DIY LED NOOB

So after looking over the led builds on this forum and others, I decided to try my hand at building an Led grow light. I am keeping it on the smaller side of things and im gonna build an 2 8inx8in lights made from 2inx2inx1/4in angle aluminum for the main frame and will attach 3w leds directly to frame and getting 2 heatsinks roughly 2in wide by 8 inches long with 2 lights per heat sink. Leds consist of 8-3w chanzon full spectrum leds rated at 3.4v and 500ma powered by a meanwell apc 25-500, 8-3w 6000k white chanzon leds rated at 3.4v and 700ma powered by a meanwell apc 25-700 and 4 kingso 10w 3000k white cob rated at 12v and 900 ma powered by a meanwell apc 35-700. Overall wattage rating for lights max is 96w per light but should only draw about 66 to 67w per light since i will be underdriving the 10w chips. Total lumen output should be right at 6000 lumens per light which should be more than enough for a 1 sq ft area. I just ordered everything today and should be recieving it all by friday evening. Total cost is just under 100 dollars right now. I am still working on trying to figure out proper placement on all the leds but should have that all worked up by tonight and i will post my drawings when I am at home. I am coming into this with a glass half full standpoint from seeing all the diy led grows and i have used leds in my last grow but just regular household led bulbs but got great results. Im hoping for just as good of results from my first grow if not better since i will actually have about 3000 more lumens in the room than in the previous grow. I am currently vegging under the old setup but should have everything assembled and ready for flowering by the end of the month. Sorry for the long post just wanted to make sure i explained everything. Any and all input will be appreciated as i am a complete noob when it comes these led assemblies and how to maximize the light output.

Thanks,
Disruptfulninja

Post some pictures while you're at it please.

This is all i have worked up so far. I will be recieving my lights sometime tomorrow and will have more of a finished look to my drawings a little later tonight. Im having trouble finding angle aluminum from a local source is there any good websites to order from

I have 16 cobs as perimeter lighting, nothing in the middle and the lighting is even to within 5% at the canopy.
I'd move the 4 bigger cobs out further towards the corners.

Some poor pics

I will definitley take that into consideration on a future build but im pretty set on the layout as its simple and very symetrical. What cobs are you running? Im looking into cree and bridgelux cobs but they are spendy. Im all for quality but with a family to take care of i also have to look at affordability thats why i went with amazon lights. I would have gone with ebay lights but im not patient with shipping lol

Bridgelux V series. The v22 is the same as a Vero 29 with no mounting holes and about half the price.

You can easily hit the Lumuns you want with any of the higher end cobs. Vero29 V2 might be a good option, keep it cheap and know that you can push them with active cooling

I was trying to stay away from active cooling just to save the extra watts but it is looking like that might save me from replacing burnt out lights. Where are you guys buying your cobs from? And is anyone using the full spectrum lights anymore or is it just a gimick

EOBud said:

I was trying to stay away from active cooling just to save the extra watts but it is looking like that might save me from replacing burnt out lights. Where are you guys buying your cobs from? And is anyone using the full spectrum lights anymore or is it just a gimick

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I buy mine from digikey, they're right down the street from me though. Big cheap heatsinks can be found on ebay sometimes. It takes some calculations but it can pay off.

Heatsinks are probably my biggest weakness. How do you figure out the size of thw heatsink needed for the application?

Growmau5 has a YouTube video that is great. Google Growmau5 heatsink video.

I have looked at his whole diy series and the guy does a great job has great mind for this stuff. His stuff always has great craftsmanship while staying simplistic. Hes one of the reasons i even looked into diy led lights. Before i watched those videos most of this was very intimidating to me. But now im just waiting on ups so i can start soldering lol

Kevin the Great said:

Bridgelux V series. The v22 is the same as a Vero 29 with no mounting holes and about half the price.

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Well that's just not true at all.

Upon doing a little research (going to bridgelux.com) and looking at specs and the vero29 is almost 2x brighter than the v22 is almost every application and the vero series has the builtin holder and no soldering thats a big plus but i will gladly get out the heat gun to make a connection

EOBud said:

Upon doing a little research (going to bridgelux.com) and looking at specs and the vero29 is almost 2x brighter than the v22 is almost every application and the vero series has the builtin holder and no soldering thats a big plus but i will gladly get out the heat gun to make a connection

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Are you looking at the same drive currents? Unless there is a new version of something, I would have put huge money that they were the same. Maybe I'm too high.

Didnt look at drive currents at all. I looked at lumen output. If driver currents are the same while getting more lumens that still makes the vero series a more efficient unit cuz your still getting about 1.75x the lumen output

EOBud said:

Didnt look at drive currents at all. I looked at lumen output. If driver currents are the same while getting more lumens that still makes the vero series a more efficient unit cuz your still getting about 1.75x the lumen output

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Not necessarily true. If one COB is tested at 2100ma and it's 156lpw, that would outperform a different chip that tests out to 170lpw if it's being tested at 700ma.

I definitely have my vero and V series info wrong but I'm not that wrong. I will repost my corrections as soon as I find it.

See now thats where good scientific experiements and testing come into play. Anyways...

Update on the build. I had to order my angled aluminum online to save myself 10 bucks rather than buying in town that the local home cheapo. So i will be waiting a few days for that and my heat sinks for my 10w lights. I got the 1in profile from heatsinkusa and got them in 10in cuts. I also downgraded to 1.25in x 1.25 in x .125in angled aluminum for the rest of thw build rather than 2x2x1/4 cuz the lights were quite a bit smaller than i expected so i may also add 4 more 3w lights to the light. So no soldering until i get the metal :*(

Finally got tracking numbers and the last pieces im needing will be here monday!! So tuesday is the day i will be assembling stuff!! But ill give you guys a look at my babies as of a few days ago. They are at 4 weeks from seed! Gonna let them veg until oct 3rd can only make trips to the grow every 2 weeks at that point i will switch 4 over to flower since that is on a seperate property and technically in oregon i am over the limit as of right now but will make everything even next trip. Im also holding out to see if they will show me their genitalia as i really dont wanna deal with a male for a while. Im not ready for breeding just yet. Anyways thanks for the info and thanks for following. Ill start a grow journal probably next time im at the grow as ill be taking clones and will have some more seedlings.