DIY LED REVOLUTION/EVOLUTION! INTRODUCING MEvo

jubiare · Jun 14, 2012

PSUAGRO. said:
Well I think they look allot better than mine Jubiare........you gonna nail it this round....

I think we are both a bit slow? But both not bad at all

MEVEG DAY 12

mmmmmm... all good but A BIT SLOW?

34w Of power
24/7
Temps 77F
RH 40/60

GOING TO GIVE THEM some more nutes tomorrow when I water (formulex), let's see. I am watering only every three days, roots get a chance to develop this way (in my view).

Peace and enjoy the UEFA
That the best may win

PSUAGRO. · Jun 14, 2012

^^^great info except...............what height do you have the panel at??Ha........................ahhh UEFA...yes Spaniard your team did quite well, Italy not so much ;-)

jubiare · Jun 15, 2012

PSUAGRO. said:
^^^great info except...............what height do you have the panel at??Ha........................ahhh UEFA...yes Spaniard your team did quite well, Italy not so much

hey psuagro, we are talking about 10" distance, 170degree lenses apart from two emitters that are 120degree lenses (warm whites). It's a plastic box, so no able to adjust height. The box is maylar'd all around

Well Italy deserved to win I like how they played, best match of the UEFA for the first half!!!!

foreverflyhi · Jun 15, 2012

I have a extra broken light from Cidly that resembles the penetrator, I wish I had the Time and knowledge to take it apart and customize it, ur doing a great job homie I'll be keeping a close eye for sure.

jubiare · Jun 17, 2012

Ok this might have nothing to do with the slow grow rate I am experiencing, but I went recalculating spectrum/power draw etc:

18 reds: 2.25v x 18 = 40.5v x 0.500Ma = 20.25W
4blue + 2 3000k + 2 4500k = 8w.b.: 3.3 x 8 = 26.4 = 13.2W

So I noticed I have too much power draw in reds compared to the Blue/whites; According to Knnabinoide:

Ive given recomendation of percentages of each band color recomendded for veg and florwering some times along the thread. But they are refered to PAR watts. Translating it to a given number of LEDs depends of the efficiency of each, that can not been generalized.

Suppousing with similar efficiency of all LEDs used, you need about half watts (50-60%)installed of W/B for vegging and about 35%, no more than 40%, for a bloom spectrum.

Blue light requeriment is very often overstated, IMO. With just 10% of blue (refered to total PAR watts) is enough on most cases. We are often using about 15-20% of blue on our LED lamps. More than 30% is creating problems for little advantage in turn. For veg, 20-30% is right, it can reach a 40% but definitivelly my experience says there is no any need of using so much. A 25% blue is already a good blue content and enough to grow short and compact plants.

Always makes sense to not use more blue than required, because energy emitted on blue result in less photons, due their shorter wavelenght carry more energy. Excess blue always result on reduced perfomance of the full lamp.

If I was to drive my 8 bliue/whites at 700Ma, different story, that's why I thought I was doing fine:
8 x 3.45 = 27.6v x 0.700 = 19.32w, that would have matched better with the 20.25w of the reds;

So what I have done, based also on what was practical for me right now .... I have removed two red emitters for 1x GD+ Cool white 6500k and 1x 4500k.

Now the meVEG as it stands:

10white/blue: 3.3v x 10 = 33v x 0.500 = 16.5w
16reds: 2.25 x 16 = 36v x 0.500 = 18w

Now we are nearer what my target originally was. Driver and heatsink still cool to the touch: 640 square inches divided by total watt burned 34.5 = 18.55 square inches for every watt burned. That is very close to the 21sq.inch for every watt burned suggested by Knna for full peace of mind. I am confident to state that 18/19sq.inch for every watt burned will suffice for good heat management without the addition of any form of passive cooling!

On MEvo we have 1248sq.inch of dissipating area divided by 81.85w = 15.24sq.inch for every watt burned; Different story. I mean it's okay as the heatsink is warm or very warm .... but it's not ideal. I will have to take a few emitters away or put a little fan on? Def the next array will have this all taken into account

Lets see if the young girls will respond any different to the little adjustment

Thank u

Rasser · Jun 17, 2012

I was measuring the PAR light coming from a white ~170° 1W LumiLED LED I got from a broken emergency sign,(the LED's are fine)
and the difference in intensity from the focused light coming from one of the LED's in a 3x1W E27 spot was surprisingly huge.

The 170° LED was losing it's power at a phenomenal rate when increasing the distance to the PAR meter,
it's was on the order of 1" - 700uMol - 2" - 300uMol - 3" - 75uMol.

I have not found out yet how much the light is loosing it's intensity when traveling through the atmosphere,
or gets degraded. I'm thinking about all the water molecules and dust particles that's in the air, maybe absorbing and/or degrading the light.

Looking at my MicroVeg, it's clear that the light composition is not perfect, the plant grows fast alright but is kind of thin(It was damage during sprouting thou),
vs the ones I got under the LED grow light or CLF, but the intensity in PAR is equal to that of sunlight, and note how the rest of the room is dark, light is only where it's needed.


The Spitfire

In one of James Burke's Connections series hi says:
"Every new inversion looks like what it replaces, to gain quick acceptance.
The first car looked like a carriage the first printing looked like handwriting.."
I thought boy is that the case with LED grow light and the LED/CFL lighting industry in general.

A good example of the old way:

And the new perhaps: the module was using 3-5W after 2 days the plant had doublet in size.
A great portion of the light is directed directly at the plant and nothing else.

jubiare · Jun 17, 2012

Rasser you are experimenting which I like.
But sometimes you mix up your intuitive discoveries with some myth crap we have all inherited from the commercial panels industry (especially the first few years)

your e27 spot has to have some very narrow angle.. it's prob not cree? It's most likely not up for the job in terms of efficiency .... it's still doing something of course!

The picture of that panel up in the air like a ufo doesn't mean much anyway, it's prob propaganda ... or at least is the distance for growing cabbage

I don't know what you are going to find out about your research for the dispersion of light traveling through the atmosphere

your lumiled is 1w, what generation?

We certainly should take into account what is "real" and "tangible" happening right now, in order to step into the future

bear in mind that 170degree angle is also very good for spreading the spectrum nicely, which I like

Also all those "packed all together" commercial way of putting the diodes so close together ... with leading industry diodes you don't need and you shouldn't do that .... it's waste. Minimum 1" apart and actually 2" apart works wonders, in terms of usefulness of light and thermal dissipation.

DO YOU KNOW THAT SHOULD ANY OF THOSE FANS FAIL, ON MOST COMMERCIAL PANELS, YOUR DIODES ARE F***ED? WHY ON EARTH ANYONE WITH MIN COMMON SENSE WOULD DO THAT? (not all companies)

You are from Denmark, I know an other experimenter like you from Denmark, it's name is Nucleus; this is what he is doing with 170degree angle osram

This is an other grower, tremol0, again osram GD+ 170Degree Angle with 46w or power

So, I don't know where the future is and if it is in narrower angles ... It might be .... but my present here is with some 170 or/and 120 degree angle first class emitters that should give me some fine meds as long as I dont fuck it up with my little growing experience, any other pythium pathogens mites or whatever comes in the way ahahah! :hug:

thank you and good luck with your experiments

as CocoJoe would say

peace to the needy

Rasser · Jun 17, 2012

jubiare said:
Rasser you are experimenting which I like.
But sometimes you mix up your intuitive discoveries with some myth crap we have all inherited from the commercial panels industry (especially the first few years)

I haven't read much from the commercial panels industry, I get depressed when reading the wild claims they offer.
Please give an example of the myth I mix up, otherwise I have no way of knowing what area we are talking about.

your e27 spot has to have some very narrow angle.. it's prob not cree? It's most likely not up for the job in terms of efficiency .... it's still doing something of course!

No clue what the band is, warm white 3x1W uses 4W have octal shaped lenses.

The picture of that panel up in the air like a ufo doesn't mean much anyway, it's prob propaganda ... or at least is the distance for growing cabbage

It was to illustrate the James Burke quote, with the panel hanging as if it was a HPS lamps,
and when you think about why a HPS lamp has to be hanging that high:
1.Heat protection 2.coverage 3. the fact that using 100 6W HPS bulbs is impossible vs. using a single 600W

Another thing in that area is reflective diamond mylar, great effort has been made to avoid hot spots coming from one very bright light,
so the material is breaking the light up into billion pieces, but I'm not sure that is what I want.

I just went from tinfoil that was very mirror like and gave the plants lower parts good light, to diamond mylar witch make the hole room more bright instead.

your lumiled is 1w, what generation?

Don't know can only read Lumiled on the pcb star written in copper tracks.

Also all those "packed all together" commercial way of putting the diodes so close together ... with leading industry diodes you don't need and you shouldn't do that .... it's waste. Minimum 1" apart and actually 2" apart works wonders, in terms of usefulness of light and thermal dissipation.

Totally agree.

You are from Denmark, I know an other experimenter like you from Denmark, it's name is Nucleus; this is what he is doing with 170degree angle osram
So, I don't know where the future is and if it is in narrower angles ... It might be .... but my present here is with some 170 or/and 120 degree angle first class emitters that should give me some fine meds as long as I dont fuck it up with my little growing experience, any other pythium pathogens mites or whatever comes in the way ahahah!
thank you and good luck with your experiments
as CocoJoe would say peace to the needy

I don't think there is anything wrong with 170° they just have to be close to the plants, and they are great for making side reflection
illumination the lower leafs vs a narrow bean, witch leaves the lower parts under the top leafs in darkness as the high noon sun would do.

Thank you.

jubiare · Jun 17, 2012

it's the narrow degree angle that is a myth, dictated by the poor efficiency of the Chinese diodes. 170degree angle is good for up to two feet plants .... nucleus has his array very high and not close (you see the results in post above).

Having said that, narrower angle should be better for higher plants .... but to be all honest with you I am already planning side lighting LED arrays for that. The beauty of LEDs is that you can mount them vertically/horizontally or something

Well in all honestly some advanced diyers prefer 120degree angle by cree for example

peace to the patients (by cocojoe)

PSUAGRO. · Jun 17, 2012

^^^^well said Jubiare...............and great info rasser.......we need to get a DIY led sticky in this indoor lighting subforum asap,I think it would be invaluable to this new technology.................I want pics jubiare

The Dawg · Jun 17, 2012

Wow You Guys Can Be Mind Boggling With Yalls Infromation.Peace And Hair Grease bongsmilie

420greendream · Jun 18, 2012

sup jubiare, im doing a legal grow in a closet. i have a buddy who knows a good amount about electrical and i was going to ask him to build me a 1000w led grow light or lights. i have about 1g to spend so money really isnt an issue. i was thinking of building 2 seperate grow lights 4 feet each, about 500w each. my space is 8 feet wide by 1.5 feet deep and about 7 feet tall. how many 3w led chips do you think i should put on a panel that would be 4 feet x 1.5 ft? What kind of ballasts or other parts would i need to run a light that powerful??? please answer me back im serious about doing this and building a couple badass grow lights and be able to share my blueprints with all that want to do the same. hit me back. one love

jubiare · Jun 18, 2012

Hi greendream, as from knna, we have to install a minimun of 25W/sq ft in order to get good results. It yield aprox as a 40W/sq ft of high wattage HPSs. If you want to match the yielding potential of a setup of, for example, 75W/sq ft of HPS, you must use at least 40W/sq ft of LEDs. And that is expensive right now. I am talking here about top notch brands, and bins, when possible. It all depends what your target is

I don't know exactly how many leds you would put on your 4 feet arrays ... I'd say do not space them closer than 1" apart. If you really want to maximize the space, use side lighting instead of packing all the diodes closer together! It all depends what your target is

You won't need any Ballast with leds

Let me know how you wanna go about with your ambitious project

staf82 · Jun 18, 2012

Jubiare
I have been reading about your own DIY LED and i fancy trying it myself, i have a few questions that i need answering and im hoping you can help.
How do you know what LED driver you need? They have different voltage outputs and different wattage outputs, lets say i have 3x 15 led clusters and they are 3w leds. Can i put all 3 in parallel or do they have to go in series? Or do i need a seperate driver for each cluster?
As with heat could you not extend your cable from your driver to your led light so that the driver does not heat up your heat sink?

Many thanx

jubiare · Jun 18, 2012

you need to decide what you want to drive the leds at, first.

Let's say you want dimmable drivers, that way you can regulate the different phases of the grow, even have a more vegging light for vegging etc. I don't do that, as my design is different long heatsink arrays ... ideally you want to dim, but it'll cost you more money too.

Let's say you want to drive your reds at 500Ma. You can drive them at 630/680/700 too, but you sacrifice some efficiency for heat ... it will cost you less drivin the leds harder. (less emitters to buy)

let's say you chose a driver that is 35w output DC 12v - 70v. What you have to care for is Voltage, not watts: you want to drive as many leds as you want between 12 and 70v. let's say that the led is 2.2v each at 500Ma (you get those figures from datasheets): so you would do 2.2 x 20 (for example) = 44v, so you are fine as that number is in between 12v and 70v. You never wanna go over 70v, you follow? Actually is best to never go over 68v, so the driver won't be overloaded (more heat etc).

Yes you can have the drivers outside of your grow space or wherever, mind it would be good to have them dissipating heat on a heatsink. It's your choice whether you want to mount them on the heatsink

You'll have to chose a design and calculate heatsink dissipating area, THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT. You have some info on that by reading previous pages. You'have to decide if you want active cooling or solely passive cooling

And anyway if you got the patience and the passion, have a look at
How to build your DIY LED array

that's a very good solid start, it might take you a second read to digest everything you need. Best to take notes of important passages

Good luck

staf82 · Jun 18, 2012

Oh i see well that makes sense about not worrying about the watts, why would you not go over 70v on a led driver? is it because they produce more heat once they are bigger? As with the driver i would still put it on a heat sink just on its own one so as to allow maximum efficeintcy for the led heat sink. I thought if the leds were in series if one went out they would all stop working as the current would not be able to pass through?

Gastanker · Jun 18, 2012

I believe he was saying that if you have a 12v-70v driver don't exceed the higher number - the maximum output (in this case it's 70v). If you had a 70-300v driver then don't go above 300 - or to be safe and not have it run super hot don't run it over ~250v. But you would be able to go above 70 in this latter case - actually you wouldn't want to run less than 70 at any time.

420greendream · Jun 18, 2012

thanks for the response jubiare. so i figured out i have 12 square feet total and 40w per square foot is 480 watts for my entire grow. i did some math and im going to make 2 lights, both would have 4 rows of (40) 3w diodes = 480 watts ea!! so 960w total

other then the diodes and panel what kind of parts would i need to run a light this strong? drivers etc. thanks j, much love

jubiare · Jun 18, 2012

staf82 said:
oh i see well that makes sense about not worrying about the watts, why would you not go over 70v on a led driver? Is it because they produce more heat once they are bigger? As with the driver i would still put it on a heat sink just on its own one so as to allow maximum efficeintcy for the led heat sink. I thought if the leds were in series if one went out they would all stop working as the current would not be able to pass through?

if a driver is 70v max, you don't want to go over it, actually go just a step before the max allowed, OR ANYWHERE IN BETWEEN THE MIN AND THE MAX

jubiare · Jun 18, 2012

gastanker said:
i believe he was saying that if you have a 12v-70v driver don't exceed the higher number - the maximum output (in this case it's 70v). If you had a 70-300v driver then don't go above 300 - or to be safe and not have it run super hot don't run it over ~250v. But you would be able to go above 70 in this latter case - actually you wouldn't want to run less than 70 at any time.

yeahhhh correct thanks

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