DiY LED - Cree CXA3070

Thanks man. It's just that one plant though, and it may come through, you never know. Now that I tied it from the top, I'm gonna have another look at that main stem break and try to set it better. So far it (the entire top of the plant) doesn't seem dead. It's a nice plant, I can still get a few clones off the bottom to preserve the pheno too. I need more Garden Soft Tie wire.

Amazing what they can survive, try taping the break together as well. Iv'e had them holding by a piece of bark and pull through.

Yes most of the plant is hanging on by strands of bark at this point. I taped the break and supported all the branches from the top with twine. Another, similar plant has done the same thing, pretty much just keeled over to one side, branches barely holding on.

This came on very suddenly, it seems like something drastic happened to my nute solution overnight. Maybe being dry, then heavily watered with the PK supplement, even though in low concentration, was too much for them. Also, maybe I shouldn't have tried to tie them up after lights out, IDK. Maybe all the PK settled at the bottom of the rez and that last watering kicked their ass too much.

The Girl Scouts plant isn't too bad, though it's leaves are twisting too. The largest haze is mostly unaffected. Weird, man. I'll take new pics later.

If it refuses to take water and starts to wilt, you can cut it off, put a fresh cut on it and put it in a "vase" and right back into the flowering room. It will continue to mature for a week or so and you might be able to salvage some of the bud

I just started moving some ladies out of the flower room and the same thing happened, large branches breaking under their own weight. Luckily they are almost done anyway so it is no worries. My entire flower room canopy collapsed at 7 weeks. Have been tying them up and adjusting lights the best I can. Long sagging colas, a great problem to have!

SupraSPL said:

If it refuses to take water and starts to wilt, you can cut it off, put a fresh cut on it and put it in a "vase" and right back into the flowering room. It will continue to mature for a week or so and you might be able to salvage some of the bud

I just started moving some ladies out of the flower room and the same thing happened, large branches breaking under their own weight. Luckily they are almost done anyway so it is no worries. My entire flower room canopy collapsed at 7 weeks. Have been tying them up and adjusting lights the best I can. Long sagging colas, a great problem to have!

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If its one thing that gets me fusteraded is sagging titties

Edit: colas*

Good idea Supra. It looks about half dead now, so I might have to do that. Unfortunately it has more like 3 weeks to go, oh well.

I'm pretty sure something f'd up with the nutes, as the plants on a different reservoir are fine, and they had thrips first.

SupraSPL said:

Chopped down the DNA Stacked Kush at 58 days. Not the prettiest lady but very strong smell lime/pine tree and yields good, looks like about 3 zips (360g wet w stems)
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your soil mix looks a little hot on N, might wanna leave out the
chicken manure next round or add some sawdust or mulch.

Thank you for the input, I agree that having too much N is a very undesirable situation. I have been gradually increasing the chicken manure from 2ml/L to 6mlL and seeing continual improvement of the early fade. Years ago I tried as much as 20ml/L of Epsoma Bio Tone and those plants were finishing deep green so I know that was too much for sure. But 6ml/L seems to be very close to perfect for my setup because they go through a long veg period and use up a lot of that N. Also I tend to grow sativa leaning hybrids which tend to be very N hungry. The few indica leaning hybrids that I run have been staying green and I start giving them straight R/O at about week 6 to try and finish clean as possible.

If I understand correctly, microbes use some of the N as well? It used to seem like watering in microbial tea would increase the fade, maybe it was just a coincidence.

The mix is reasonably gentle. I have planted rooted clones into it full strength with no problems.

Ya sounds like it might be worth a shot CW, the buds wont grow much in the vase but they will mature to some extent. You might be able to push it further than 1 week and get something usable out of it.

Add an air stone to that vase and it will help it last a bit longer

Will do. An airstone may have helped the PK to not re-concentrate at the bottom of my reservoir too, but the chiller return line is like a waterfall, so I didn't think that would happen. I had everything perfect until that, and the thrips. Next time will be perfect, dammit!

My first Vero. The Vero 18 3000K 97cri hooked up to a dimmable driver from AC-RC.net. One nice thing about the Vero18 is the vf which is perfect to make use of the drivers that fall short of the CXA3070 range. This driver adjusts from 450mA to 1800mA. The Vero puts off a surprising amount of heat due to the lower efficiency but since it is only used for short periods of time that is no biggy. The light will be used for photography and may be useful for my wife and her friends to do their makeup although incandescent is great for that.

Another LED project worth mentioning, I ordered a pair of 5000K CXA1512 COB headlights from eBay to study and modify ($70). They draw 26-27W each and get unbelievably smoking hot. The CXA1512s used are the 36V version.

The heatsink is 2 separate pieces and the interface between the pieces had no thermal paste and no metal to metal contact, just a thick layer of black paint and a few dabs of silicon. So I scraped the paint and silicon off, added a thick layer of PK3 and put them back together. Next I removed the 5000K 36V CXA1512s and replaced them with 4000K 18V CXA1512s ($36). They now draw 11W each and running at about 250mA, but still putting out more lumens than the stock 55W halogen. They are running much cooler, heatsinks just warm to the touch. These would be awesome for sportbikes or hypermiling hybrids. I also replaced every light on the car with cheap warm white LEDs from eBay. With running lights, low beams and high beams on, the LEDs save about 250W and many of the bulbs are actually cheaper.

Very cool experimenting. I have been curious about crees lower wattage/sized cree cobs. I would like to find one of the cxa models to basically do a mr flux like bar setup.

I use 90cri cree globes in my bathroom for the wives make up and what not.

6 PACK evolves into a 10.

6 CXA 3070 z4
6 Meanwell Lpc-60 -1400
6 Artic Fan/Heat sink combo
Rhino HDD 12vdc for fans
Remodel 120v box and cover
16 ga power cord and plug end
20 ga wire from leds to drivers
Ideal In Sure wire connectors.
Old picture frame 48"x24".
2 8ft aluminum angle from Home DePOT
8/32&6/32 4 bags of screws
Tapped and died the heat sinks only.
Heat shrink and connectors i had
The 6 Pack will be a ten pack once four more are added.


Update day three! Was a forty dollar lesson plus shipping and handling!
The melted Cree CXA 3070 was the sole fault of the noob builder.ME:$ The thermal adhesive sets up in two minutes here in the blast furnace, when i pressed the last cob the adhesive did not press out ,it was to thick, in being thick i increased the change of air not escaping and thus an air pocket was formed resulting in a smoked array, a smarter noob and a five pack. I found this cause the driver attached was alot cooler. I had ordered four luckily they were able to throw in two more, so i have an extra. I have ordered four of those Ebay 50w 1400 ma drivers for this next four. I will repost when it is a 10 pack.

maddmattmurdock said:

View attachment 3230603 View attachment 3230606
6 PACK evolves into a 10.

6 CXA 3070 z4
6 Meanwell Lpc-60 -1400
6 Artic Fan/Heat sink combo
Rhino HDD 12vdc for fans
Remodel 120v box and cover
16 ga power cord and plug end
20 ga wire from leds to drivers
Ideal In Sure wire connectors.
Old picture frame 48"x24".
2 8ft aluminum angle from Home DePOT
8/32&6/32 4 bags of screws
Tapped and died the heat sinks only.
Heat shrink and connectors i had
The 6 Pack will be a ten pack once four more are added.


Update day three! Was a forty dollar lesson plus shipping and handling!
View attachment 3230608 The melted Cree CXA 3070 was the sole fault of the noob builder.ME:$ The thermal adhesive sets up in two minutes here in the blast furnace, when i pressed the last cob the adhesive did not press out ,it was to thick, in being thick i increased the change of air not escaping and thus an air pocket was formed resulting in a smoked array, a smarter noob and a five pack. I found this cause the driver attached was alot cooler. I had ordered four luckily they were able to throw in two more, so i have an extra. I have ordered four of those Ebay 50w 1400 ma drivers for this next four. I will repost when it is a 10 pack.

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BTW the amount of light compared to the six hundred MH it replaced the LED is much more brighter light, that is an eye measurement so take it for what its worth.

Hey supra i was thinking about doing exactly what you did with the led headlights. C2 corvette i went with hids but am really thinking about going with the leds but they were so dim when my buddy had a pair in his corvette 2 years ago.

I'm thinking about buying a pair simply for the connector and housing and swapping out the led with a brighter one and maybe even changing the driver. I'll most likely test them out in my c4 corvette since i drive it more often. Wish i could get the throw and brightness like my c7 stingray has but that has more to do with the projection lens and the housing.

Nice build MMM! Bummer about the smoke COB but as you said it is a lesson learned and thank you for sharing that.

PG the CXA1512 would be nice mod for the vette. If you ran them at 11W ea it would save about 90W which turns into 190W (.25 horsepower) of relief for the motor because of alternator losses and battery charging + discharging losses.

SupraSPL said:

Nice build MMM! Bummer about the smoke COB but as you said it is a lesson learned and thank you for sharing that.

PG the CXA1512 would be nice mod for the vette. If you ran them at 11W ea it would save about 90W which turns into 190W (.25 horsepower) of relief for the motor because of alternator losses and battery charging + discharging losses.

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SurpaSPL I have five free Meanwell lpc-35-1050 i was looking at the Vero 18 to run off this drivers. What do you think?

It might work but from the datasheet it looks like a very close call as far as vf range.