smokey the cat
Well-Known Member
Hello LED Forum,
I've enjoyed learning the basics of LED lighting from you over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed reading through the many DIY threads and emitter discussion. I'd like to use this thread to give you an idea of my growing situation and see if you can help me make some intelligent choices regarding an LED upgrade.
My situation: I'm a guy who owns a multimeter and a soldering iron, and I feel confident enough that I'll make a decent enough hash of stringing some 20mm stars together. I'm looking to upgrade an existing micro grow that I've been running for about four or five years now - it's a small cabinet that I tuck into a bedroom closet. Currently this is split into two tiny chambers: one for vegging mum&clones, the other for flowering. I'm looking to turn the entire cabinet into an LED driven flower cab. Internal floor measurements are 570mm x 360mm, and the flower chamber is 790mm high.
View attachment 2867996
I'm comfortable with this cabinet even though it's showing it's age with numerous upgrades and gaffer-tape mods over the years - not exactly stealthy, but as it lives in a wardrobe this hardly matters. It's still available new, so I could potentially buy a fresh replacement if I wanted a new stealthy box compatible with my existing grow.
I'm also aware that it is a small cab - there isn't much vertical space in my box, but there is room in the wardrobe for something taller if I decide to upgrade down the line. I mention this as any LED board I build I'd like to make it future proof for a full height (1.5m+) grow space. Key point - I'm looking for good performance with buds quite close to lights. The box is <0.8m tall and we have to include space for the fixture and grow medium. At least with plants close to the lights they'll be getting plenty of lumens I suppose.
The need to manage the risk of light burn means that I think dimmable is the way to go, though I'm happy to hear any wisdom anyone might care to share on this matter.
The cabinet is equipped with twin exhaust 120mm computer fans on 12Vdc. In the past this ventilation coped with 240W of CFL tubes, and is now handling 96W of PLL along with the hot magnetic ballasts. I'm assuming that an LED fixture should be a piece of cake by comparison. In fact there is so much airflow at the top of the cabinet that I think a passive fixture might be possible if I find the right heatsink/emitter combo.
I've been thinking about mounting any fixture by simply from hanging chains from the ceiling of the cab, so I can position it to take best advantage of the exhaust fans. I'm not hung up on passive though - happy to go active, and it's unlikely any cooling fan will make any audible difference to the noise put out by the main exhaust fans.
Grow period - this cabinet is designed as a "flower" cabinet, but I'd also like to be finish off the last week or two of veg. So a flower(+veg) cabinet. This is potentially going to introduce a compromise here in terms of emitter spectrum, but let me tell you that compromise is all to common in the life of a micro grower! With two chambers in this tiny box at the moment I can tell you a lot about growing in adverse conditions!
Ok, so with all that in mind, lets talk power output and emitter choice.
Power output - I had been envisaging one solution as a single string of 30-50W of high end white Cree emitters on a single driver. It wasnt till I mocked up my cabinet MSpaint image that I realised that with over 2 square feet of floor space I "should" be using 80+W (2.2x40W/f).
Now, the beauty of DIY is that if I found my newly constructed 50W panel isn't cutting it I can upgrade with another string - such as a 30W red/far-red string to add during flower. And, lets not forget that "40W per square-foot" doesn't refer of the distance of the emitter from the plants - growing in a tight spot means I don't need penetration as no plant cell will be more than 600mm (or so) from the emitter.
Am I wrong to be considering 50W of Cree to be viable option? I was thinking of ten XP-G2 or a fewer number of XM-L2. Would I be better to add a second string of red/far-red in my intitial build, or keep it as a possible upgrade down the road if 50W performance was inadequate?
I'll post some more with ideas and questions about drivers, heatsinks and other information a newbie to LED technology might have. It's nice to contemplate a decent light which I can customise to my growing space. My 96W PLL lights have done OK, but I'm keen to take a next technological step and get more than 5-7" of light penetration.
Thanks for having me here
- smokey the cat
I've enjoyed learning the basics of LED lighting from you over the past few weeks. I've enjoyed reading through the many DIY threads and emitter discussion. I'd like to use this thread to give you an idea of my growing situation and see if you can help me make some intelligent choices regarding an LED upgrade.
My situation: I'm a guy who owns a multimeter and a soldering iron, and I feel confident enough that I'll make a decent enough hash of stringing some 20mm stars together. I'm looking to upgrade an existing micro grow that I've been running for about four or five years now - it's a small cabinet that I tuck into a bedroom closet. Currently this is split into two tiny chambers: one for vegging mum&clones, the other for flowering. I'm looking to turn the entire cabinet into an LED driven flower cab. Internal floor measurements are 570mm x 360mm, and the flower chamber is 790mm high.
View attachment 2867996
I'm comfortable with this cabinet even though it's showing it's age with numerous upgrades and gaffer-tape mods over the years - not exactly stealthy, but as it lives in a wardrobe this hardly matters. It's still available new, so I could potentially buy a fresh replacement if I wanted a new stealthy box compatible with my existing grow.
I'm also aware that it is a small cab - there isn't much vertical space in my box, but there is room in the wardrobe for something taller if I decide to upgrade down the line. I mention this as any LED board I build I'd like to make it future proof for a full height (1.5m+) grow space. Key point - I'm looking for good performance with buds quite close to lights. The box is <0.8m tall and we have to include space for the fixture and grow medium. At least with plants close to the lights they'll be getting plenty of lumens I suppose.
The need to manage the risk of light burn means that I think dimmable is the way to go, though I'm happy to hear any wisdom anyone might care to share on this matter.
The cabinet is equipped with twin exhaust 120mm computer fans on 12Vdc. In the past this ventilation coped with 240W of CFL tubes, and is now handling 96W of PLL along with the hot magnetic ballasts. I'm assuming that an LED fixture should be a piece of cake by comparison. In fact there is so much airflow at the top of the cabinet that I think a passive fixture might be possible if I find the right heatsink/emitter combo.
I've been thinking about mounting any fixture by simply from hanging chains from the ceiling of the cab, so I can position it to take best advantage of the exhaust fans. I'm not hung up on passive though - happy to go active, and it's unlikely any cooling fan will make any audible difference to the noise put out by the main exhaust fans.
Grow period - this cabinet is designed as a "flower" cabinet, but I'd also like to be finish off the last week or two of veg. So a flower(+veg) cabinet. This is potentially going to introduce a compromise here in terms of emitter spectrum, but let me tell you that compromise is all to common in the life of a micro grower! With two chambers in this tiny box at the moment I can tell you a lot about growing in adverse conditions!
Ok, so with all that in mind, lets talk power output and emitter choice.
Power output - I had been envisaging one solution as a single string of 30-50W of high end white Cree emitters on a single driver. It wasnt till I mocked up my cabinet MSpaint image that I realised that with over 2 square feet of floor space I "should" be using 80+W (2.2x40W/f).
Now, the beauty of DIY is that if I found my newly constructed 50W panel isn't cutting it I can upgrade with another string - such as a 30W red/far-red string to add during flower. And, lets not forget that "40W per square-foot" doesn't refer of the distance of the emitter from the plants - growing in a tight spot means I don't need penetration as no plant cell will be more than 600mm (or so) from the emitter.
Am I wrong to be considering 50W of Cree to be viable option? I was thinking of ten XP-G2 or a fewer number of XM-L2. Would I be better to add a second string of red/far-red in my intitial build, or keep it as a possible upgrade down the road if 50W performance was inadequate?
I'll post some more with ideas and questions about drivers, heatsinks and other information a newbie to LED technology might have. It's nice to contemplate a decent light which I can customise to my growing space. My 96W PLL lights have done OK, but I'm keen to take a next technological step and get more than 5-7" of light penetration.
Thanks for having me here
- smokey the cat
