LEDs for 5x5

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SpinTheBuds

Member
Hello everyone,

I’ve been growing outdoors but want to try indoors. Looking for LEDs for my 5x5 grow room. I'm in Europe so looked into Mars Hydro FC6500-evo and Spider Farmer SE7000. But reading that both have some bad reputations made me think twice. Do you have any experience with them? Another option is to get HLG lights and be safe but in Europe, the price is almost double because of the custom fees. Thank you for any input.
 
Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Get HLG from europe, think theres a .eu site put there :)
Or Maxibright seems to be a popular brand with the germans i checked in on.

You could also look at Kingbrite on alibaba, they have some outlets directly in europe.
 
UnknownRemedy

UnknownRemedy

Well-Known Member
SpinTheBuds said:
Hello everyone,

I’ve been growing outdoors but want to try indoors. Looking for LEDs for my 5x5 grow room. I'm in Europe so looked into Mars Hydro FC6500-evo and Spider Farmer SE7000. But reading that both have some bad reputations made me think twice. Do you have any experience with them? Another option is to get HLG lights and be safe but in Europe, the price is almost double because of the custom fees. Thank you for any input.
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I don't know what grow light is best for a 5x5 but I think you should get multiple smaller watt lights instead of a single light. Unless you're growing clones where everything grows the same it lets you cater to all sizes of plants.
 
S

SpinTheBuds

Member
UnknownRemedy said:
I don't know what grow light is best for a 5x5 but I think you should get multiple smaller watt lights instead of a single light. Unless you're growing clones where everything grows the same it lets you cater to all sizes of plants.
Click to expand...
Rocket Soul said:
Get HLG from europe, think theres a .eu site put there :)
Or Maxibright seems to be a popular brand with the germans i checked in on.

You could also look at Kingbrite on alibaba, they have some outlets directly in europe.
Click to expand...
Thanks!
 
S

SpinTheBuds

Member
I’ve decided to go with HLG light. My room height is 6.5 ft. I read that if you want to use HLG you need to hang it 24-36 inches from the canopy. I’m looking into HLG Diablo 750 vs HLG Diablo X. Can I dim it instead of lowering it? What’s your opinion on HLG Tomahawk 720 for 5x5?
 
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Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
6.5 is not very much height especially if youre doing your carbon filter inside the tent. Hanging height should be on the top of your list as buying criteria. Bar lights are good for your lower hanging height.
Remember that there is another HLG alternative that you havent explored: just buying a bunch boards and heatsinks and some driver and do the whole thing DIY.
The diablo and the Diablo X are both board lights. Board lights hanging height is directly dependant on 2 factors: watts per board and board spacing.
If you had say 8 boards with heatsinks you can:
-Run them at less watts per board
-Space them out as you like, its just some little bits of alu profile and good to hang.
- you can even a smart double driver setup for more even spread: say you arrange 8 boards in a sqaure, 4 corners 4 board on the sides. Drive the boards on the corners with a 480 driver. The side boards, which get side lighting from two sides, set them up on a 320 driver or even 2x200w drivers. That way you have extra juice where it matters and can easier dial in your intensity all across the cannopy.
The new r-spec boards are real cheap, youll end up paying less than a diablo light unless you have some really unfortunate shipping conditions.
 
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Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
SpinTheBuds said:
Thank you! That was really informative. Appreciate your answer.
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Im from Ye Old Times when all of the riu led section was diyers looking to build with cobs inorder to get a good led light for a reasonable cost. Then light prices dropped radically with lots of new china lights and DIY is no longer much of a saving in cash. But its really good for preparing for specific situations or if you want to have any kind of specialty spectrum or function. HLG was a bit extra costly until they brought in the cheapo Rspecs which makes it much more doable.
If your in a somewhat cold climate and wont be driving your boards more than 80ish watts you can also skip the heatsink and just mount the boards to locally source 3 mm alu sheet. Its cheaper and also throws back some of the heat down on the cannopy which can be nice if you struggle to keep your growspace at least +25C.
If you go for the board road just throw up a build thread here in the led section, there are a few more of my gen which are always happy to help. Diyers are like flies on horse shit whenever theres a new inductee about.

And lastly, the amount of satisfaction with building you own lighting system cannot be over appreciated: that feeling when you turn everything on for the first time, blinded by the stars, checking your levels with light meter, first crop when you beat all your records... All of that is so much more satisfying when you .ade it yourself. Another point is never needing warranty service, just buy an extra board for 30$ which you have as spare and the only thing that can break and you cannot service yourself in situ is the power supply, which is usually an easy swap.

Yes, im uber Sith-ing you, come to the dark side of DIY, its a force more powerful than you can ever imagine...
 
S

SpinTheBuds

Member
Rocket Soul said:
Im from Ye Old Times when all of the riu led section was diyers looking to build with cobs inorder to get a good led light for a reasonable cost. Then light prices dropped radically with lots of new china lights and DIY is no longer much of a saving in cash. But its really good for preparing for specific situations or if you want to have any kind of specialty spectrum or function. HLG was a bit extra costly until they brought in the cheapo Rspecs which makes it much more doable.
If your in a somewhat cold climate and wont be driving your boards more than 80ish watts you can also skip the heatsink and just mount the boards to locally source 3 mm alu sheet. Its cheaper and also throws back some of the heat down on the cannopy which can be nice if you struggle to keep your growspace at least +25C.
If you go for the board road just throw up a build thread here in the led section, there are a few more of my gen which are always happy to help. Diyers are like flies on horse shit whenever theres a new inductee about.

And lastly, the amount of satisfaction with building you own lighting system cannot be over appreciated: that feeling when you turn everything on for the first time, blinded by the stars, checking your levels with light meter, first crop when you beat all your records... All of that is so much more satisfying when you .ade it yourself. Another point is never needing warranty service, just buy an extra board for 30$ which you have as spare and the only thing that can break and you cannot service yourself in situ is the power supply, which is usually an easy swap.

Yes, im uber Sith-ing you, come to the dark side of DIY, its a force more powerful than you can ever imagine...
Click to expand...
Man, that’s a lot of great info you provided! I’m not a pro like you and not an electrition Do you provide any service to help or you can guide me where to find this information? I just started my research into LEDs so my questions may sound stupid. Thanks again for your knowledge man
 
Rocket Soul

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
SpinTheBuds said:
Man, that’s a lot of great info you provided! I’m not a pro like you and not an electrition Do you provide any service to help or you can guide me where to find this information? I just started my research into LEDs so my questions may sound stupid. Thanks again for your knowledge man
Click to expand...
Its very easy to do, as easy as peeling a wire and pushing it into a pushin connector made to take it.
The HLG boards would all be connected in parallel so youd need some wago connectors or terminal blocks. Id refer you to Growmau5 video series but its sadly a bit out of date, all chips are connected in series.
Im not an electrician either just learned from building myself and continued interest. Its really as easy as ikea.
For drivers: those Rspec boards have somewhat high voltage, they say 56V on full power/150w and dont supply info on voltage of medium-soft driven boards (it would be lower).
For the type of build i described above, 480driver for corners with 320w on sides: id use the following drivers that you cannot go wrong with and has possibilities to attach to external dimmer (internal dimmer only is a bit of a mess, you need to poke a screwdriver into a hole and have it grip on a dodgy screw): meanwell XLG320-H and 2x xlg240-h. Get this from somewhere easy to deal with warranty (not hlg us as that means transatlantic shipping back if something went bad) some where in your region. You can find places where to buy using findchips or octopart websites and price compare.
The board/sink kit is 75e in the eu shop, about 50 in hlg us but then u need to add shipping and import taxes.

Dont know exactly where to find the info youre after since its kinda spread out but if you post a build and tag me ill be over to make sure you dont mess up, along with the rest of the DIY Acolytes ;D

It really is as easy as buy the parts, buy some profile to make a structure for hanging, connect drivers to wagos and boards and turn on, turn up and tune out. Driver to board is easy +/red/positive to + on board and -/black/negative to - on board.
The main work comes in designing something in your head and fine tuning your spread but thats pretty much done by now :)
 
S

SpinTheBuds

Member
Rocket Soul said:
Its very easy to do, as easy as peeling a wire and pushing it into a pushin connector made to take it.
The HLG boards would all be connected in parallel so youd need some wago connectors or terminal blocks. Id refer you to Growmau5 video series but its sadly a bit out of date, all chips are connected in series.
Im not an electrician either just learned from building myself and continued interest. Its really as easy as ikea.
For drivers: those Rspec boards have somewhat high voltage, they say 56V on full power/150w and dont supply info on voltage of medium-soft driven boards (it would be lower).
For the type of build i described above, 480driver for corners with 320w on sides: id use the following drivers that you cannot go wrong with and has possibilities to attach to external dimmer (internal dimmer only is a bit of a mess, you need to poke a screwdriver into a hole and have it grip on a dodgy screw): meanwell XLG320-H and 2x xlg240-h. Get this from somewhere easy to deal with warranty (not hlg us as that means transatlantic shipping back if something went bad) some where in your region. You can find places where to buy using findchips or octopart websites and price compare.
The board/sink kit is 75e in the eu shop, about 50 in hlg us but then u need to add shipping and import taxes.

Dont know exactly where to find the info youre after since its kinda spread out but if you post a build and tag me ill be over to make sure you dont mess up, along with the rest of the DIY Acolytes ;D

It really is as easy as buy the parts, buy some profile to make a structure for hanging, connect drivers to wagos and boards and turn on, turn up and tune out. Driver to board is easy +/red/positive to + on board and -/black/negative to - on board.
The main work comes in designing something in your head and fine tuning your spread but thats pretty much done by now :)
Click to expand...
Jee, thanks for taking the time to give very useful information! Will take some time to look into it. Thanks a lot!
 
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