LED help needed

So I am interested in doing an LED grow, but they are a pretty coin to shell out for a decent one. So i've searched the internet to see what goes into considering LED lights.

Penetration - Spectrum and Wavelengths - Overall Wattage

So with this in mind, I would like to build one of my own, to help keep costs down. If someone has experience with LEDs or knows anything at all (Besides the normal HID vs LED BullSh*t)

I would like to keep the diodes between 2 - 3w each. Now what would i need exactly to build this for parts and places i can get them.

Diodes, boards, power supplies, transistors, DC power adapters.

If someone could help me that would be great, either Post here or PM me

thanks in advance

RAF

good luck!

Found a little info on knowledge of LEDs. If your interested in LED growing, or even wanna create your own you should give
this website a quick read, i found it to be a little easier to understand then others.

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/led.htm

Hi Raffiki. The cheapest decent LED I know of is the 63watter (~48w dissipation) which is $275. That is about $5.75 per dissipation watt. The cheapest small LED I could build efficiently would be about 90 dissipation watts and would cost about $300 just for parts, so that is $3.25 per dissipation watt. That is quite a difference in value but when you consider the time it takes to design and assemble the lamp it is cheaper to buy a prefab lamp. On the other hand when you build it yourself you can customize it exactly to your needs and it will be a more efficient lamp than anything available on the market right now.

You can get ~1 gram per watt with medium yielding hybrids and I would not be the slightest bit surprised to see ~2 grams per watt from a perfectly grown heavy yielder using the newest LEDs that are being released. This is an approximation of what it would cost for top notch parts if you were able to source them from the same generous fellow that I did.

$110 Reds 635nm and 660nm
$50 Whites/Blues
$55 aluminum heatsinks (Heatsink USA LLC)
$50 AC-DC constant current adjustable drivers
$20 kapton&copper tape (available online)
$25 fees/shipping


Would look something like this

Might want to do some browsing in reef aquarium sources. LED's have been used for a while now for coral propagation and is much less of an emerging science than it is in this context (you should see the money reefers have been spending on indoor lighting technology for well over 20 years, it's not uncommon to see someone dropping a grand or more just on bulbs to test PAR and find a color they like). You will find lots of DIY guides on putting them together, picking diodes and optics, drivers, spectrum, etc. It's very common to find group buys as well, which can significantly reduce the cost of building them. You will also readily find people who have been building these as DIY projects for years, they can provide a lot of help.