First time grower experimenting with cheap LEDs

Chronikool said:

Good to see somebody else using some 5050's. Although mine was on a much smaller scale and only using white LED's. Looks good so far bruv.

https://www.rollitup.org/led-other-lighting/567470-chronikoolz-stripped-lite-peep-show.html

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Holy smokes bro, thank you so much for dropping in and proving that I have not gone completely insane. Not to say that I had any doubts about my little rig , but man having seen a fellow Macgyver kinda guy put a similar contraption to work , just made my day not to mention give me a mega confidence boost. This thing is so gona work , more so that I have just got myself another 4 rolls of Red and 2 Blue, I have gone LED mad I tell ya.

Awesome stuff .

firsttimegrow1 said:

your doing good man youwill have your bud i showed a friend your pics today he said that it look pretty good too he said he will have t give it a go but with only one plant and maybe some floros just to beef it up a bit keep us posted man im hooked on your grow

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You just stay tuned bro if this works out you should definitely do it , its so much fun.

Panelata said:

Holy smokes bro, thank you so much for dropping in and proving that I have not gone completely insane. Not to say that I had any doubts about my little rig , but man having seen a fellow Macgyver kinda guy put a similar contraption to work , just made my day not to mention give me a mega confidence boost. This thing is so gona work , more so that I have just got myself another 4 rolls of Red and 2 Blue, I have gone LED mad I tell ya.

Awesome stuff .

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There is no reason why it wont work....although i am having a bit of trouble with my party comp seedlings in the PC box at the moment. Keep on growing!

Chronikool said:

There is no reason why it wont work....although i am having a bit of trouble with my party comp seedlings in the PC box at the moment. Keep on growing!

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Have you considered using some reds as well, the white leds are really just blue diodes coated with phosphor from what I understand.
good luck with the cup grow, I saw the thread a little too late for me to join but will be keeping a look out for the next one, will definitely like to play as well.
Oh and I like what you doing with the SOG , that's going to be my next adventure after I am done with my current project

What's it goin like mate any more pics yet can't wauit to see how these turn out keep us updated

firsttimegrow1 said:

What's it goin like mate any more pics yet can't wauit to see how these turn out keep us updated

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I am currently upgrading my closet (replacing the emergency blanket reflective sheet with some lightproof white pvc) and building the new light panel (this one will be just red and blue about 1800 leds almost twice as many as what I started with), just waiting on a couple of bits and bobs from ebay, once its all done I will post new pics .

The plants are doing surprisingly well, except for 1 of the THC Bombs, its gone slightly yellow and growth has stunted, think its due to a messy transplant, will post pics in a couple of days when I have redone the closet.
I am not going to abandon this journal until either my plants get harvested, or die, or I get busted

That's good to know just hope it all goes well for ye am here till the end meself gunna start one meself its to late to document my current grow but I've just got something in the pipeline ill let you know when I start it

Ok as promised some updates and a closet upgrade

Finally got the everything delivered today so I got to work putting everything together starting with the closet itself,got rid of the crappy lining and redid it with some lightproof pvc .



Then there is the masterpiece ,my light panel mk2


And then there was light


This is drawing a little over 200 watts now, and its bright as hell, had to wear shades and still my eyes feel screwed.

The new setup


And now for the residents themselves, I am afraid to say I make a really useless guardian of these children, whilst I was moving stuff about in the closet, the fan rubbed up against 2 plants , decapitating one and giving the other a decent hair trim

The THC Bomb lost its top and a SleestackxSkunk had some leaves trimmed by the fan



Other than that its one happy family


Its day 20 for the 2 SS and 19 for the rest, so far the Sleestack x Skunk seem to be doing the best despite being in shitty pots.
The Pineapple expresses in the Airpots are also coming along nicely, the other one a little slower, the THC bombs well one had the unintentional topping and might actually promote side growth ,but that plant was not doing too well to begin with, it was a little yellow, I kind of messed up on the transplant and the soil around the root ball disintegrated, lets hope it makes it , the other THC Bomb seems to be doing ok.


And here they are under the new light.

looking good man you should water befour ransplant keeps it all together b ut it looks good to me how big are they now an what strenth nutes you on an what nutes

firsttimegrow1 said:

looking good man you should water befour ransplant keeps it all together b ut it looks good to me how big are they now an what strenth nutes you on an what nutes

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The 2 Sleestacks are about 7 inches tall and about 8 wide, the others are slightly smaller the smallest not counting the one that lost its head is about 4 inches tall,5 wide. I am watering about once every 5-6 days, and am using a very mild dose (about 2ml to a litre of normal tap water left overnight in an open dish) of BioBizz grow,today was the second time I used it,I also used a bit of superthrive after the transplant. On the next watering I will use the Biobizz Grow , and Bloom on the PE (autoflowers ).

The sleestacks look to stretch more than the others but I think this is not too stretched is it?


The others have no stretch at all , new leaves are even getting overlapped by leaves from previous node

And this sorry looking plant, is the smallest and worst performer of the lot , am sure its quite obvious why ,hope it makes it, I still have to sex the 4 photo plants they are regular seeds, so hoping to get at least 2 females, don't want to lose any plants before they show sex.

Ha. I was gonna say, "Top them!" and then got to the last photo. Looking god, man. If you make a mk3 I think you could even go 3:1 Red:Blue (maybe more?). The light still looks a little Purple for a flower panel, imo.

Bumping Spheda said:

Ha. I was gonna say, "Top them!" and then got to the last photo. Looking god, man. If you make a mk3 I think you could even go 3:1 Red:Blue (maybe more?). The light still looks a little Purple for a flower panel, imo.

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Thanks for that suggestion I built this panel with intention to be able to decrease the B:R ratio during flowering, I can easily disconnect rows of lights and will probably disconnect half of the blues when I put them into 12/12.
This grow is more about the lights than anything so I am trying not cause too many variables for things to go wrong, and since I hardly know what I am doing, dont really want to be messing about with cropping,topping etc. That last plant was an accident with a fan but am thinking it might have just been what was needed, new shoots seem to be growing nicely.

Ah, I got you. Yea, that Purple light looks really good for veg (hence the nice looking results so far). No need to turn the Blues off during flower, imo, I don't think it should hurt anything. Maybe trade out every other line of Blue for White if you make another panel? I believe Blue output should be around 10-20%.

"...Accident with a fan..." ROFL! That "runt of the litter" should be killer, it's got 4 main shoots coming off the stem (4 main colas). That's what I was going to suggest you do with all your plants. See the others? Perfect time to top 'em, maybe a smidge late, actually. You'll see, that one's gonna be a monster so long as you can keep the light on her. Maybe some LST on the others to keep the canopy semi-even, she probably won't get as tall as her siblings. Also, I wouldn't worry about some LST or topping to be huge variables. If the panel can't produce in flower it can't produce. Some plant training won't hurt anything, imo, in fact it should keep the yields up as much as possible, especially since you've got all the time in the world to veg it seems.

great idea using the cheap led strips! I am currently on my first grow using a blackstar 240 and was thinking of supplementing a bit more light and your idea seems good (and cheap!) damm i wish i saw this before i spent 300$ on the one i have lol...
on a side note, i looked at my led, it suppose to be good for both veg and bloom cycles and it has 80 leds, 70 of which are red, 2 white and 8 blue (there are 2 shades of blue). the light still looks purple though... just thought you might be interested to know.

by the way, is there a tutorial anywhere online that would explain how to construct one of those panels like you built? or perhaps would you be willing to show us how you build them?
anyway looking forward to more updates

Hey, Scoobs. Check out the difference in color between these two pics. Blackstar looks a lot more Magenta to me.

Panelata said:

View attachment 2493511

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D3monic said:

Twin. Blackstar 240 2012 flower models.

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Bumping Spheda said:

Ah, I got you. Yea, that Purple light looks really good for veg (hence the nice looking results so far). No need to turn the Blues off during flower, imo, I don't think it should hurt anything. Maybe trade out every other line of Blue for White if you make another panel? I believe Blue output should be around 10-20%.

"...Accident with a fan..." ROFL! That "runt of the litter" should be killer, it's got 4 main shoots coming off the stem (4 main colas). That's what I was going to suggest you do with all your plants. See the others? Perfect time to top 'em, maybe a smidge late, actually. You'll see, that one's gonna be a monster so long as you can keep the light on her. Maybe some LST on the others to keep the canopy semi-even, she probably won't get as tall as her siblings. Also, I wouldn't worry about some LST or topping to be huge variables. If the panel can't produce in flower it can't produce. Some plant training won't hurt anything, imo, in fact it should keep the yields up as much as possible, especially since you've got all the time in the world to veg it seems.

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I think I might actually take your advice and have a go at topping the other 3 photos, I am not going to do anything to the autoflowers though, thing is I don't know how many males I am going to end up with on the 4 photos ,so will probably wait until they show sex, I imagine in 2-3 weeks more and then I will transplant to larger pots once the males have been removed and more space is available , will do some trimming then once they have adjusted to new pots. You right about me not being in any rush ,the autos will be providing me with some early bud in about another 5-6 weeks, think I will keep the others vegging until the autos are done.
As for the light ratios, I cant find the thread now but some dude did a test growing with all blue led and surprisingly the results were reasonable, he even flowered with all blue, pity he did not compare with a control plant under a cfl or hps or even led with a mixed ratio, hence why I opted to keep the ratio of blues high, it certainly does well for vegging thats for sure.
I still have the old light strips and think I am going to do a test with a couple of 16oz cups , will grow 4 sets of plants under only blue, only red and a combo of 7:1 RB and another 7:1 BR just for the hell of it.Its a shame I am too late for the party cup competition ,could have used that as an excuse and as another comparison to my test plants.

Scooby(Doobie) said:

great idea using the cheap led strips! I am currently on my first grow using a blackstar 240 and was thinking of supplementing a bit more light and your idea seems good (and cheap!) damm i wish i saw this before i spent 300$ on the one i have lol...
on a side note, i looked at my led, it suppose to be good for both veg and bloom cycles and it has 80 leds, 70 of which are red, 2 white and 8 blue (there are 2 shades of blue). the light still looks purple though... just thought you might be interested to know.

by the way, is there a tutorial anywhere online that would explain how to construct one of those panels like you built? or perhaps would you be willing to show us how you build them?
anyway looking forward to more updates

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Well you can get the strips off ebay , its very easy to connect them up, depending on how many lights you are going to need you need to get a 12v DC power supply ,if you have an old computer PSU you can modify it to use on the strips (you can find tutorials on youtube for this), but if you are going to use less than 500 leds, just get a cheap 12v adapter with a 5 amp rating.
You can then cut the strip every 3 leds, find some panel with a flat surface lay them out and just connect it up in series you can get connectors for them ,but if you can use a soldering iron just solder some wire to the + and - terminals and connect accordingly to each other strip and the adaptor/Power supply . Connect a pc fan to deal with the heat and you're in business .

The strips are SMD5050 and they come in rolls of 5metres or 300 leds.

If you tell me what size panel you are looking at ,I can tell you how many rolls you will need and how to cut them up and what amperage adapter you will need.

Why are you experimenting on your first grow. Why don't you just use a method that has been tested time and time again. How can you learn if you can't tell if what you are doing is better than other options or not. Just my opinion. I have 1400 dollar LED light that works good. But without lots of cash LEDs suck. Each of my led lights are 2.5watts a piece and there is like over a hundred of them.
Just my opinion but do what you'd like

Canna Connoiseur said:

Why are you experimenting on your first grow. Why don't you just use a method that has been tested time and time again. How can you learn if you can't tell if what you are doing is better than other options or not. Just my opinion. I have 1400 dollar LED light that works good. But without lots of cash LEDs suck. Each of my led lights are 2.5watts a piece and there is like over a hundred of them.
Just my opinion but do what you'd like

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Bro if you did indeed pay 1400 dollars for a 250 ish watt light, then I got 3 words for you

YOU GOT FLEECED
And I sure much rather try my luck and fail with a 100 dollar light than to come onto a forum and admit to such an attrocity. All the best to you and sincerely hope you grow enough to cover the cost of that magic light.

Bumping Spheda said:

Hey, Scoobs. Check out the difference in color between these two pics. Blackstar looks a lot more Magenta to me.

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yeah you are right, its easy to see when you look side by side, was just going off memory