Cheapo DIY Chinese LED grow. 200w
- Thread starter Gastanker
- Start date
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
Just reread this and thought you might like a price update.
$90.32 for the two heatsyncs (heatsyncusa.com) Didn't bother looking for cheaper.
$113.34 for the 6 drivers (18.98 each including shipping) I got them for lower than listed but I have on good authority (his) that he'll go down as low as $14.90 - I overpaid and found out a day late. http://www.ebay.com/itm/290648103597?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
$93.00 for the 6 LEDs $15.5each but again he'll go down to $13.90 - found out a day late. http://www.ebay.com/itm/330660072221?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648 http://www.ebay.com/itm/330660062041?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
Total for me was $296.66 but if someone else or if I was to order again than it would be ~$262.
500w in warm and cool whites without heatsyncs would come in at $288 with shipping. With the expensive heatsyncs I'm using $408. Not too bad - $0.82/w.
polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
DAMN good work. i will probably replicate in the near future. but nice, didnt think it could really be done for under 1$ per watt. props man you got "shopping skillz"
IlovePlants
Well-Known Member
Gastanker,
This thread is inspirational! Have you gotten any further with aluminum casting? I'm planning on modding this moldy ol' vented HID reflector that's been squatting in the corner of my house. I'm going to cast fins onto the back of the interior reflector, and add a fan in the usual place since it's ventable.
DIY can definitely save money and time in an LED market focused on selling you their spectrum, and frankly overpriced since everything needs to be shipped. Whether or not they charge you for shipping, they are making amazing money off of LED tech. The new light will be 400 watts; 220 watts of 3000k, 120 watts of 5000k, and 60 watts of 660nm. I wanted to make myself a sun, and now all I have to do is look into dimmers and arduino! It's cool that they have 660 30 watt arrays (even though they are expensive as fuck), and now I can have the whole thing set to dial in and roll of at different times during the day with dimmers.
+Rep to Gastanker
Subbed and looking forward to seeing those new lights,
ILovePlants
This thread is inspirational! Have you gotten any further with aluminum casting? I'm planning on modding this moldy ol' vented HID reflector that's been squatting in the corner of my house. I'm going to cast fins onto the back of the interior reflector, and add a fan in the usual place since it's ventable.
DIY can definitely save money and time in an LED market focused on selling you their spectrum, and frankly overpriced since everything needs to be shipped. Whether or not they charge you for shipping, they are making amazing money off of LED tech. The new light will be 400 watts; 220 watts of 3000k, 120 watts of 5000k, and 60 watts of 660nm. I wanted to make myself a sun, and now all I have to do is look into dimmers and arduino! It's cool that they have 660 30 watt arrays (even though they are expensive as fuck), and now I can have the whole thing set to dial in and roll of at different times during the day with dimmers.
+Rep to Gastanker
Subbed and looking forward to seeing those new lights,
ILovePlants
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
I have a friend that's a bit more experienced with metal casting so I'm waiting for him to drop by before I start experimenting. We're thinking of making one of those 1200w calrod furnaces that someone very kindly posted.
I think your light sounds great but I would advise you to stay clear of any red/blue arrays. I inquired about them myself and even the chinese manufacturers warned me that you need a very specific bipolar electrical source (or something) and that even then they have big problems with wasted electricity. From a manufacturer: "About red color, it is easily leakage of electricity unless can find bipolar electrode." I do hope to add a few 3w red diodes to mine eventually. I want to see how hot they get with just the whites first though.
So the price I have for the 500w is based on 3 separate heat syncs each 4.5lb 24"x4.25". They are $33/each with additional shipping/handling. I ordered two for the 300w of LED I ordered. It's all the same price per inch though - 3x 5"x4.25" is the same price as 1x 15"x4.25".
You could definitely cut prices a bit more by tinkering with heatsync configurations or just looking for a different source. From what I hear heatsyncUSA has some of the heaviest around which I like the idea of for the large arrays with tons of heat from a single point but if you were going with smaller arrays you wouldn't need nearly as thick (heavy) of a sync, or at least a much narrower one which drops the price quite a bit. Or you could just go with rectangular tubing. And of course the less material the cheaper - I could have cut prices by going with 6 separate 4.25x5" syncs ($41) instead of the two 24" ($66) - the 24" with 3 arrays I just think will be more user friendly; The syncs for my 100w arrays were only $9.50/each...
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
The damage that tea did is a bit more visible now. Otherwise they look ok I guess. I expected the clones to stay small but I was expecting the 12/12 seedlings to get a bit larger. They seem to be flowering now at their very minute stature. Makes me think I might have gone just a tad heavy on the initial alfalfa meal tea - those PGRs in high doses are a stunting agent. Can't tell if it'll be a good thing or bad; I could actually see a high density micro sog in a common planter working well with dwarfed plants under LEDs.
Progression:
Day: 1,4,7
9/2, 9/2 (diff angle/orientation), 14/7
17/10, 21/14, 24/17
Progression:
Day: 1,4,7
9/2, 9/2 (diff angle/orientation), 14/7
17/10, 21/14, 24/17
curly604
Well-Known Member
loooking good man little bastards but nothing like saving space 
.... is that a bud light lime O rita box? LOL i was just at a big festival and i for some reason thought it was a good idea to shotgun one of the giant 24oz cans of that shit at 10am ..... dot remember much of that day haha.
.... is that a bud light lime O rita box? LOL i was just at a big festival and i for some reason thought it was a good idea to shotgun one of the giant 24oz cans of that shit at 10am ..... dot remember much of that day haha.
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
loooking good man little bastards but nothing like saving space
It's a lime o rita can
My light is sponsored you know - bud light and some type of ice tea. I do a lot of weird things with cut up cans. Sounds like it was a good day 
polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=hIPFp2KNU1M&NR=1
thought you might like this very interesting idea.
thought you might like this very interesting idea.
polyarcturus
Well-Known Member
My light is sponsored you know
lol i just got it. lame ass LED companysand stupid dicounts lol
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
Thanks poly - interesting video but I think it might just be a tad beyond me to make my own PCBs. Though it does sounds like a lot of fun.
And I agree on the LED companies - "Hey write a glowing review and post it all over and if it's positive enough we'll comp you." I have a feeling if you used their lights and found they sucked and posted that up that you just might not get any backing not biased at all. lol.
I'm trying to get sponsored by Shenzhen Hanhua Opto Co.,Ltd. They seem very insistent on sending me some free red LEDs and 30w arrays to try. If they keep insisting then I just might have to take em up on the offer lol.
And I agree on the LED companies - "Hey write a glowing review and post it all over and if it's positive enough we'll comp you." I have a feeling if you used their lights and found they sucked and posted that up that you just might not get any backing
not biased at all. lol. I'm trying to get sponsored by Shenzhen Hanhua Opto Co.,Ltd. They seem very insistent on sending me some free red LEDs and 30w arrays to try. If they keep insisting then I just might have to take em up on the offer lol.
Endur0xX
Well-Known Member
well I was just going to ask if you were going to do a flowering version of you light with the reds, ... man if I can make a 500W (not actual is it?) for 300$, that might be a fun winter project, and all I would have to do then is copy you hehe, thanks for doing this GAst!
I bought a 10$ box of tools at the auction the other night and at the bottom there was a kit with a Weller 100/140W, it must be a sign!!! would that be good enough for the purpose?
I bought a 10$ box of tools at the auction the other night and at the bottom there was a kit with a Weller 100/140W, it must be a sign!!! would that be good enough for the purpose?
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
We'll have to see what the actual wattage comes out to but according to my multimeter my two 100w arrays are pulling 87w and 96w at the array - not actual but fairly close. The 3w reds run at 700mA 2-2.4v which would be 1.4-1.68w a diode @ $0.60/each. For $300 you could purchase ~450 actual w of light in diodes, arrays, and power supplies. You would still need the heatsinks though. I'll be tinkering with casting my own heatsinks this weekend.
Right now I'm building two more panels: 24" long 4.5" wide each with three 50w arrays, two warm white and one cool white. The heatsinks I have are over sized so if I'm shipped some sample reds they'll be going onto these same two panels.
I did look into the red arrays but from everything I heard they need more development. Even the manufactures warned me against them.
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
Rasser
Active Member
Hi.
That do not sounds like the right explanation, I think the problem is heat.
Red LED's looks to be very sensitive to temperature, so clustering them very close together is properly the problem.
As I have understood polar/bipolar:
A battery is a polar DC source, +/-
The mains supply is bipolar.
An electrolytic capacitor is a polar device and is marked with minus signs.
A bipolar capacitor looks like this, and is typical used for phase shifting
(running a 3 phase motor on a single phase supply) or decoupling.
A LED diode is a polar device so it will need a polar power source.
can't imagine that the wavelength of the light has anything to do with the supply.
Gastanker
Well-Known Member
I think the language barrier was preventing him from explaining it better but it's the first time I've had a Chinese distributor discourage the purchase of their own product. I was assuming it has something to do with the differences in semiconductors but I know pretty much nothing about it all. I do think it's kind of weird that you would need a different type of driver for an array versus the single red diodes when it's the same type of driver for the whites.