Economical multi LED Chip Projects for Growing

Economical CO2 Monitoring And Enrichment For Small Grows
For those who use high intensity light on their grow like me and who have all the other bases covered, like roots, nuits and environment. This might be a viable option for a small grow, when used to tweak a small methanol burning lamp to get the CO2 levels to 1000- 1400 ppm range. A 10%-20% gain on a one pound plant would make it more than worth it, use up that extra light and turn it into bud. Think about it like this: the only way the plant absorbs carbon is through the air and since the great majority of the weight at harvest is in bud, the plant puts that weight on during flowering. So CO2 has to be useful during more than just veg and early flower.

CO2Meter RAD-0301 Mini CO2 Monitor, White $70. US plus $12 US Shipping
http://www.ebay.com/itm/222616155745

Here is some text on the subject from page 12 of this thread.

With water cooling it should be possible to have a sealed grow room or dramatically reduce the air flow through the room. The high power densities possible with water cooling make it easy to max out on light levels, especially in small spaces. This opens up the possibility of CO2 enrichment of the grow and the benefits it provides. Most small growers aren't going to buy an expensive rig to monitor and supplement CO2 or want to buy or rent gas bottles. Burning a couple of ounces of methyl alcohol in a small lamp will provide double or more the CO2 than is in ambient air (300 ppm). A cheap ebay CO2 monitor can fine tune things and help with the adjustment of the burning rate until you get close enough to the levels you want.

Here is some text from another website
https://www.hydrofarm.com/resources/articles/co2_enrichment.php

"We will discuss these five methods briefly in turn. In order to make an effective comparison of CO2 generation, benefits and drawbacks, a std. 8' X 8' X 8' or 512 cu. ft. growing area will be used.

1. BURNING HYDROCARBON FUELS:

This has been the most common method of CO2 enrichment for many years. A number of commercial growers and greenhouses use it in their larger structures. The most common fuels are propane, butane, alcohol and natural gas. Any of these fuels that burn with a blue, white or colorless flame will produce carbon dioxide, which is beneficial. If a red, orange or yellow flame is present, carbon monoxide is being generated due to incomplete combustion. Carbon monoxide is deadly to both plants and people in any but the smallest quantities. Fuels containing sulfur or sulfur compounds should not be used, as they produce by-products which are harmful.

Most commercial CO2 generators that burn these fuels are too large for small greenhouse or indoor grow room applications. Some small ones are avai fable or a Coleman lantern, bunsen burner or small gas stove can be used. All of these CO2 generators produce heat as a by-product of CO2 generation, which is rarely needed in a controlled environment grow room but may prove beneficial in winter growing and cool area greenhouses.

The rate of CO2 production is controlled by the rate at which fuel is being burned. In a gas burning CO2 generator using propane, butane or natural gas, one pound of fuel produces approximately 3 pounds of carbon dioxide gas and about 1.5 pounds of water vapor. Approximately 22,000 BTUs of heat is also added. These figures can vary if other fuels are used.

To relate this to our standard example in an 8' X 8' X 8' growing area, if you used ethyl or methyl alcohol in a gas lamp or burner at the rate of 1.3 oz. per day, we would enhance the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to 1300 PPM if the room was completely sealed.

An enrichment standard of 1300 PPM was chosen as it is assumed that 1500 PPM is ideal, and that the plants will deplete the available CO2 supply by 100 PPM per hour. Remember, the normal atmosphere contains 300 PPM of CO2. A 100% air exchange (leakage) every two hours is assumed to be the average air exchange rate in most grow rooms and tight greenhouses. If many cracks and leaks are present, this exchange rate will increase significantly, but added CO2 (above 300 PPM) will also be lost. If a vent fan is in use, disregard CO enrichment, as it will be blown out as fast as it is generated.

A circulation fan is beneficial, as it moves the air about in the greenhouse or grow room. If the air is still, it can cause a "depletion layer effect". This effect causes the CO2 right next to the plant leaf to be quickly depleted. If fresh air carrying additional CO is not brought to this surface, photosynthesis and growth will diminish and eventually cease.

There are a number of factors involved in keeping the CO2 content at the desired concentration level. 1. If the greenhouse or grow room is not tightly sealed up, add up to 50% to the CO2 generator production volume. 2. If temperature is increased fiom 70 F to 90 F, add 20% to the volume generated, and vice-versa. 3. If the grow area contains large or tightly spaced plants, add 20% to 30% to the CO2 volume generated.

If more light is used, more CO2 can be utilized and should be produced proportionately up to the practical limit of 5,000 footcandles per square yard and 1500 PPM CO2 atm. content. When more CO is generated, more water and plant nutrients should be used, again to a practical limit of 2X normal. lf your plants are going to grow faster because of CO2 enrichment, they will need more nutrient and water.

The last factor to consider in maintaining a set CO2 level is the size of your growing area. This is simply done for gas burning and following methods by setting up a mathematical ratio. In our "standard" room (8' X 8' X 8'), we have 512 cubic feet. If your growing area measures 10' X 10' X 20', you have 2,000 cubic feet of volume to contend with. If you want to use the ethyl alcohol/gas-lamp enrichment method, set up the ratio using l.3 oz. by weight of alcohol per day gives:

1.3 oz./day = 512 cu. ft.
------------------ -------------------

X oz./day = 2,000 cu. ft.

Then cross multiply: 512 X = 1.3 X 2,000. Dividing both sides by 512 gives you X = (1.3 X 2000)/512, solve for X. X = 5 oz.
You need 5 oz. of ethyl alcohol per day in a 10' X 10' X 20' grow area to generate the same amount (1300 PPM) of CO2 as in a 512 cu. ft. room.

To generate 1500 PPM above the available CO2 (200 PPM) in the same size area, set up the ratio:

1300 PPM = 5 ounces"

An Economical Small Grow (currently set up for veg)
As I mentioned I took the summer off and I'm just getting going again with a couple of plants (OG Kush), one clone is an old mother I'm growing out and the other a clone of the same individual filling out the grid. I'm vegging with intense light 24/7 for 30% faster growth and running the environment a bit warmer and hope to have a good 3' X 7' canopy ready for flower at the end of the month. I train the plants to the outside of the grids to get the extra canopy area. I've got a 200 watt 5000k veg lamp on one end of the table and two 30" long 140 watt 5000K tube grow lights at the other over the small plant, 50K LUX on the grid! The details of the veg light(s) construction are posted earlier in this thread if ya wanna know how they were built.


The grow table is an old interior 30" x 6 1/2' door on slightly a tilted 2x4 frame to aid drainage. It's covered in a cushion floor remnant and the sides are strapping screwed to the door covered with vinyl siding channel, the drain is a piece of pipe siliconed and sealed in. The table drains into a under the bed tote and I pump the run off into a bucket and dump it. The 10 gallon air pruning grow bags sit on dollar store shower mat sections, I just removed the wooden cover slates and used the plastic, cheap and it works great. Alternately you could use plastic milk crates lined with weed barrier cloth and it will produce a one pound plant, provided other things are done right. The grids spread and flatten the canopy so the light can get at everything, putting them on the pots makes plant rotation, removal and maintenance much easier.

I'm vegging in my flower room for now, but at the end of the month the big 1.2 KW water cooled rig will cover the table, the timer will be turned back and we can rock! I haven't measured the power consumption of the new configuration yet, but I think I might take some power off the rig when the Citizen COBs go on, but it'll still be a real monster. My goal was to equal out door conditions, but you don't need that intensity for 12 straight hours, lower levels are more suitable in this situation.

The 335 watt lamp on the tripod I call the "left over lamp" and it was made awhile back from, you guessed it, left over stuff. I'll cover it perhaps in the next post. It usually covers the near end of the grow table when the canopy gets real big, I hang it across the table on the end of the water cooled lamp for extra coverage. The side lights come into play later in flower, but I might dispense with them after this grow, the power level on this garden is stupidly high for the number of plants I'm growing. I figure I should be using about 1 KW max on this kind of setup when the new COBs are installed, I probably can get my 2+ pounds with about 800 watts. Sometimes we just get carried away, and I'm still buying this shit! What's the definition of stupid again? As someone on one of these boards once said, "Pot might not be addictive, but growing it is"!

The Left Overs Lamp
Here is a lamp I made from some some stuff I had laying around and left overs from other projects. It's made from a heavy (structural) 18" long X 4" wide x 2" high, section of C channel aluminum extrusion. I think I paid around $5 or $6/ft from my local supplier (a machine shop) for this extrusion and I have two matching 6" X 3" heatsinks acquired from the scrap yard mounted (with cheap paste) about an inch and a half in from each end of the channel with 4mm screws, the middle 5 inches doesn't have any heat sink over it. The rest of the structure is made from a dead ATX power supply and two pieces of custom bent flashing, from a local building supplier. I have the 120 mm ATX power supply fan sucking and the 2 x 90mm fans on each end blowing to keep the fixture running at around 40 C. The lamp has a tripod mount or can be hung from chains and draws 335 watts according to the kill-o-watt, the screws sticking out the bottom are legs to set the lamp down on.



As for the innards, let's see if I can remember, the two outside 100 watt flood light and the center Citizen CLU048 COBs are each driven by dirt cheap ebay 50 watt drivers. The 10 watt CW and dual band monos are driven by separate small buck converters powered by the wall wart you see attached to the side of the case (with silicone rubber adhesive), as are the fans. The 5 x 4000K LED strips (attached with CPU tape) are driven at about 20 watts each and were obtained for free from a scrap yard by stripping them off two GE high bay LED bulbs. They run at around 72 volts, so I ran a 100 watt 36 volt driver through a boost converter to power them, I like em and they sure do put out light.


Here is a closeup of the lamp end, the fan is mounted on the channel about 1/2" from the heat sinks with silicone rubber adhesive and gaps are filled with foam weather stripping. I could cover this with strips of black electric tape to gussy things up if I wanted to cover the foam and make it look pretty. Air flows in the ends, through the heatsinks and out the top of the ATX PSU along with the heat, I took care in mounting the inner components, to maximize airflow through the lamp. Many of the internal parts are mounted on top of the heatsinks to force more air through them and the ATX box only has the boost converter and 100 watt driver mounted on the sides and cooled by the passing air. Not the most efficient lamp in the world, but what do ya expect with left over parts and junk. It's effective, useful, flexible and I had fun building it, which is probably why I did.

DIY-HP-LED said:

The Left Overs Lamp
Here is a lamp I made some some stuff I had laying around and left overs from other projects. It's made from a heavy (structural) 18" long X 4" wide x 2" high, section of C channel aluminum extrusion. I think I paid around $5 or $6/ft from my local supplier (a machine shop) for this extrusion and I have two matching 6" X 3" heatsinks acquired from the scrap yard mounted (with cheap paste) about an inch and a half in from each end of the channel with 4mm screws, the middle 5 inches doesn't have any heat sink over it. The rest of the structure is made from a dead ATX power supply and two pieces of custom bent flashing, from a local building supplier. I have the 120 mm ATX power supply fan sucking and the 2 x 90mm fans on each end blowing to keep the fixture running at around 40 C. The lamp has a tripod mount or can be hung from chains and draws 335 watts according to the kill-o-watt, the screws sticking out the bottom are legs to set the lamp down on.

View attachment 4005970

As for the innards, let's see if I can remember, the two outside flood light and the center Citizen CLU048 COBs are each driven by dirt cheap ebay 50 watt drivers. The 10 watt CW and dual band monos are driven by separate small buck converters powered by the wall wart you see attached to the side of the case (with silicone rubber adhesive), as are the fans. The 5 x 4000K LED strips (attached with CPU tape) are driven at about 20 watts each and were obtained for free from a scrap yard by stripping them off two GE high bay LED bulbs. They run at around 72 volts, so ran a 100 watt 36 volt driver through a boost converter to power them, I like em and they sure do put out light.
View attachment 4005972

Here is a closeup of the lamp end, the fan is mounted on the channel about 1/2" from the heat sinks with silicone rubber adhesive and gaps are filled with foam weather stripping. Air flows in the ends, through the heatsinks and out the top of the ATX PSU along with the heat, I took care in mounting the inner components, to maximize airflow through the lamp. Many of the internal parts are mounted on top of the heatsinks to force more air through them and the ATX box only has the boost converter and 100 watt driver mounted on the sides and cooled by the passing air. Not the most efficient lamp in the world, but what do ya expect with left over parts and junk. It's effective, useful, flexible and I had fun building it, which is probably why I did.
View attachment 4005981

Click to expand...

I want to hear more about how you made a 36V power supply work for 72V chips.

I had a couple of 400 watt boost converters from ebay laying about, just search for "boost converter" on ebay (and youtube for reviews), don't buy a digital one, but one you can adjust the max output current and voltage with a couple of potentiometers. That way you can both voltage and current limit parallel arrays for added safety in case a diode fries. A boost converter will double (or more) the voltage by halving the current. It would be best to drive these things with a matching driver, since there are inefficiencies when boosting voltage, there's a reason there are big honk'en heat sinks on boost converters! It's more efficient to buck down (lower voltage) than to raise voltage. When driving these I have to contend with not just 10% driver inefficiencies, but add to that the power loss by the converter. These strips don't need to be current limited though, since they have load resistors built in to each array on the strip. They are the most inefficient things on the lamp, followed by the voltage bucked 10 watt LEDs, followed by the floodlight COBs. The CLU048 is being driven at 1500ma so it's not operating at peak efficiency either. These are compromises that you run across when you try to cobble together something like this. If yer designing new, research the latest, think it through and seek the advice of others more knowledgeable and experienced than yourself before you build. Do that and you will save money and buy fewer "spare" parts, unless like me, you enjoy doing this shit. I also do some electronics stuff, so I have other reasons for some of the things I have and use in my builds.

tutaj5 said:

I just checked if they are safe by touching the heatsink also I have no grounding in my house so I cant ground them. I am not afraid to die.

Click to expand...

Two prong outlets are generally grounded through the case.

nfhiggs said:

Two prong outlets are generally grounded through the case.

Click to expand...

No help if you don't wire the ground to the center screw.

The Big Water Cooled Rig Rebuild and COB Upgrade
I had the center section of the big water cooled rig on the bench for a look before I start pulling some things out of the main electrical box. The wiring inside the box sucks and I need to redo the AC side of things as well. I'm gonna remove the two cheapo 50 watt drivers and the 120 watt burple COB in the center of the bar and two 4 band multispectral LEDs off the ends. I'm toying with the idea of redistributing the 8 X 20 watt 4000K strips over the three bars, I figure it's not worth the effort, but I can dim them using the boost converter. I'm gonna evenly distribute the 18 Citizen COBS over the 5' lengths of the 3 bars 6 COBs per bar and alternate 3500K with 2700K CLU048 90 CRI COBs. I'm pulling 3 x 4 band mono LEDs off of each outside bar and and the 50 watt drivers that run them as well. So I'm gonna take 200 watts off the rig and perhaps dim the strips a bit, the CLU048s will run at a total power of around 900 watts and I can dial back the strips to a 100 watts. When I plug her into the kill-o-watt I'll try to keep things at a kilowatt of power by adjusting the strips, at least that's the plan.

What a rats nest of wiring! Out come the cheapo 50 watt drivers sitting on the 100 watt drivers, the little buck converter runs the case fan and a power supply fan. The boost converter is in the top right of the box and the lefthand capacitor has a nasty bulge in the top and will soon have to be replaced, maybe I'll wait for it to fail, or I might repair it on the rebuild. There's a 36 volt/5 amp power supply outside the box that runs the boost converter. The drivers on the middle bar are adjustable, so I can run em at 70 watts or so and keep the CLU048's on the middle bar at around 1080 ma. There's plenty of other power on this bar to compensate for the reduced light output.


You can see the 36 volt power supply in this picture mounted to the center frame. The heavy power cord for this light is from an old 1200 watt microwave oven, you can't have some shitty little plug and chord on something like this, it has to be rated for the power.


Here's the business side of the bar. All the flood light COBs are going, as well as, the multi band and burple, and the Citizens COBs will be redistributed. The LED strips might be adjusted down until she draws around a kilowatt. I didn't bother with COB holders and I was impressed with the performance of the thermal CPU tape at 1 amp so they should be fine at 1500ma, though I'll check the Tb temps with a K type thermal probe just to be certain. I hold down wires with cheap dollar store epoxy, messy but it works and can be removed. I'll use a razor scraper to gently ease the COBs off the bar before cleaning and reapplying, I won't desolder the pig tails on the existing COBs though. Unless you know what you're doing with soldering iron and have experience, use an Ideal COB holder and epoxy it down with two dabs of JB weld in the screw holes and a little weight on the holder until it sets. You shouldn't use CPU tape with COBs on an air cooled fixture, but using it with strips or something with a large surface area is ok. A water cooled fixture is a different situation all together and you can get away with using good tape because of the high thermal differential and subsequent high thermal transfer rate. According to the specs CPU rated tape has the same thermal resistance as cheap paste.

ttystikk said:

No help if you don't wire the ground to the center screw.

Click to expand...

True - but there usually IS a ground, its just not obvious.

nfhiggs said:

True - but there usually IS a ground, its just not obvious.

Click to expand...

A lot of the better LED drivers automatically adjust to anywhere between 100V-277V, which means they need a three prong plug, so it's always there anyway.

A Few Thoughts on Water Cooling COBs
The build hours on the water cooled lamps were about the same as the time you'd spend on an air cooled system. I did a lot of experimentation, testing and learning, but once I figured out that it's best to use a 1/4" aluminum plate epoxied in with JB weld to plug the ends, things went real quick. I live in Canada and heat sinks are expensive here, heatsink USA is out of the question for a budget build. I was careful to hydrostatically test the bars to 50 psi for 5 minutes to make absolutely sure this idea would work. Others might like to try this, so I made sure about the cooling tubes and fittings, everything else from cobs to pipes/hoses and even cooler is users choice. Yeah it can be a pain to setup the cooling system etc, but you won't have to move a (literal) ton of air through yer grow and out the carbon filter. You can recover heat in the winter and if you live in a hot climate, it will cut AC costs in yer grow. Also, you can CO2 supplement your grow easily and cheaply, if yer not moving too much or any air through it.

The tubing was obtained locally costs $3.85/ft CDN and since there's 15 feet (3 x 5') of it on the big water cooled light it cost $57.85 or less than $60. CDN. How much do you think the equivalent active cooled air heat sinking would cost for a 5' long 24" wide 18 COB+ lamp that runs at a kilowatt (remember, I'm in Canada on the other side of nowhere)? I use an old air cleaner ($2 at a thrift store) and car heater core ($10 from a scrap yard) to cool things and it works well enough for my purposes, everything is hooked up with garden (best) or clear vinyl hose and that's cheap. An inexpensive fountain pump runs the setup and it sits in a 55 gallon plastic barrel that a buddy gave me for free. Brass and plastic hose fittings are cheap too, most of what you'd need (except for the cooler and tubing) is available at the local hardware store. You could build the tubes and cooling system for a hundred bucks or so, if you innovated a bit.

Not for everybody for sure, but if you've been thinking of trying it, this thread should give ya a good kick in the pants and provide a few ideas for your own system. That's the purpose of the thread, sharing ideas, experience and knowledge, and maybe some showing off too..

Looks like 20 years of mindfulness meditation practice hasn't killed the old ego yet, but I'm getting there!

To follow my water cooling experiments and testing, etc, go to page 10 of this thread or click here:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/economical-multi-led-chip-projects-for-growing.852256/page-10

Cheap Chinese Drivers
As many of you know I live in Canada and up here things are a bit different when it comes to setting up and economical small grow and especially for buying or building grow lights. If money's no object or yer selling pounds a month on the side, then order up yer COBs, meanwell drivers and heatsinks, but be prepared to pay dearly. Not a problem if it's say a "business" investment and a few percent in increased efficiency pays dividends over time and will also allow more production from limited power resources. But let's say you just grow for yourself and others and don't sell it, or want to stay inside the new 4 plant limit law that is coming here. In addition let's say you have limited means, or have a medical issue and this is your medicine.

Until recently the price of quality COBs has been very expensive and even though there are some places selling quality COBs now for a good price, there's Canadian shipping, the difference in the dollar and customs, on top of the US purchase price. It's the same story for high voltage meanwell drivers, only shipping is worse for bulky items and heatsinks are even more expensive to ship. American builders often get free delivery and pay no sales tax, so their choices are different (and better) than those who live in other places. When you order on ebay from China, you seldom pay shipping and almost never pay duty, it's just the purchase price. I wish they sold high voltage, high powered drivers too, and if anybody knows if they do, post a link here.

I've been using a half dozen or so of each of 2 types of Chinese 3 amp 100 watt drivers for 3 years now (one type adjustable and the other non adjustable), been running them at 100% and I haven't had one fail yet (though I take care to try and cool them a bit). I didn't expect this, which is one of the reasons why I chose unenclosed drivers, so I could repair them if they screwed up, none have so far. In terms of efficiency, they are just current limited SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supplies) and almost all of those are around 90% efficient when operated at rated output and it doesn't matter much where they are made. I use them to drive pairs of 100 watt floodlight COBs and other better quality COBs, though an an adjustable version is best suited to this task. Of course using high voltage drivers and running COBs in series is best practice for a number of reasons, including: simplicity, efficiency and better power distribution. But if your in Canada the Chinese flood light drivers with free delivery are a viable alternative for the budget conscious builder.

Maybe a better name for this thread is, " A cheap old bastard builds grow lights"!

Saving on DIY Costs
I was down visiting my sister today and dropped into a moving/yard sale next door. I bought an almost new Black and Decker plunge cut router, a router bit and a heavy duty 12- 15 ft extension cord for $20, I passed on other tools and a heavy duty hot air gun. I can use the router on woodworking projects and also for milling aluminum, might even be able to mill heat sink fins or increase the surface area of other aluminum extrusions.

If I decide to build a DIY CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machine this might make a nice power head for it, though I think old printer parts and servos might not be up to the job of moving it around accurately, less mass would be more desirable. Ya never know what you'll come up with in a salvage yard so I''l keep my eyes open.


There are no grow stores in my area, but I can get nuits and other such essentials at the local farmers co-op for a good price. Coco coir blocks of good quality for growing can be obtained at a local Home Hardware store, probably cheaper than a grow store. Until recently I was producing 1 LB+ plants in plastic milk crates lined with cheap widely available weed barrier cloth to make air pruning pots, I'm now testing larger grow bags. Ph and ppm meter are from ebay or Amazon with free delivery. I recently economically recharged my activated charcoal filter with new better quality charcoal from Amazon (free shipping) for a much lower cost than buying a new one and getting it shipped. I just drilled out the rivets near the inlet and replaced them with sheet metal screws when the job was done, works great.

DIY-HP-LED said:

Saving on DIY Costs
I was down visiting my sister today and dropped into a moving/yard sale next door. I bought an almost new Black and Decker plunge cut router, a router bit and a heavy duty 12- 15 ft extension cord for $20, I passed on other tools and a heavy duty hot air gun. I can use the router on woodworking projects and also for milling aluminum, might even be able to mill heat sink fins or increase the surface area of other aluminum extrusions.

If I decide to build a DIY CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machine this might make a nice power head for it, though I think old printer parts and servos might not be up to the job of moving it around accurately, less mass would be more desirable. Ya never know what you'll come up with in a salvage yard so I''l keep my eyes open.
View attachment 4007927

There are no grow stores in my area, but I can get nuits and other such essentials at the local farmers coop for a good price. Coco coco coir blocks of good quality for growing can be obtained at a local Home Hardware store, probably cheaper than a grow store. Until recently I was producing 1 LB+ plants in plastic milk crates lined with cheap widely available weed barrier cloth to make air pruning pots, I'm now testing larger grow bags. Ph and ppm meter are from ebay or Amazon with free delivery. I recently economically recharged my activated charcoal filter with new better quality charcoal from Amazon (free shipping) for a much lower cost than buying a new one and getting it shipped. I just drilled out the rivets near the inlet and replaced them with sheet metal screws when the job was done, works great.

Click to expand...

How did you pack the new carbon?

It's quick and easy, removed the cover dumped out the lower quality carbon granules and dumped in the new better quality pellets, shook it to settle it and applied the thick foam seal and cover, fastened with sheet metal screws to finish. There's a fine nylon cloth mesh inside the holed metal case to keep small particles in. If you fill it and settle it with a little shaking the foam in the top will keep it tight. Put enough carbon in so the the foam top seal presses it gently when the lid is put back on, the carbon shouldn't move if you shake the filter. By cover I mean the top of the filter, where the hose hooks on. I've even got some carbon left over, so the next time it will be cheaper

Anybody see a better price on carbon? I bought this from Amazon.ca a few months back and got a lot more for a better price.
https://www.amazon.com/Acurel-LLC-Economy-Activated-Pellets/dp/B06VSNPZ7N/ref=sr_1_116?ie=UTF8&qid=1505013466&sr=8-116&keywords=activated+charcoal&th=1

Here's what I pay in Canada, but we got lot's of trees, so I guess that's why the price is better:
https://www.amazon.ca/Loving-Pets-Economy-Activated-Pellets/dp/B000YIWT0M/ref=sr_1_98?ie=UTF8&qid=1505049642&sr=8-98&keywords=activated+charcoal

An Economical Small Grow (expansion)
I expanded the nook used to hold the small flower lamp by removing a cabinet that was serving no purpose except for mounting the garden fan on. It was getting in the way, was unused and the space would be better used by a larger canopy in the nook. It's a 5' by 3' area now and it can be filled with two small plants or one big one, though vegging out a big one would be an issue in the flower room. I'll mount the water cooled light in the middle of the space and a couple of other small air cooled lights on either side.

A few pieces 2"x4" as plates attached to the 3 walls about a foot from the floor, a cut down old door or some other piece of scrap as a table, a bit of paint and she's good to go. I'm gonna try covering the table with dollar store "mactac" self adhesive shelf liner and see if that works, mostly because I'm too lazy to cut another cushion floor remnant, but I might be forced to go to work, if the idea doesn't.

AC COB Lamp update
I changed my mind about building the remaining AC COB lights, I just don't want to waste these great heatsink fixtures on these kinds of COBs. I ordered 3 dirt cheap enclosed 100 watt drivers to have a look at, and I'll have 50 watt enclosed drivers, COBs and monos stripped from the big water cooled light. I might as well turn the rest of the 3 fixtures like the one I used for the AC COB lamp into 150 watt supplemented double COB lamps. Two flood light COBs on either end and 3 four band monos in the middle. A fan, two enclosed drivers and a fan power supply would make up the top, similar to the AC COB lamp shown earlier. With .3 amp fans and the fixtures dissipating about 100 watts of heat, I figure they should run pretty cool.

I'll either figure out another way of using the AC COBs, maybe I'll use some for a killer DIY outdoor flood light, or give em away. I could sell them locally for a profit, but that's not my style, besides I have a good retirement income and know the difference between need and greed. Selling these AC COBs to some folks would kill em, which is one of the reasons I tried them. I figured some folks would use them and if they lurked around here, at least they'd know how to do it safely. Frying folks wouldn't sit too well with the old conscience, I'm here to help, not kill!

I just started a new thread and posted some stuff from here to kick it off. I figure lots of Canadians will take up gardening in the next year and perhaps some might end up on the thread. I put it in indoor growing, since I figure it will involve more than building DIY lights, though I'll cover those too. My focus will be on the lower end of things, but I hope others will contribute to other aspects of growing a couple of plants in flower and a couple in veg.
Canada Grows to the 4 Plant Limit
This thread is for Canadians who want to economically set up a small grow that's in compliance with the upcoming (approx. spring of 2018 ) law or for current medical users. We'll cover modern LED lighting options and especially DIY LED grow lights, starting, growing methods and other practical aspects of setting up and maintaining an economical small grow in Canada. Sharing ideas, knowledge and experience is the purpose of this thread. I might have started it and will maintain it, but I don't own it. It's for all Canadians who want to set up a small indoor garden that is economical, energy efficient and effective. There are a few knowledgeable and experienced Canadian growers on this board that know where the best places to buy gear are and have approaches that might be better suited to some on this thread than those I present. I hope they will join in and consider this thread as their's too.

Tens of thousands of new growers will be starting next year, from old timers who grew years ago with gaslight like me (just kidding, I ain't that old) that are starting again to newbies. The wealthy, those with limited means and medical needs, will pay a lot less and have more control over what they consume, if they grow it. In some provinces it might be quite some time before there's available supplies and folks can make your own high quality hash and edibles quite easily and cheaply.

There are a few unique challenges Canadians face, that our American cousins don't, like the difference in the dollar, Canadian shipping and customs duty. The approach to setting up a grow depends on one's circumstances, a wealth person would do things differently than someone of limited means. Many medical patients and older folks are on fixed incomes and many don't have a lot of resources, that's where my primary focus will be...

A personal observation:
I live in Nova Scotia and according to polls, we along with BC have the highest usage rates in the country, though you'd never know it if you lived here. When you consider that many of the young people in the province have moved away, leaving a disproportionate number of boomer olds farts behind like me, who's smoking (and growing) all the dope?

Fellow Canadian here. Any suggestions on a 1x5 cob setup? I want 1 cob per sq ft. Cheap and easy is the key. I'll trade some efficiency due to low power costs.

DIY-HP-LED said:

A personal observation:
I live in Nova Scotia and according to polls, we along with BC have the highest usage rates in the country, though you'd never know it if you lived here. When you consider that many of the young people in the province have moved away, leaving a disproportionate number of boomer olds farts behind like me, who's smoking (and growing) all the dope?

Click to expand...

The good news is that weed is even better for old farts than youngsters.