DIY LED veg room specs - advice needed

I am planning to build a DIY LED light bar to grow salad greens in a propagation tent (90cmx60cmx90cm).

Apologies, this maybe off-thread, but initial I’ll be growing micro-green (baby leaf) snd regular salads. For phase 2, I’ll probably add a second light bar, doubling up the LEDs but possibly with more red LEDs, to grow chillies in a DWC bubbler. For now, Phase 1 is just an experiment into LEDs.

I have put together a kit, but as this is my first attempt I’d would like to check if you kind people think it is sufficient. The kit contents are:

• 6x 660nm Dual-Core Red LEDs (110’ angled lens)
• 2x CREE XP-E2 Blue LED (110’ angled lens)
• 1x Mean Well LDD-500HW Constant Current LED Driver
• 1x Power Supply Adapter 27W 18V 1.5A
• 1x DC power connector
• 1x Aluminium Heatsink (200mm x 75mm x 40mm)

Questions:

1. I plan to hang the lights about 30cm about the plants - would this provide sufficient coverage and light?
2. Should I go longer/wider/higher on the light bar?
3. What is the general consensus, AC powered driver or DC power driver (with a PSU?). My AC option was a Mean Well APC-25-500.

Thanks!

Do you have a link to the deep reds?

The best blues are currently the Luxeon ES 450nm M4R bin availavle at StevesLEDs last I checked, very impressive efficiency even better than the XPE2. The 470nm XPE2 is very good though. The best deep reds are the Cree XPE photo reds. If you were to go with the ones I listed you could run harder than 500mA, 800mA would be a very good compromise and it would allow you to use a more efficient driver (90.5% vs 83%).

I have some adjustable 700mA drivers that are 93% efficienct which would be perfect but I have been unable to find a new source for them. Maybe you would have better luck finding them than I have.
http://www.socc.com.tw/AC-90264V-Input2.html?CID=1

Here is a link to the deep reds, I don't think they are Crees.

I've seen you recommend AC/DC drivers. It think I will switch to that and eliminate the need for a PSU. Are you recommending the 700mA only if I use the Cree XPE photo reds? Something like APC-25-700

What do you think of the 6 Red to 2 Blue combination?

Gotcha, yes from that link I can strongly advise the Cree Photo reds for the deep red. However, if you are not planning on using warm whites, the deep reds could cause you trouble. If I understand correctly, the deep red needs to be balanced out by regular red (630nm). So you can use 630nm without 660nm but you should not use 660nm without 630nm or a lot of warm whites. Therefore you could use the Cree XPE 630nm red, available cheaply in the P3 bin from Cutter, LEDGroupBuy.com, digikey, and AC-RC.net.

Also, because of lack of experience, I honestly do not know if the salad greens would benefit from some whites in your mix. You could probably skip the reds and blues and go with all-white if you want to simplify your build. These 4500K XM-L2 would be tough to beat when it comes to vegging. You could run them at 700-100mA. The 800mA drivers would be perfect IMO and the XML2s would be running at 48 efficient.

Good point, I think I'll mix it up a bit, add some Reds and a few warm whites.

2 Blue - Cree XPE BLU - 485nm
2 Warm whites - Cree XM-L2 4300-4500K
3 Red - Cree XPE RED - 630nm
1 Photo Red - Cree XPE PHR - 670nm

I assume that I can run this mix of LEDs off the same driver in series?