DIY L.E.D. grow light.

So here goes my 1st DIY.
I will provide as much help as i can if someone gets stuck or has a question.
(or rewright the whole thing if people can't understand it.)

DIY L.E.D grow panels.
Things you will need
Solder Iron.
Solder.
Leds Red/blue 24 red/ 96 blue.
Resistors (Get .1/2W less heat)
Solder-less Breadboard
Power supply. AC/DC
Pref board 4x6 (circuit board)
Wire cutters
Electrical tape.
wire black and red get at lest 120 volt wire.18 gage.

Things to understand Ohms law i won’t explain it. How current flows. How to solder.
Things to know, plants primarily use red and blue light bands.
Also I do understand that you may have questions about formulas, I will do my best to answer these but most of this is Ohms law. I will give you a simple example .
This is a design for my 3nd light my 2st is in use and work. My 1st light burned up thank to faulty information provided by the manufacture. this is my Veg light for my mother im building its 80% blue 20% red. Bloom is just 80% red 20% blue.
Look for Blue leds with at lest 12000 mcd with a wavelength of 450 area, for red at lest 12000 mcd and a wavelength of 650. Yes i know you can add other colors but i have tested orange leds in my
Don't buy them if they have very wide view angels we're looking for 15-30 max. 20-25 is perfect.
lights and honestly i liked the yeilds better with more red or more blue.
Quick tip Cannabis doesn’t see green light so you can wire in some green leds if you want to but you will need to install a switch.







My specs for my New red Leds as below.
Technical Summary. Packageø 5mmPackagingbulk. Dimensions ø5mmLead Spacing2.54mm ColorRed. Brightness7,000~15,000mcd Wavelength615~640nm LensWaterclear, WhiteViewing Angle15~25°Forward Voltage1.8~2.6VCurrent Rating20mA


Testing.
1. AC/DC power supply I’m currently using a Sony 19.5 V 4.5 A laptop charger.
2. Leds
3. Breadboard
4. Resistor.

Lets get started.
Cut your power adaptor off and attach some wire black and red. White is positive black is negative.
Current flows from positive to negative and our resistor needs to be at the end or negative side.

This shows a single row of L.E.D.




This picture i have 2 sets of 6 leds one set blue other is red.
If testing with this power supply and one light at a time, you need a 825 Ohm Resistor.
For blue lights testing 6 at a time you will need a 82 Ohm resistor.
To find the resistor we need take your source volts 19.5 minus our led combined forward voltage
(FV is 3.0 so 3x6) 18
(19.5-1/.02
19.5-18=1.5 now divide by .02 which comes 75 Ohms needs, an 82 Ohm resistor will work just fine and no heat.
Red is a 360 ohm. it gets a little warm i have bad specs for my older red leds.



After testing comes trimming your lights cut them so the positive prong is still longer.




(note due to lack information on my red Leds they are not in my pattern.)
Now we are ready to build the light itself. take your circuit board and lay out your pattern.
Don't mix blue and red together in the same row unless you know the specs and are able to figure out the resistor you need other wise you will burn it up.



(forgot to take a picture before i soldered sorry)
After you put all your leds in the pattern. flip over the whole board and slightly bend the L.E.D prongs so they are going to be easier to solder also stay in place make sure they are flat to the board.

Put 6 in a row solder them together with a resistor at the end. just keep going till your done . Solder two peices of wire, one on positive and one negative side. These will be your power rails.

Turn it around and do the pattern on the other side.

You will easily be able to fit at lest 120 LED on this 4x6 board.
Attach your power supply and your good to go.
For my 1st and 2nd light i used a plastic tupperware box. They work great.

On Hold for more information.

Nice info! Have you read this thread?
http://www.gardenscure.com/420/lighting/117772-how-build-your-diy-led-array-8.html

Most of the technical info is way above my head but theres some grows of people using his light plans that look really good

Have you done any grows with your panel??

http://www.gardenscure.com/420/lighting/117772-how-build-your-diy-led-array-8.html

Most of the technical info is way above my head but theres some grows of people using his light plans that look really good

Have you done any grows with your panel??[/QUOTE]

Yes i have the Yeilds are good. And i also figured out that orange really seems to be a waste of space its just at the start of the band. but my veg growth is great.

nice really wanna give this a try.

If you get stuck or need help just ask ilk do my best

"
Yes i have the Yeilds are good. And i also figured out that orange really seems to be a waste of space its just at the start of the band. but my veg growth is great"

Can we get some pics of your grow + Light or at least of the light itself ?

BlazedMonkey said:

"
Yes i have the Yeilds are good. And i also figured out that orange really seems to be a waste of space its just at the start of the band. but my veg growth is great"

Can we get some pics of your grow + Light or at least of the light itself ?

Click to expand...

yes I will show some pictures of my 1st light. It's not work atm due poor information I got about the lights from China. But it will show you a finished product with housing. Or you can wait till I finish this current light which is 100% functional

Yah whenever you get you're new working one throw a pic up if you could

From what I've read osram golden dragon LEDs and Cree LEDs are suppose to be high quality and good for growing

here you go bud, its not the box i wanted to use but i had it. Its a tabberware fits my 120 light just fine. This is just a temp box till i get time to build a real one. going to use wood i dont have the tools to handle metal yet..

ferfax said:

here you go bud, its not the box i wanted to use but i had it. Its a tabberware fits my 120 light just fine. This is just a temp box till i get time to build a real one. going to use wood i dont have the tools to handle metal yet..
View attachment 1787190View attachment 1787195View attachment 1787196

Click to expand...

Nice guessing its VEG with all the blue? Have you grown any with these?

Using it right now and its working just fine. its a 2nd light do to the Cheap chinese light we bought some banks in that one died already and this light is getting plants to lean to mine =)

My mind is blown away. So I'm sorry if I sound dumb but someone can really grow plants with leds and get product? I want to grow lettuce indoors this coming winter and if I plan out what I want I can grow buttercrunch, romaine and of course a little MJ plant with these lights. For example how much light will your unit cover in square foot. I have been gardening on and off since I was 7 and that was in 1970. To me it just seems so freaky that red and blue lights can grow plants let alone give me harvests.

It really depends i had the light about 2 foot away and it covered an area about 1 and half foot by 2 foot. and plants were streching like crazy to get closer. Do a youtube srearch for volksgarden they have a video with a led grow light growning pretty much everything they listed. Its not really about the colors its about matching the wave lenghts you need. Just we see it either red or blue. Also depends on the view angle of your light. i use 15% so i have better pen and my lower leaves grown better. But with enough digging you can have find some up to 35% or Just do a row down then angel the next row a little to the left. I have some designs im working on right now. So far my lights doing as well as my buddies UFO light and mine was less then 80 bucks to build. His was 220. Im looking at building a unit that is 200 bucks for retail i got a few people intrested in carring it.

I'm now building a 2 foot by 3 foot light ill be posting some pictures when this beast is done

how much money per light and how does the cost compare against commercial led lighting systems?

Nice thing is you can shop around i bought 400 blue leds for right at 30 bucks. I didnt buy them from china because i had problems with the ones i got from China, Power supplies range from 10-100 depending on what you need. Laptop power supplies work great so if you find them use them. Boards are dirt cheap 2-5 bucks, solder depends on the type. Solder irons 5-10 bucks. wire around 3-5 im building my 12 by 20 light and im into it for about 80 bucks. and its going to have close to 400 lights on it. with about 80/20 blue/red this is my large veg light. I'll be posting pictures of it im building it right now wanted to take a short break got 2 of the 4 panels done.

so then why the fuck do they charge so much for the commercial ones if there that cheap to build??? build me one ill send you some $$$ shit maybe me and you can start a business ----EconoLED Light---- Got a nice ring to it right?

Lol I'm already working on building a company around it soon as i finish my testing. Have two local stores who sell world wide wanting to carry my product. I have some ideas that so far seem to be working and will be very nice to have while growing.

Where's the heat sink? Where's the fans? Where's the Drivers? Not to be a tool, because I'm quite the advocate against it, but you should do more research before you try to market poor quality lights to the rest of the world or you'll be perpetuating the argument that LED's are junk. The reason that quality LED's cost so much is because the quality parts to build them cost so much. I'm in the process of designing my 280w LED and it's costing me over $400 just for the LED's. Then there's the drivers, the heat sinks, the power supplies, etc, etc.... Just some food for thought if you want to really market your design. Don't use 1w junk diodes if you want real penetration and PAR output...That's what will sell your design, not cost savings. If there's one thing I've learned: If something gets results, people don't care what the price is.