DiY LED Grow Lights with CREE CXA3070 COBs and CPU Coolers

churchhaze said:

This picture makes it look like you built an airship. Nice.

Can you program the fans to keep it in a stable hover? You could ditch the cables.

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OldnTired said:

Great thread, I read through the first one and continued on here.
This is something I'm going to have to try as I have all the parts minus the COBs and drivers.
I have a 6x2x6 (LWH) grow space, I think the 8 COBs should be fine. Are you using this for both veg and flowering?

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DarthBlazeAnthony said:

I do not know for sure but I'm pretty sure you would be good for veg and bloom.

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IlovePlants said:

Any plans to upgrade this with 50-100w of 660DeepReds like suggested above? Stellar growlight for the money. I just dropped 600$ to build this, and I'm looking into adding an additional 100w of red, should make for a hell of a light.
Best of luck in your growing endeavors,
ILovePlants

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Gaius said:

Hello again folks. Apologies for the long lull there. I quit my job a month ago and have been working major overtime to build a new design/development portfolio. So anyhow, I've had little time to post anything here.

Today I'm taking a much-needed break and thankfully the forums are working again.

Here's the final update from the first round with the Ganjatica! (No fancy photos this time though, as I only had time to snap a few quick shots with my phone.)

Harvest Day:

And the final haul:

All together it's going to be about 12-14oz dry. The buds are ridiculously dense, so I'm freezer-curing to ensure zero mold. This is by far the stickiest bud I've grown in the last few years.

This round was only 4 main plants, plus a few little lolly-pops I flowered out 12/12 from seed for pheno-hunting purposes. I took the best Bubba Kush pheno of that group and tossed it into the veggie bin a couple months ago. Since then that plant grew into a nice bushy momma, which was just chopped up a bit to create 8 large Bubba Clones. Of these 8, I'll select the strongest 6 for the next round under the Ganjatica.

I'm now totally confident the Ganjatica can pull over a pound (dry) with the full 6 plants it was designed for (and an extra week or two of vegging).

It's an elegant light, for a more civilized age.​

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Gaius said:

Easily build your own high-power LED Grow Light using COBs!

(Built with assistance of RIU contributors! - Original thread )


[HR][/HR]
Battlestar Ganjatica - A 480 Watt Multi-Mode LED Grow Light


6x CREE CXA3070 @ 3000K - $36ea ($216)

2x CREE CXA3070 @ 5000K - $38ea ($76)

8X Meanwell LPC-60-1400 Drivers - $20ea ($160)

8 Arctic Cool CPU Coolers - $9ea ($72)

Rhino 12v External HDD Power supply - $9 (for powering fans)
1 Tube Thermal Adhesive - $8

3'x1' White Shelving board - $10

4x Bottom Sliders for Drawers - $7ea ($2
(link is not exact model. I only paid $7 each in-store)

3x 2-way Switches - $4ea ($12)

4 heavy-duty stainless eye bolts - $1ea ($4) (in-store)

10 Pack In-sure easy wire connectors - $2

6-Pack Blue Mid-line connectors - $2

TOTAL PANEL BOM: $599

MISC Other Materials:

Ignore the fan-speed controller. Didn't end up using it.


[HR][/HR]

Wiring is pretty basic. Just scale up the below diagram (provided by RIU member Goud)

[HR][/HR]

And here you go!

3 Modes: Veg, Teen, Bloom

Preliminary Results look good!

First day over plants:

Week or so later:

​

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chief herb said:

Can anyone suggest a good driver for these CXA3700's that can be controlled with a 5v pwm from an arduino? I have used the Meanwell LDD line but cannot find one that is similar to recommended drivers power. They have a 1.5A one, the LDD 1500L (http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/260/LDD-L-spec-271480.pdf), but it only goes up to 30v. They have the LDD-H line that goes up to 56v but the highest current I could find is 1A with the LDD 1000H (http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/260/LDD-H-spec-248139.pdf).

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epicfail said:

I use an arduino to control dimming on Mean Well HLN and HLG-C series drivers with the circuit on this page, it works great for me. It converts the 5v to 10v and I just run it from a separate 12 volt power supply, technically it is not using PWM but 0-10v to control dimming but works the same.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/diy-led-cree-cxa3070.789575/page-74#post-10695272

and there is more information on how to do it in this thread.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/meanwell-led-drivers-3-in-1-dimming-function.838760/

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chief herb said:

I couldn't find a good choice on those Meanwell drivers that wasn't upwards of $40 each. I think I will go with the 1.2A rcd driver suggested by guod (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/RECOM-Lighting/RCD-48-120-M/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt5PRBMPTWcafkZyLbOcVwI1Ud2vaoFQZE=). I am slightly confused with how to wire it up, does anyone have a simple diagram or can explain how this should wire up to an arduino? From the data sheet it seems I would just hook up Vin to pin 1, ground to pin 2, led- to pin 6, led+ to pin 7, arduino 5v to pin 3, and just an arduino pwm pin to pin 4 of the rcd with pin 5 not used. Is that correct?

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guod said:

arduino 5v to pin 3...
pin 3 is Vref for pin 5 analog. nice feature for analog dimming with a pot. --> build in powersupply.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/led-diy-making-of-a-dj-set-style-grow-led-light.619348/page-7#post-8629816


Arduino GND to pin 2
and an Arduino pwm pin to pin 4

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Gaius said:

Easily build your own high-power LED Grow Light using COBs!

(Built with assistance of RIU contributors! - Original thread )


[HR][/HR]
Battlestar Ganjatica - A 480 Watt Multi-Mode LED Grow Light


6x CREE CXA3070 @ 3000K - $36ea ($216)

2x CREE CXA3070 @ 5000K - $38ea ($76)

8X Meanwell LPC-60-1400 Drivers - $20ea ($160)

8 Arctic Cool CPU Coolers - $9ea ($72)

Rhino 12v External HDD Power supply - $9 (for powering fans)
1 Tube Thermal Adhesive - $8

3'x1' White Shelving board - $10

4x Bottom Sliders for Drawers - $7ea ($2
(link is not exact model. I only paid $7 each in-store)

3x 2-way Switches - $4ea ($12)

4 heavy-duty stainless eye bolts - $1ea ($4) (in-store)

10 Pack In-sure easy wire connectors - $2

6-Pack Blue Mid-line connectors - $2

TOTAL PANEL BOM: $599

MISC Other Materials:

Ignore the fan-speed controller. Didn't end up using it.


[HR][/HR]

Wiring is pretty basic. Just scale up the below diagram (provided by RIU member Goud)

[HR][/HR]

And here you go!

3 Modes: Veg, Teen, Bloom

Preliminary Results look good!

First day over plants:

Week or so later:

​

Click to expand...