DiY LED - Cree CXA3070

CW, I'm still drooling on those pics. Wild props man

Just to be clear, I have no dog in this pony show.... I'm just against misinformation. I use both methods for different things and am well aware of the pro's/con's of each method. Claiming one method as superior while bashing another with misinformation is very poor sport and goes against the scientific method. Considering there is a plethora of different growth characteristics that could be desired and situations to fit.

Fact of the matter is, until you participate in a double blind study, you won't know.

Rrog said:

oh wow. Not looking to boast. I was mostly going for the joke. Probably should not have. I think Positivity has stated it well. Both can be done responsibly or irresponsibly. I have dual Bachelors in bio and chem

Click to expand...

Nice, I'm working on my BSME right now. I'm trying to get through the math/physics courses first, so I can take the 'fun' classes at a bigger university.

Agreed, I think positivity did state it best. Though I wish I could help him get his WF to work. I always get a better success rate and less transplant shock with clones started in an aero system, than I do with those put directly soil. Regardless of species.

I am appealing to common sense and a study of history to make my case. When in doubt, do not pull the trigger. Remember Dr Malcolm from Jurassic Park? That book was written when the first genetically modified crops were hitting the US. Dr Malcolm warned that the company scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could (bring dinosaurs back) that they failed to consider if they should. He cited chaos theory and tried to explain that genetic modification was inherently dangerous, although he could not tell them specifically why, he knew he did not have to, time would bare it out.

Also recall the story about the wonderful margarine and the claims that butter was dangerous? Turns out grassfed butter cleans calcium from your arteries and margarine is deadly due to trans fats. Grain fed dairy does not contain vitamin K2 so has no ability to clean the arteries. Common sense would have steered us better. A monkey could have steered us better. You have to be very smart to do something monumentally stupid, like irreversible GMO.

Now we have every other person on anti cholesterol medication (statins). Turns out cholesterol is an repair tool for arterial damage, not the cause of arterial damage. Meanwhile, statins are controversial and may actually contribute to heart disease by blocking LDL, which delivers oxygen to cells and other mechanisms as well. Who is surprised! Once again a monkey could have steered us better. The actual cause of the arterial damage is most likely high glycemic carbohydrates like corn syrup, wheat flour, refined sugar cane and oxidative stress due to ingesting damaged fats from heated vegetable oil. Corn, sugar cane and vegetable oil, all cheap pesticide laden GMO crap we feed to the masses, including baby formula

How about nuclear power plants? They are inherently dangerous, a million times more dangerous than nuclear bombs. So we build a few in tsunami zones and chaos wins again. Fukushima is polluting the entire planet with the most toxic elements that exist, cesium-137, strontium-90, iodine-131, plutonium and tritium. Life on planet earth did not evolve in the presence of Cesium 137, it persists for hundreds of years and concentrates in the food chain, then it concentrates in certain organs. The monkey is really kicking our ass on this IQ test.

So what is wrong with chemical fertilization of crops and eliminating the soil bioshpere? Probably a million things that affect our health and the environment. Someone more educated on the topic could tell you some of them specifically. There is no doubt in my mind that the medical benefits of cannabis (and food) can be altered in many ways by removing the biosphere. We could spend all day trying to figure out what the consequences might be, but I see it as a pointless exercise. I just make some worm bins and move on to the next thing.

Rrog, I didn't build them, but thank you. I thought the pics might sway us back to COB discussion, no worries though.

I bought some bro science Vegamatrix because I had the exact same idea 20 years ago, so I want to see how it works. I'm planning to build a proper soil before I use it though. In the meantime, I like Coco Perlite as a "tweener" medium. It looks and feels like soil, supports microbial growth, and has the explosive growth of hydro.

I still have to give the edge to the best organic herb though. You can tell by looking at his plants, Supra is doing it right.

I was a serious HydroHead since that's where I came from. Once I realized that all living things are meant to swim and interact in an ocean of microbes, and this microbial relationship is as old as life on earth itself, I saw the futility of trying to maintain a microbe-free hydro res. I then turned the tables and recruited hundreds of billions of microbes to help.

Note that the presence of microbes does not at all mean that there's a relationship with the microbes. People dump tons of Myco Maddness on a plant for no good reason. Disrupting the normal microbe / plant relationship by flooding the system with an artificial food source removes the microbe from the equation.

CW, really pleased to see the pics. These are just beautiful.

SupraSPL said:

So what is wrong with chemical fertilization of crops and eliminating the soil bioshpere? Probably a million things that affect our health and the environment. Someone more educated on the topic could tell you some of them specifically. There is no doubt in my mind that the medical benefits of cannabis (and food) can be altered in many ways by removing the biosphere. We could spend all day trying to figure out what the consequences might be, but I see it as a pointless exercise. I just make some worm bins and move on to the next thing.

Click to expand...

I never actually saw Jurassic park.... I'm not much of a movie goer. It's pretty safe bet if you're thinking of a movie, I haven't seen it .

I don't like that term... 'Chem ferts', it's misleading since everything everywhere is a chemical.... There are concerns of course like with any method. Certain components (can't think of them off hand though) are actually mined and that's getting more expensive and harder to find. Some are energy intensive to derive and energy is also getting more expensive to produce and getting scarcer with our population growth. However none of them would really be considered hazardous to human health.

Why do you keep equating salt based hydroponics with monsanto, GMO's, and pestisides supra? Two completely different conversations bro... At least in my mind.

Nothing wrong with nuclear power either, the french produce over 80% of their energy and a good portion of Germany's power with nuclear. It's not perfect like anything of course, it's dangerous if mishandled, but that's the same with anything. Nuclear is the perfect compliment for other 'green energy'(I don't think there is such a thing, but I digress) methods. Especially with some of the new technology in the pipe line.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to derail the conversation. I can see my opinion is unpopular here. I'll stop derailing the conversation.

Where do all these liquid ferts go? They are merely suspended in water for dispersal. They are not bound to a medium like clay or humus. This could be a drain table in a basement or a farmer's field. Moving away from the traditional plant / microbe may have made some billionaires, but had really decimated the ecosystem.

bicit said:

I never actually saw Jurassic park.... I'm not much of a movie goer. It's pretty safe bet if you're thinking of a movie, I haven't seen it .

I don't like that term... 'Chem ferts', it's misleading since everything everywhere is a chemical.... There are concerns of course like with any method. Certain components (can't think of them off hand though) are actually mined and that's getting more expensive and harder to find. Some are energy intensive to derive and energy is also getting more expensive to produce and getting scarcer with our population growth. However none of them would really be considered hazardous to human health.

Why do you keep equating salt based hydroponics with monsanto, GMO's, and pestisides supra? Two completely different conversations bro... At least in my mind.

Click to expand...

I dont see how you can not connect all those, same evil in a multi headed dragon.

Thanks again Rrog. What the pics don't convey is that the entire room is lit up like the third pic. For some reason, only the direct light footprint is captured on camera with these COBs. The rest of the room isn't dark like that, not even close! It's actually extremely bright in there.

Rrog said:

Where do all these liquid ferts go? They are merely suspended in water for dispersal. They are not bound to a medium like clay or humus. This could be a drain table in a basement or a farmer's field. Moving away from the traditional plant / microbe may have made some billionaires, but had really decimated the ecosystem.

Click to expand...

I use bio filters. I grow some dandelions to soak up some of the nutrients then put the water outside in a dedicated tray to evaporate. I don't dump fertilizer down my drain, I don't even use salt based fertilizers on my lawn or spray my weeds with pesticides.

Pain in the arse finding drill bit and tap locally. Found once place that had 2 #38 drill bits in stock, everywhere else I called either had no clue wtf a #38, kept asking me if I wanted 3/8ths or other random shit. No a NUMBER THIRTY EIGHT its for drilling for a #5-40 thread tap. Still the clowns in the tool departments at home depot and lowes were confused. Ace had two so I told them to hold one for me and then grabbed the other one when I picked up the one behind the counter. Figured a good idea to get both in case I break a bit and can return the unused one if I dont need it.

Had to order the tap though so wont be til next week when I can build up the 3rd COB module I got parts for with the Ideal holder. Then once this run is done Im going to drill and tap the other two sinks and put in my new COBs in all 3 modules.

Going to build a mini drain table for my tent to drain runoff. Something Ive never used but will be very convenient now that I have a bit of extra height to use one. I hate pulling the saucers out from under the grow bags to dump them when they are still dripping, seems counter productive to catch the runoff and then dump it from the saucers when I can use a drain table and just let it drain into a shallow rubbermaid or similar.

Going to be 5" tall in the middle and closer to 6" on each side and slightly angled towards the front of the tent so it will drain towards the center and front where I can easily setup a container to catch runoff. Going to use scrap plywood for the top and scrap 2x2s for legs and around the edge of the plywood then lay over and staple an old shower curtain liner to the 2x2s. It will be simple but should work well for free since its all going to be made from scrap.

Still have to tackle the task of sanding the 24" heat sink bars down, not too excited about doing it so I keep putting it off but I need to get stuff built now so its ready for next run, only 3 weeks away now. Also should start my seeds for next run any day now...

Hey Bueno, good idea on the runoff table. I like the Botanicare LowTide trays myself, but have recently gone to big pots on saucers. When I set up "for real" I may go back to drain-to-waste tables.

Just watch out if the shower curtain liner is PVC, it could have off-gassing. I bought a pond liner for my whole floor but returned it because of this. Or is that part not going to be in tent? I'm not great at visualizing stuff sometimes, haven't owned a tent yet.

There are a lot of synthetic nutes being used that are not formulated for mj, plus the BS Bloom Boosters, which are heavily responsible for harsh and bad taste. Also, most growers over fert by 100% +

I have several friends who are used to organic meds, and love mine

I would not be at all surprised if many commercial nutes are either made in china or use china ingredients

Ditto ingredients like bone meal, and whatever else goes into an organic soil product

FYI plants, unlike adults, convert inorganic, but again it depends on the quality of the synthetic ingredients.

And you're still without the highly beneficial microbial relationship

Bueno- What are you tapping? The COB to the heat sink?

Bueno Time said:

Going to build a mini drain table for my tent to drain runoff. Something Ive never used but will be very convenient now that I have a bit of extra height to use one. I hate pulling the saucers out from under the grow bags to dump them when they are still dripping, seems counter productive to catch the runoff and then dump it from the saucers when I can use a drain table and just let it drain into a shallow rubbermaid or similar.

Going to be 5" tall in the middle and closer to 6" on each side and slightly angled towards the front of the tent so it will drain towards the center and front where I can easily setup a container to catch runoff. Going to use scrap plywood for the top and scrap 2x2s for legs and around the edge of the plywood then lay over and staple an old shower curtain liner to the 2x2s. It will be simple but should work well for free since its all going to be made from scrap.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be easier to just us a shallow rubber maid container as a drain table? I think I'm having a hard time picturing your idea.

Rrog said:

And you're still without the highly beneficial microbial relationship

Click to expand...

Which may or may not be desired....

A proper relationship is always beneficial. There wouldn't be a time when you would want to abandon your beneficial gut bacteria, for example. Same thing with plants.

Rrog said:

Bueno- What are you tapping? The COB to the heat sink?

Click to expand...

Hey folks, just about to embark on a DIY. Only thing I'd like to do is skip tapping for the 2x #4 or M5 screws to attach the COB holder to the heat sink. Using these http://www.idealindustries.com/products/oem/led_holders/cree.jsp COB holders for the CXA 3070's. I'm thinking self-tapping screws would be as good and hell of a lot easier. Anyone find small self-tapping stainless screws and have anything to say about using those to secure the COB holders (or whatever). I'm thinking other than they should be stainless, they'd work fine and should be easy to pre-drill a smaller pilot hole and just screw them in...??

PetFlora said:

CW you gonna start a thread?

Click to expand...

Hey Pet, I'll start a thread after I've at least attempted to do some cable management, and built and mounted some Orca panels.

For Bueno, I read an article where they specifically tested PVC shower curtains. Some of them had over 100 VOC's, and some of those volatile compounds lingered in the room for months afterwards. That's why I mentioned it.