LED Experts

Osprey44

Member
Hello, I am hoping some of you can provide some information for me please. My cousin has agreed to build me a led grow light. Can you tell me the most important things to install or buy?

I was hoping to get a 600 Watt light built, are Cree leds the best? What color leds should I purchase? Where should I purchase from? Driver,heat sync? Thank you for your time and I hope to read the response to put me in the right direction. I will post a picture of the light when complete and a grow journal.
 

dbkick

Well-Known Member
rapidled.com
check out the solderless kits and you could do it yourself. 48 3 watt diodes cost around 400 bux there if I remember right. 600 watts worth may be expensive.
 

PSUAGRO.

Well-Known Member
Oh lord.... :spew:
It's about time we get a sticky thread for these????????? can't take it anymore.........start one Snot or I will :hump:

Edit: For the OP yeah Dbkick gave you an easy site to pick up everything in one kit but it is more expensive than gather it all from the cheapest sources (mouser/cutter/heatsink usa/etc.)

The new Cree xt-e line is good use the following "colors" in your panel IMO

50%.....Cree xt-e 630nm red
35%.....Osram Oslon 660nm deep red
10%...Cree xt-e warm white
5%.....Cree xt-e 460nm royal blue
 

Osprey44

Member
So a 48 x 3 = 144 Watt light for 400$? Seems very expensive.

My cousin is electrical tech, he does not grow or smoke but he can build from scratch. I just want to build the best light possible.
 

420greendream

Well-Known Member
Lol if he's a electrician he should know what parts to buy. As for the spectrum I go 65% red, 25% blue, 7% white, 3% orange/uv
 

jcmjrt

Well-Known Member
Osprey start off with the basics. What size is your growing space? What style are you growing? What is your budget? If you really want good advice info is required; this is if you actually want good advice to grow solid flowers. If you just want a nominal 600 watt LED you can brag about proceed to ebay or alibaba.
 

Osprey44

Member
Grow area is four foot wide four feet long 7 feet high , was hoping to get a light built for vegetative plus flower.
 

jcmjrt

Well-Known Member
It costs about $3/real watt to build a top quality fixture. You might get away with $2/watt but hard to imagine a lot less for a good light. You will need the following:

LEDs, heatsink, probably a fan unless you buy a great heatsink and that's money too, driver (could be dimmable and then may need to buy a potentiometer), power cord/plug for the driver (if not included), maybe a power supply for the fan (unless included), thermal mounting pads or thermal grease and/or thermal adhesive, hangers, wire, solder.

You have 4 x 4ft = 16ft2 of space to cover. Let's say 40W/ft2 and you want something like 16 x 40 = 640 watts 640W x $3/W = $1920 or at the shallower end of the pool 640W x $2/W = $1280 Now the reality is that you could get away with fewer watts with the better fixtures because you are creating more lumens/watt with the higher end components so we'll readjust a little on the estimate and say you need 500 watts of excellent fixture so 500W x $3/W = $1500 These are obviously just rough numbers but reasonably close to reality for growing quality flower.

Supplemental LED fixture - you have 48 inches across so build the fixture about 40 - 44 inches long on an - or couple - of aluminum tube heat sinks (see stevesleds.com) with a pressurizing fan, good driver (inventronics, meanwell, maybe steve's drivers?), thermal mounting pads, mounting hardware for fixture. I'm just going to guess that you could easily get an excellent 150W fixture and you'll be about a third or so of the way to a quality all LED grow....and have an excellent supplemental light to start.

stevesleds.com ledgroupbuy.com heatsinkusa.com modularled.com digikey.com mouser.com
 

SupraSPL

Well-Known Member
A quality lamp will cost $3-4 per dissipation watt. Source your LEDs from aquarium shops because they specify the exact bin. The best deep reds are available from Steve's LEDs. Luxeon ES deep red EX6 bin. Steve's also has the best deep blues the Luxeon ES MR3 bin. The best 630nm reds are Cree XP-E P3 bin sold at LEDGroupbuy. The best warm whites are Cree XT-E sold at cutter. I use the R3 bin 7A tint and so far no complaints.

HeatsinkUSA for the aluminum. Drivers can be tricky to source for a good price. I would recommend something in the range of 700mA constant current for all of the leds mentioned above. Hyperon 40w 700mA looks nice. High power factor and easy dimming method.
 
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