but I'm pretty sure more light means better results, at least to a point. I think it would be hard to argue against that. I'm not trying to troll anyone. It depends how big your pots/plants are, what your desired results are etc. but I was running with the assumption he wanted to get the most out of his plants. Cheers, OP.

Yo OP, for the price of that unit you should get an HPS setup instead, if you're bothering on getting a tent. Unless keeping your grow small is part of your goal then that's a lot of money for that light, in my opinion. This would be a better option, IMO.
http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Horticulture-GLK1000CTAC-Digital-Dimmable/dp/B006K5AJOG/

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Siino Gardens said:

More light does not always equate better results and too much light can actually be detrimental. Don't be such a teabagger buttercup, I wasn't specifically calling you out but you obviously felt like something you said was a little bullshit otherwise you wouldn't have replied.

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420PyRoS said:

The reason I went LED is because atm I'm seriously confined with space and hydro costs are ridiculous here. Also to keep heat down. Trying to get the most light for the cheapest hydro rate. I figured LED vs other lights would be more efficient with similar lumen outputs. First grows, just learning also.

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sunny747 said:

I see some misinformation on this thread. A cheap 100w LED panel won't produce much cannabis. I have one. It vegges one small plant nicely, but that's it. For the price there is no way to beat HID. $150 gets you a setup that will rock a 3x3 tent. Look on Craigslist you can find great deals. A COB array would be great, but who can justify the cost?

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420PyRoS said:

Honestly, I've never done it with CFL or any other light. LED has impressed me so much so far. It kept my plants squaty and bushy keeping the light close. Im very space confined in height. Pull it away 1ft and watch her stretch. The thing that really impresses me, might be more the plant then the light, but her bottom bud sides keep stretching outwards, in order to stretch upwards. They are all competing with each other to reach the top. Ive squatted the light pretty low on the top, and now all my sides are bushing out and growing upward like crazy with the bud sides competing to reach the top. Its almost like a poor lazy mans way of LSTing?

I love this hobby!!
Off to roll me some green crack or crown royal ... choices choices...

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Sonnshine said:

420PyRoS - if you're interested in LED and COB tech, surf the Indoor Grow and Do It Yourself forums. In the DIY one, Gaius has documented a basic build using CXA3070s and Meanwell drivers, active cooled via CPU fans, named Battlestar Ganjatica. The Indoor Grow thread is populated by a ton of people who really know the subject, and are very helpful.

I built a version of the Battlestar using 4000k cxa3070s (Z2 bin), six of them, and runs around 350W. The driver, cob, cob holder and CPU cooler checked in at about $60 per unit, so building your own is a significant savings (I figure the one I built is slightly better than the Advanced XML350, and cost under half what they ask). Plus, I built it so if any single part fails, it is easy to replace. Took me about a month and a half to design, get everything ordered and assembled, currently growing two Critical Kush into a 4'x2.5' ScrOG. I could have easily done more plants, but wanted to do the first test drive with just a couple, I figure it can easily handle 4-6 plants though.

I see people using COB lights that know their shit, and they pull 1g/W, I think I've seen one (Captain Morgan, SupraSPL, not sure, damn short term memory loss) reach almost 1.5g/W, so if you got it all dialed in, that's what it can do. And the new CXB series is supposed to rock even harder (but spendier, or course, since newer).

I know a lot of people are put off on the idea of DiY, but if you are not, check it out. It's really not that difficult.

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420PyRoS said:

Love DIY's man. I'm retired Vet so I'm bored as hell most days. Used to be an engineer while I was in, so I love tinkering and stuff. I'll def check it all out. Hell knows I have enough comp fans and heatsinks and crap around here.

Cheers bro!

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Sonnshine said:

Cool - I think you'll enjoy it then, given your background. I was going to buy a light from Area-51, but they were out of stock,. so I just took the plunge and copied from Gaius - now of course I want to build a second one, and get fancier. It's almost as addictive as growing the plants.

If you like engineering, you should enjoy the decisions - what type of COB to use (Cree and Vero seem to be the front runners), what drivers to pair them with, to run them at high voltage (more light, more degradation over time, more energy, cheaper) or run them at lower voltage (more efficient, but need more cobs to cover area of higher driven ones), active or passive cooling, designing a frame.

And like I said, the people in the forums are exceedingly helpful. SupraSPL, Captain Morgan, Tim Fox, Ariquiba, Little Jacob, and a lot more names I can't dredge up at the moment. When I did have some questions, they were spot on with advice and help.

This is the thread that got me started.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/diy-led-grow-lights-with-cree-cxa3070-cobs-and-cpu-coolers.805681/

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420PyRoS said:

Already checking some of the builds out over there. I was checking out the COB design last night a bit, and love how efficient it is with multiple LEDs and space compared to individual runs like the panel I'm using. I used to dabble a bit and researched extensively on DIY laser diodes, drivers, heatsinks, power supplies and always the latest more powerful diodes to be harvested when they became avail. Should be fun. I'm hearing the COB LED's are coming down in price, and I guess you can get them up to 100w ? Might need some serious heatsinking for that baby!

Thanks for the tips and who to keep an eye on.
Cheers!

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Michael Huntherz said:

You can run many of them well above 100W, but when you run them at lower current using a dimmable driver they become more efficient. I'm hoping to run Cree CXB3590s (CB bin or higher) at about 23W each and hit near 65% efficiency (my imaginary build I'm collecting parts for...)

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420PyRoS said:

Oh hey, saw your setup. Sweet man, all aluminum light weight, great heat dissipation.
Covers a nice area too eh?

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Sonnshine said:

My screen for the scrog is 4 feet by 2 and half. The lights cover a bigger area, but they start to drop off a tiny bit at the edges. I probably should have used reflectors, and like Michael Huntherz suggests, dimmable would have been smart too. But I started basic for my first build. I keep my lights about 24" up for veg, and bring it up to 36" for a short time after I pot up to reduce the stress, but planning on being around 12" for flowering.

I run them using MW-60-1400 drivers (60v, 1.4amp) one driver per COB. There are drivers that will run multiple COBs, but my thinking was if a driver goes, it just impacts a single lamp this way. Costlier, but more maintainable, and since the lamps are rated for 50,000 hours (about 11 years of constant growing), I figured that maybe could be a possibility. So I drive them at about half what they are rated for, I think. I'm not smart enough to tell you the exact efficiency though.

And yeah, they stay cool. I just use my garage, not even a tent, and they warm up the canopy maybe 1-2 degrees over the rest of the room, grow area has been a constant 72-77 Fahrenheit, The lamps themselves maybe get to 80-85ish? The CPU coolers they are attached to seem cool to the touch, even adjacent, so it seems like it's under 96, by touch.

CXB3590s that Michael mentions are top of the line, last I found some, they were about $80 a pop, that I could find. The Z2 cxa3070s I used were $23 from Mouser. I went with cheaper for my first build, as it was as much proof of concept for me as anything else, so wanted to go inexpensive. But now that I know I can do it,. I have my eye on them.

And what he says about picking the voltage you run them at is one of the key points in designing. Higher voltages = more heat, more light, less efficiency, more degradation on COB potentially, need fewer cobs for specific area vs. lower voltage = less heat, less light per cob, more efficiency, less degradation, need more cobs. Ideally you'd run them at as low voltage as possible, but that's balanced against cost of more cobs.

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