DIY LED---Cheaper?

Green Inferno

Green Inferno

Active Member
Jozikins said:
Lol, I did read his first post. But I just read a whole article on this and talked to a few people I would like to consider professionals for several hours on the topic. I know he wants to build his own. But from everything I have ever seen with my own eyes, or heard about with my own ears, has pointed to DIY LED to be a half-baked idea. LED is great, but I don't think you can do it as good as the pro's, and I don't think you can get that experience unless you spend easily the same or more on buying your own units pre built.

He brought up CFL's as an assistant light, to balance the spectrum. I personally use more CFL than LED (yes I have LED's that I use, 3rd generation 50w and 90w UFO's) because it gives me fantastically healthy growth, and it doesn't grow too fast. I always have traffic in my veg room, so I try and veg them out slower now. LED does give some more vigorous growth, for the most part, all veg plants love it. When it comes to flowering LED has CFL beat, 10:1 for my own personal use. But once again I am using HPS to flower, my 3rd generation LED's can give good flowers, but I just can't get the same weight with them, after about 12" the light isn't intense enough, at least with my shittier LED's, another reason I suggest purchasing quality designed by an engineer with a degree in the field. I just don't think any of us could possibly get anything better than an amateur's understanding without going to school for this kind of shit.

All I want is for this guy to have success in his garden and to be happy with whatever decision he makes. DIY LED is heart-break, less than a year away. You can put that quote on your wall, because I wont be hear to say "I told you so."

I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I have learned a lot about this in the past, and just this week I had a refersher course on the new 4th generation LED's, just a day or two before I saw this post. I don't know everything, but I do know that buying a well engineered lighting instrument is going to blow some ghetto grow light straight the fuck out of the water. It's a bad idea, just like a menstruating chick in the ocean.

But seriously guys... check out these new plasma lights, so fucking tits!
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I would build my own if I could, but I don't have the time or patients. I would just buy one from the store. I am looking at getting a few 600 watt ones,
and it is just $600 each. I have seen LEDs built DIY, and they worked. Some probably do not though. I will be making my hydro system DIY though.

I think he could build one if he did his research, it will be only as good as the research he does, and the materials he gets to build it, plus how mechanically
inclined he is. If he fails at building, at least he would probably had fun building it and trying it out. If he succeeds, that would be great. And it will save him
the money in having to buy one from a store.
 
Bud Farmer

Bud Farmer

Well-Known Member
So have you guys checked this one out at HTG? 120 watt LED setup. If it's as good as it reads, I'm ready to try one or two out.
LINK
 
abecsta

abecsta

Active Member
Bud Farmer said:
So have you guys checked this one out at HTG? 120 watt LED setup. If it's as good as it reads, I'm ready to try one or two out.
LINK
Click to expand...
seems like marketing hype 120w isnt = to 600w hps maybe more like 400

bore anyone bites my head off
disclaimer i pull thoes numbers out of my ass but am using a 120w led
and have only seen 600w growth rates to compare mine again and the 600w plants are twice as big
 
H

hattrick

Member
Jozikins said:
Lol, I did read his first post. But I just read a whole article on this and talked to a few people I would like to consider professionals for several hours on the topic. I know he wants to build his own. But from everything I have ever seen with my own eyes, or heard about with my own ears, has pointed to DIY LED to be a half-baked idea. LED is great, but I don't think you can do it as good as the pro's, and I don't think you can get that experience unless you spend easily the same or more on buying your own units pre built.

He brought up CFL's as an assistant light, to balance the spectrum. I personally use more CFL than LED (yes I have LED's that I use, 3rd generation 50w and 90w UFO's) because it gives me fantastically healthy growth, and it doesn't grow too fast. I always have traffic in my veg room, so I try and veg them out slower now. LED does give some more vigorous growth, for the most part, all veg plants love it. When it comes to flowering LED has CFL beat, 10:1 for my own personal use. But once again I am using HPS to flower, my 3rd generation LED's can give good flowers, but I just can't get the same weight with them, after about 12" the light isn't intense enough, at least with my shittier LED's, another reason I suggest purchasing quality designed by an engineer with a degree in the field. I just don't think any of us could possibly get anything better than an amateur's understanding without going to school for this kind of shit.

All I want is for this guy to have success in his garden and to be happy with whatever decision he makes. DIY LED is heart-break, less than a year away. You can put that quote on your wall, because I wont be hear to say "I told you so."

I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I have learned a lot about this in the past, and just this week I had a refersher course on the new 4th generation LED's, just a day or two before I saw this post. I don't know everything, but I do know that buying a well engineered lighting instrument is going to blow some ghetto grow light straight the fuck out of the water. It's a bad idea, just like a menstruating chick in the ocean.



But seriously guys... check out these new plasma lights, so fucking tits!
Click to expand...
So what part of the DIY led process do you think would be difficult. "considering you can solder and you match up the component ratings plus have sufficient heat dissipation with fans?
 
Jozikins

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
Can you tell me what spectrum you will end up with? Can you tell me how long your system is prorated for? Can you tell me how many lumens it will output, can you tell me the lumens and how they will fade with distance? Can you give me a shock rating? Can you explain to me how it will be water proofed? Can you really give me any information the manufacturer could. How efficient is it if you can't provide these facts? There is a huge list that goes on, and I couldn't possibly think of them all. I am not much more educated than most the people here, but I'm sure the rest of you could think of other things that I am not that could go wrong.

Seriously, I like LED, but DIY growing is usually ghetto growing. Nobody here can do it like the pro's can unless we have workers in the industry in our thread here. Buy one dude. The experience of building one could teach you a lot, buying one could give you a lot of pot. And we all know why we are here, to grow pot.
 
abecsta

abecsta

Active Member
I thought lumens or lux wasn't a very good measure of the leds efficiency?

so anyhow Hattrick if that is your real name
my mate is a lighting tech for a rather large arty place in my area and he had some sweet looking LEDs floating around his a while ago
it was 8w and about 65usd each but was mounted in its own cooling fins i could find out the brand name if your interested would make it easy to change ratios for flowering and veging and since they each had there own cover also would be waterproof.
You could use the 8w LEDs for your red and blue or something.

also have you got any thoughts on your spectrum yet im still working on mine
 
Jozikins

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
abecsta said:
I thought lumens or lux wasn't a very good measure of the leds efficiency?

so anyhow Hattrick if that is your real name
my mate is a lighting tech for a rather large arty place in my area and he had some sweet looking LEDs floating around his a while ago
it was 8w and about 65usd each but was mounted in its own cooling fins i could find out the brand name if your interested would make it easy to change ratios for flowering and veging and since they each had there own cover also would be waterproof.
You could use the 8w LEDs for your red and blue or something.

also have you got any thoughts on your spectrum yet im still working on mine
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Your friend is the go-to guy on this topic then. My knowledge is based purely on purchases I have made, articles I have read, and whoever owns whatever hydro store I am at, as well as a few other LED gardeners. But I do not have a lot of facts straight from the book. Your friend probably does, and could easily ace my knowledge. I was pushing that store bought is going to better than very large percentage of DIY units, but in the end, my input does not mean that much, and he should do whatever he wishes. I just get stuck on doing things my way until something else blows my mind.
 
H

hobbyhorse

Member
you don't need multiple fans to cool it. you need to mount 1 fan blowing at the heat sink, and you will be fine. i have 3 led lights ive built so far. Ive built 2 48 led lights for my saltwater fish tank, and 1 12 led grow light. I'll take some pictures of my LED grow light for you later today. dont be concerned about jozikins ignorant ranting. you can build a quality light that matches anything you'll buy. just use the right components.

make sure you check out the bin number the LED came from if you are uber worried about the spectrum. buy yourself a PAR meter if you really care about measuring your light output and testing lenses vs no lenses etc. (i didnt, i just did trial and error. for me no lenses and putting the led inches above works best) prorated for? who cares? the cree leds i bought have a lifespan of 25,000-30,000 hours when driving at 750mA(which is what my driver runs at), by the time the LEDS die out it will be years. shock rating? leds are solid state, meaning i can go play frisbee with my light and it will be fine. water-proofing? I never bothered figuring the lights above my opentop saltwater fish tank have been fine for over a year now, and that environment is much worse then any growroom. but it wouldn't be very hard to waterproof my light and soldiering connections with some silicon, its just no needed for me.

A good aluminum heatsink is a must. i really like the predrilled ones, this way if 1 LED ever goes bad (or you step on 1 like an idiot like me), it is really easy to un soldier, unscrew, and just replace that 1 led.

I never bothered using the white leds, for my 12 led setup I did 3 royal blue, and 9 red.

if you plan on using your led light for both growth and flowering, i would suggest getting as many leds as you can afford. my little 12 led light is only for growth, and simply lacks the wattage needed to flower. i would do anywhere from 48-96 leds if i was going to build a light for both veg and flower.
 
C

Crysmatic

Well-Known Member
one day led will replace hid. atm, the best led costs $1200 for a 288w array from a chinese mfg.

commercial led units may be professionally made, but they're not engineered (inasmuch as they select the number of pre-made led chips).

i've seen a chinese-made 576x1w array make hash tips on very small buds, hung inches above the canopy. stronger led with lenses have better penetration, but i still think led are watt for watt on par with hid. you just don't need a/c or ducted light cooling.
 
abecsta

abecsta

Active Member
hobbyhorse said:
you don't need multiple fans to cool it. you need to mount 1 fan blowing at the heat sink, and you will be fine. i have 3 led lights ive built so far. Ive built 2 48 led lights for my saltwater fish tank, and 1 12 led grow light. I'll take some pictures of my LED grow light for you later today. dont be concerned about jozikins ignorant ranting. you can build a quality light that matches anything you'll buy. just use the right components.

make sure you check out the bin number the LED came from if you are uber worried about the spectrum. buy yourself a PAR meter if you really care about measuring your light output and testing lenses vs no lenses etc. (i didnt, i just did trial and error. for me no lenses and putting the led inches above works best) prorated for? who cares? the cree leds i bought have a lifespan of 25,000-30,000 hours when driving at 750mA(which is what my driver runs at), by the time the LEDS die out it will be years. shock rating? leds are solid state, meaning i can go play frisbee with my light and it will be fine. water-proofing? I never bothered figuring the lights above my opentop saltwater fish tank have been fine for over a year now, and that environment is much worse then any growroom. but it wouldn't be very hard to waterproof my light and soldiering connections with some silicon, its just no needed for me.

A good aluminum heatsink is a must. i really like the predrilled ones, this way if 1 LED ever goes bad (or you step on 1 like an idiot like me), it is really easy to un soldier, unscrew, and just replace that 1 led.

I never bothered using the white leds, for my 12 led setup I did 3 royal blue, and 9 red.

if you plan on using your led light for both growth and flowering, i would suggest getting as many leds as you can afford. my little 12 led light is only for growth, and simply lacks the wattage needed to flower. i would do anywhere from 48-96 leds if i was going to build a light for both veg and flower.
Click to expand...
post some pics of the saltwater to if you don't mind and if you didn't have to water proof over that you wont have to worry about it in your room ... unless you water with a hose maybe
i have a small 200L tank in my garage and a bunch of my chisels and files on a shelf near by have begun to rust from the salt water in the area.

also jozikins remember some people enjoy the challenges of building something themselves
i know i would go mad if i didnt have my lil project ...probably get my assignments done a lot quicker tho wish my upcoming presentation was on leds LOL
 
H

hobbyhorse

Member
abecsta said:
post some pics of the saltwater to if you don't mind and if you didn't have to water proof over that you wont have to worry about it in your room ... unless you water with a hose maybe
i have a small 200L tank in my garage and a bunch of my chisels and files on a shelf near by have begun to rust from the salt water in the area.
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your tools rust because they are iron / steel. in my lights there is no steel or iron. aluminum heatsink, leds are mounted on a pcb star and then screwed down to heatsink w/ a little thermal paste underneath. nothing to rust.
 
dankshizzle

dankshizzle

Glassblowing Moderator
Bud Farmer said:
So have you guys checked this one out at HTG? 120 watt LED setup. If it's as good as it reads, I'm ready to try one or two out.
LINK
Click to expand...
My neigbor has 15 of those 120 watt led set ups. He has 1 over each plant.. that is because when he buds his biggest nugs are quarter size around and only 4-5 iinches long... he has not produced one decent size nug since he switched to leds. No baby arms or fist of nugs anymore.. just smaller whispy nuggets. So if that is what your looking for, small nuggets go led... if you want baby arms... nevermind
 
Green Inferno

Green Inferno

Active Member
dankshizzle said:
My neigbor has 15 of those 120 watt led set ups. He has 1 over each plant.. that is because when he buds his biggest nugs are quarter size around and only 4-5 iinches long... he has not produced one decent size nug since he switched to leds. No baby arms or fist of nugs anymore.. just smaller whispy nuggets. So if that is what your looking for, small nuggets go led... if you want baby arms... nevermind
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My neighbors friends cousins boyfriends sister dog walker has 16 of them.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
I'd be personally interested in learning just how efficient LED panels really are. The reason i have this thought is that near all LED panels i have seen have about 8 fans built in to the thing. How efficient can the thing be to require that much cooling? That's a whole lotta waste heat.
 
H

hobbyhorse

Member
tip top the reason the store bought panels have all those fans is to cool all the other crap, not the actual leds. they put the voltage controllers, microprocessors, etc etc inside the same housing as the leds, and since all that other stuff that takes up so much room, there isn't much room for a good heatsink. also a heatsink works much much better when its actually exposed, and not enclosed in some shiny pretty looking box. ill take some pics now, fishtank pics aren't happening, sorry.
 
tip top toker

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
That is my point though. An LED on it's own as it is may certainly be efficient, but add lots together and you suddenly have a lot of heat being generated. That heat is wasted energy, that vastly lowers the stastistical efficiency surely. Not to mention the power the fans require, also skewing the efficiency rating of the thing as a whole.
 
H

hobbyhorse

Member
tip top alot of that other crap isn't necessary in my totally amateur opinion. the whole point of leds is their simplicity. All they need is the correct voltage and viola! instant magic light. my controller is simple sitting on the ground, it doesn't get hot at all (because it has all the surrounding air to cool it, its not jammed inside some box). the heatsink and leds are cold to the touch. yes cold. cooled by 1 shitty radioshack computer fan, drawing 6w i think.

so my 12 3w leds, running at my voltage, consume about 23w of power i think. add in my 6w fan, and a whopping 30 or so watts....

I had to turn down my camera's apeture a ton in order to take these pictures. These leds are really bright, they hurt your eyes to look at.











 
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