DIY LED Grow Lights

Right, ive decided to put my basic electronic skills to the test and have grabbed my soldering iron ready for this project.

I am going to implement LED growlights in my full tower stealth pc box which is currently in production too. I will also be using a diy bubble hydro setup in this as well.

Ok so ive found a great company that has a uk branch (digikey) for me to purchase LED's from. I know that the range needs to be red 630, blue 430 but finding led's that are exactly this is proving difficult.

So far I have found this on the digikey website

R1: Part# 365-1182-ND
5000mcd each

If anyone has a good supplier for LED's at cheap prices that deliver to the UK, I would be very gratefull if you could let me know.

thank you

sounds like a hell of a chalange good luck mate

Hehe yeah, w/e should be fun

Ok guys tell me what you think of this for the red led

Super RED 624~630mn, 6000 to 120000mcd, 2 to 2.6v

US$ 0.148 per unit

Good luck, making them yourself is the cheapest and its easy, good job

Sir,

Before you waste the money on the inferior LEDs the high wattage LEDs (over 1.5 amp a piece, under 1.5 amp will not work without more LEDs) produce enough light within 12" of the plant to grow if you have the correct color and enough of the correct amperage. To get your plants to flower better you will need a source of infrared light in the room, a CFL will work.

Go to the sites that suggestively sell their lights and look at their wavelenghts (something like 450nm and 650nm respectively for red/blue), go to an electronics site like digikey.com and order yourself some highwattage LEDs in the same wavelength. Order enough to build one panel 2 blue per 1 red and another panel that is 3 red per 1 blue.

Use your 2 blue per 1 red panel for veg and add the other panel for flower.

This will not be cheap as the right LEDs cost $4-5 a peice last time I checked and you will need hundreds as well as patience and soldering supplies.

For a 12v power supply I used a laptop power supply for my last try. It will produce buds and veg well for less wattage but you should still think about adding supplemental lighting like a few warm white CFLs during flowering.

Without a doubt, the most knowledgeable people I have ever come across, in the field of "Experimental LED Growlights", are to be found at UK420, I think that's www.uk420.com or maybe it was .org? At least that was true a couple of years, or so, ago! There were a couple of guys on there that would just blow your mind, I mean they really knew this shit, inside and out!

Believe me, there is a lot more to it then just using 2 wavelengths (1 red and 1 blue). You need 4 wavelengthes just to satisfy Chlorophyl-A and Chorophyl-B, then there are several other critical pigments that depend on other wavelengths for thier photosynthesis. God, I wonder what those guys are up to these days? Maybe I'll go have a "look-see" too!

could anyone help me with some info on how to make an led panel for vegging?, like which material to use and how to connect up all the lives and the naturals, do you need any resistors or anything?

stiffer said:

could anyone help me with some info on how to make an led panel for vegging?, like which material to use and how to connect up all the lives and the naturals, do you need any resistors or anything?

Click to expand...

You will need resistors and heat sinks if you get the high wattage LEDs. There is a bunch of planning involved in an electronic device of this type. I recommend you study the wavelength of the sun at the spring equinox and get the right kinds of LEDs to exactly replicate from the ultra violets to the infrared.

LEDs have an anode and a cathode to mark the flow of direction of electricity. If you do the research to determine what kind of LEDs you would like to use, then post it up I will look it over and design a circuit that will work on a laptop power supply.

I recommend mouser.com or digikey.com and select only higher wattage LEDs. They are expensive, in reality your light will end up costing close to the ones on eBay. Buy in bulk and you will get a better cost break obviously.

Good luck!

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/blue-12000-wide-angled-p-1665.html

would theses ones work?

im wanting to build a led vegging light, i have 40x1watt 3.5volt xpower leds in blue(465nm) 40x lm317t voltage regulators and 40x 24.3ohm 2.9w resistors. i was told by a friend this is wot i needed but im confused as how to power them? i solder pretty much everyday at work so thats not a problem. if any of u guys could help me out that'd be great

btw im planning on mounting these on stripboard,ill be using heatsinks and fans to keep cool, its just the wiring im not sure about :S

Its actually alot tougher to drive alot of LEDs than you'd think, and you'd need atleast 1000 of those I'd think.. At 555nm it takes 683000mcd to equal one Watt.. It may not be that bad at your wavelengths, but I don't know how they rate those LEDs there are a few ways they could cheat a bit..

thanks for the reply man but ive decided to give up lol
its too complicated :S

I found this site it seems rather inexpensive to some extent and if you make a few of them you can use em for supplemental lighting that will aid in an increase of yield.

Just a thought.

http://ledsupply.com/k57001.php

use the tool or head back to the home page. etc..

Lol don't know how much searching you did to find this thread Mr G since it's like 2 years old but it's okay

I wonder how that kit works. I see it's a 36v power supply, which means you can drive a ton of LEDs per series, but the only problem is it's 12w..that's hardly anything when it comes to LEDs. That's like maybe 4 or 5 depending on the color you want to use. Much better off with a 12v power supply and driving 3-4 leds per series in my opinion.

No matter how you look at it LEDs are going to be crazy expensive. If you go the cheap route you won't get good results like you would if you just bucked down and got the good stuff. I was looking into 10mm LEDs that are driven at 300mA and it seems heat is going to be a major issue with the amount I wanted. So there's a couple of options from that point. You can either go with the 5mm LEDs which are really cheap and are driven at about 20mA, or you can buy the good ones rated at 5w and driven at 1A.

I've personally decided to go with the high power ones. Simply because you don't need hundreds of them. About 20 will do just fine depending on how you wire them up and place them. Also spectrum has a large play in it. The smaller diodes simply don't have the desired spectrums, they're always 5-10nm off. It really makes a big difference from my understanding. That's why the high power ones are nice because you can cover more wavelengths without sacrificing much in cost.

Another thing I want to point out for people, and this is just from my research so it's totally biased, you will need to spend upwards of 200 to 300 dollars for some good LEDs if you want anything decent. Sure one might be able to get away with spending 50 bucks for thousands of 5mm LEDs but they simply don't have the RAW POWER to flower good. That's why most people think LEDs suck cause most people try and use the cheap ones.

Just my $0.02, hope this helps someone along the way.
-crunk

I completely agree I have been using some panels I bought and yes spent up to 300 on them. but the spectrum is critical I do agree.. I figured those who wanted to try the homemade version could use the link maybe?? and I do see what you mean abou the watts and power supply and the diodes I noticed mine are pretty bright compare to the DIY way..

Yeah for some that DIY kit you linked may be a good start to the LED craze lol. Since you can get a 4 unit deal too it also shows people the potential that lots of LEDs have together. If you don't mind me asking, which panels did you buy? I have 4 of those cheapo 225 LED panels. I got them for 100 total on ebay with shipping, and they retail for $45 per panel. I still feel like I spent my money wrong, but with my CFLs turned off they are pretty bright by themselves. But I still wish I would have done more research when I bought those cause now after learning more I would do it soooo much differently.

Oh well live and learn right?

Do you have a grow journal yet?

I use these Es-100W-GB check this site out they are a bit pricey but put out some really for wattage and lumens per lamp size if you look at how small they really are.
I want to get a few more of these but I'm actually thinking of building one or using strips around the walls to suppliment the T5's with bloom bulbs.
A grow log I have something like that I use to keep track of my ladies, it has nutes and light times etc.. dates flower start and dates for veggie etc.. they are rather blah and simple really. I'm looking to boost the yield without adding to much heat with lights.. ghetto birds and all haha..

I w0000000000