Dnl.svrr
Active Member
- Hello, my friends. I've been a long time lurker, coming out now. First of all, immense thanks for all the info shared here. I wouldn't be able to start this project otherwise. All the info I needed was found here and around some other community-based resources and I hope the reports on my experiment contribute to someone as well. I started a thread in the Grow Journal section but found this might be the correct place to talk about the DIY lamp part of the idea. Should I request the older thread to be moved?
My intention is to build a reasonable led lamp at a low cost, for my personal home grow. I have no commercial interests regarding my nugs or my lamp(s), so I would prefer quality and potency over yeld (regarding buds). Don't know if this is relevant to any advice you might give me.
(Materials not acquired yet)
-Large aluminum tray to house the leds (Way cheaper than a reflector)
-Kapton tape and copper tape (as an alternative to wiring)
-Shower box rails cemented to the tray using artic silver (the rails are made of aluminum and much cheaper than heat dissipators)
(Already bought)
-90x 1w Leds from Ebay, brand unknown. The seller says they're from his own factory (?) and they just don't have a brand name for now (OEM maybe?). They are: 50 Red, 18 Deep Red, 4 White, 9 Royal Blue, 9 Blue.All leds have a 120 degree viewing angle, except for the Deep Red ones which have a 140 degree angle.
- Royal blue diodes: 445nm~450nm
Blue diodes: 460~470nm
Deep red diodes: 660~665nm
Red diodes: 620~630nm
White diodes: 5500k~6000k
- 5x Waterproof Drivers (Said to power 18 leds each)
- All seeds are bagseed from weed acquired via different sources all across my country (Brazil). I'll number each seed and go all the way through seedlings. Maybe I'll spare the best male and the best female to have some seeds to continue experimenting with. I thought it could be fun to have a seedling race and document the whole life of each of the plants in a SOG-like system. Maybe we could bet on them like jockeys, and such. But that's obviously just a stoner thought. Right now I have 61 scavenged seeds, expecting about 20 to actually sprout (Bagseed, after all) and 8-12 females. Maybe this is a bit too optimistic, but I'll aim for that. The grow area is about 4 feet by 2.5 feet, under a kitchen table about 3,5 feet high. It has a metal structure underneath it that will act as a nice support for the lamp, so I can control the light height easily.
My questions are:
1) Is it really worth to use copper tape wiring + kapton tape insulation? Comparing to regular wiring, is the heat dissipation that better or is it a marginal improvement? Also, is using Arctic Silver overkill?
2) I'm thinking about a concave structure to glue the leds to, in order to maximize coverage surface (And leveling the plants to match). Do you think it is any better than a flat base?
3) Other idea is to have metal pipes as coolers and mounting bases to the leds, working also as makeshift reflectors. Metal pipes cut in half, exposing the concavity. Any thoughts?
4) Instead of acquiring 2 extra drivers (To get 36 extra diodes), the idea is to get a proper driver like a Philips Xitanium. Maybe I could drive all the 126 leds with one single Xitanium, plus its current is easily controllable. Any of you have any experience with that equipment?
5)Would a wick system (sub-irrigation) work any well with leds? Since heat in the growbox is usually way lower in comparison to other systems.
Thank you very much for reading so far. I hope it's the right place to ask.
Peace
Jaya!
