Cheapo DIY Chinese LED grow. 200w

Rasser said:

Can I put this in my signature: lol
"in fact I could run an additional 200w of cheapo LED 24hrs/day for 989 days and it would still be less expensive than going with half the wattage in CREEs."

Thank you very much also for the part list, with links !

Did you mount the chips with nuts and bolts or did you make threads ?
( I see one screw line up with a fin, but I'm not sure)

And have you found a name for your two lights, or shall I just refer to them as Gastankers Liberty Bell 2700 and his Grapple 6000

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Hehe. So many people fail to crunch numbers. For instance I cringed when I saw people buying those actinic aquarium bulbs - I ran a spread sheet and you could run 4x the wattage and replace your standard bulbs 4x more often for the same price. And that's including the price of the additional T5 units, bulbs, and electricity. So unless the actinics are >400% more efficient, which of course is impossible, .... ** Of course if you have a given space and yield is all that you care about then by all means.

Regarding the mounting - neither... I went redneck style and just drilled an undersized hole and went straight at it with the screws. Aluminum is soft... softer than some woods I've worked with. Didn't see a need to pre thread although bolts would have probably been a much better option. If I take them apart remind me to put them back together with bolts.

**Keep in mind the base of those heat syncs are >1/4" thick.

Oh i'm so fucking subbed to this...........great info on the DIY Gastanker........

Glad to have you along Psuagro. And I hope you took no offense to the actinic comment - after all here I am spending damn near $1/w when I have many hundreds of watts of perfectly fine CFLs just laying around in boxes.

Hey Gastanker! I had no idea you had gotten this far with LEDs!! I guess you got your panel growing for a little while now, your plants look really good! promising start for the party cup competition!! (are you going to flower without red spectrum or just make another panel?) I will definitely turn to you when comes time to build my first panel!! it won't be for a while though. NICE JOB!!

Endur0xX said:

Hey Gastanker! I had no idea you had gotten this far with LEDs!! I guess you got your panel growing for a little while now, your plants look really good! promising start for the party cup competition!! (are you going to flower without red spectrum or just make another panel?) I will definitely turn to you when comes time to build my first panel!! it won't be for a while though. NICE JOB!!

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Yup, had them about 20 days so far and they seem to be chugging along fairly well. If I end up liking the results from my first few plants I might make another larger panel consisting of 30w white arrays and a few 630nm 3w reds but atm this is all just a test and will be just the single warm and cool white arrays.

Gastanker said:

Glad to have you along Psuagro. And I hope you took no offense to the actinic comment - after all here I am spending damn near $1/w when I have many hundreds of watts of perfectly fine CFLs just laying around in boxes.

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Ha took no offense............I hate my wave point super blues anyways.........rock those diy led's Gas........be safe and happy growing

The good news with T5s is you can quickly change out a ~ $20 mistake, PLUS, watt for watt, they are still a lot cheaper than LEDs (plus cover ~ 3xs the foot print/$), AND until recently, no mfg has made an all-white fixture, though I think I would want one string of 4-8 @ 630- 660 as a back up and/or to run an A/B test

Rock on

Totally agree. $/w LEDs make no sense at all as of now. Hopefully in the future that will change. I'm always getting stuck on CLFs as they by far are the lowest $/w. Same reason I don't see getting rid of my HID anytime soon.

Quick chart. My DIY LEDs are priced at 160 and not the 180 as I am not factoring in shipping prices for the other units. The wattage for the 600w ipower is 600, got covered up by the watermark.

So I'm bored and thinking of the next project. I'm thinking a 15lb 8.5"x36" heatsync with 9x30w warm white arrays and 14 3w 660nm red Osrams. Can't figure out how I would want to place them...

Arrays down the middle would be the most even but would make a narrower cast pattern. Arrays on the side would create a wide cast pattern but less equal light distribution. Or I could alternate the whites which would give a wider more even cast pattern but then it doesn't look symmetrical lol. I guess I shouldn't really care about look eh?

Hmm, these came out kind of tiny.

I thought we came to the conclusion that 5000k(neutral white) had the best plant absorption peaks on the spd??.......idk........but i do recommend a remote constant current driver.............good luck

Yeah... I was wondering about that. But keep in mind I'm using cheapo cheapo LEDs. Supposedly the neutral CREEs would be the best but according to that spectral program my LEDs are nothing like CREEs. I should have probably ordered a neutral the first round instead of the cool white so I could compare it against each other. Supposedly these are reminiscent of my current arrays:

Cool white 100w Array.



Warm White:

And the drivers would all be constant current. Each 30w would have it's own and the reds would all be together.

Awesome thread Gastanker! I like the diy panels, personally I think that any of the layouts would work well. Good luck trying to make these buggers cost effective enough, I think they just need 2 more years at this point and the nail could be in the coffin for good. If it were at all possible for manufacturing to go down that is...with the world economy the way that it currently is, we will have to hope that competition within China will bring prices down.

As buying components from any other region of the world isn't possible due to the anti industrial movement that spread throughout western culture with the uprising of the service industry. I though democracy was founded in the new world to oust the ultra-rich bluebloods and create an environment in which any individual with the stamina and will could make something from nothing, but it turns out that history repeats its self in many different ways, and....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li7FZ6E8HOo
And maybe even a bit ugly on the side.
Sincerely,
ILove

They're all on track. Look to be halting the stretch and budding out pretty perfectly for a micro. Lets see if the flowers form Germed 1 G13 Pineapple Express, 1 CBD Seeds Yumbolt, and another Chocolope Hybrid for the solo cup competition.




Progression:
Day: 1,4,7

9/2, 9/2 (diff angle/orientation), 14/7

17/10

So I've been crunching numbers and talking to distributors and it looks like I might have to scrap the reds. I think I can stay at the $1/w ratio if I go with just 10 white 30w arrays. I'm thinking 5:5 neutral:warm. Should be cheaper and I get to run more wattage. Now I cant decide if I want to make two separate panels or to have all 10 on a single panel.

^^^I would think 2 panels give you a degree of flexibility. Plus you could then add another panel of reds. Either way design the panel to the grow space. That's the best way to go IMHO.

FranJan said:

^^^I would think 2 panels give you a degree of flexibility. Plus you could then add another panel of reds. Either way design the panel to the grow space. That's the best way to go IMHO.

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Yeah. I thought it would add considerably to the cost but it's only an extra $10 to get two 4.25"x36" heat syncs versus the single 8.5"x36". Grow space seems to be constantly changing but if need be I can always just bolt the two together And 3' lengths seem pretty manageable.

jubiare said:

glad to see a more "conventional" grower taking the plunge into LED and even diy some s**t out of it! Looking good

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My bday gift to myself fell through so I'm thinking I better treat myself. And if they fail me for these purposes I'll at least have the brightest aquariums on the block.

Actually so far I'm pretty impressed. They are brighter than I expected and are doing a great job with vegging. I have a feeling they'll power through the flower as long as I don't overcrowd them.

Plants are looking good, subbed for this, i've seen the same led arrays on ebay and wondered about these.

I might order 3x30watt cool white arrays, but would these work with the 100 watt driver from ebay?

Peace to all and happy growing.