My Lighting Project - Will a Custom LED Panel Work?

Treeth said:

Now that,

repvip,

is spamming.

Not intellectual property protection.

Alkemi, you coward, what is your source for these "models"?

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Treeth:

wtf? Why are you mentioning me in this thread?

I haven't bad mouthed you for awhile

I happen to agree with most everything you say about LEDs, especially the part about avoiding 3 and 5mm!

Anyway

Cuttings2Colas: I say go for it! Maybe an array of this type will work just as well or better (at 1" above canopy) than the others. Obviously there is so much bullshit info about LEDs and not enough proof... it's hard to have a good discussion on this board.

ps - I've kept mine at 12" and haven't seen any slow growth. They are doing very well.

Yeah I wrote that post a while ago

oh! hehe.

Sorry for being an ass! I still want to try one of your lights. I got a little overwhelmed with all the research into LEDs that I was doing... there just doesn't seem to be a good way to judge or compare them (except for lumens, which we all know isn't ... what we want) but for you brainiacs that can do the math... nice!

I also have to suggest more red, and more specfically the deep red, for flowering (basically for veg too--just throw in some blue for the phototropism) especially around 680nm. The published research using deep red exceeds those with normal. Some of it has to do with reflected light--it ends up being reflected at a lower wavelenth (normal red) which can be absorbed by leaves further down... thus helping penetration. There is also a stretch response plants have to relflected light, which this helps minimize. If I ever end up building the LED array I want.. I will probably use deep red only. Anyway, just some food for thougt.

Yeah I'm wondering about deep red myself.

I'm wondering, mainly, if its deep enough to be far red.

And the test for that is easy. Run em' 24 hours with 12/12 with some "normal" spectrums, and see if it keeps it out of flower.

I have this assumption that the far red isn't as important in terms of mass as the nearer, normal red which will keep a plant out of flower.

It seems natural to me because when a plant is tripped into flowering hardest, its nightime. Not absorbing anything, except for the little amounts still bouncing around the surface of the plant, radiating out of the ground and such, bouncing around an shit. it goes everywhere.

(go search for squ1rrely 's post entitled experiments at the cutting edge)

Which is why I think the 650- range is best, which is pretty much the upper bound of the range which the dees I have put out...

I hope!

we'll see, flowering eventually.

Shrike said:

Excellent design you have there for the LED's and looks like a heck of a lot of work...but hopefully well worth it. I'm kind of in the same boat as far as no money right now among other reasons to have to wait to start the grows. But having people like you and StinkBud, SoG, Earl and others on this board gives us all a tremendous amount of knowledge and experimentation that serves everyone well in the end. Like you, when I start, I'll be ready as hell.

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Very cool, Shrike, thanks for the compliments. I look forward to putting it to the test... who knows what will happen. Maybe I'm nuts, and I really need the high power LEDs. If that's the case, at least I've learned an incredible amount about light. Designing a new light will be a breeze.

repvip said:

Treeth: I happen to agree with most everything you say about LEDs, especially the part about avoiding 3 and 5mm!

Cuttings2Colas: I say go for it! Maybe an array of this type will work just as well or better (at 1" above canopy) than the others. Obviously there is so much bullshit info about LEDs and not enough proof... it's hard to have a good discussion on this board.

ps - I've kept mine at 12" and haven't seen any slow growth. They are doing very well.

Click to expand...

You may be right about the 3/5mm thing... if I need to design a new high-powered LED light, I will. As I mentioned in the last post, it'll be cake the second time around.

12" sounds fine, though I wonder how much stronger the light intensity would be closer... one day (when I can afford it), I'll just make 3 identical LED lights and space them at 3 different distances to see what kind of reaction the plants give. It's funny; I'm 33% excited about the final product (MJ), 33% excited about designing everything, and another 33% excited to do a bunch of experiments once I have a nice sea of green going. Fine tune everything with actual research.

repvip said:

I also have to suggest more red, and more specfically the deep red, for flowering (basically for veg too--just throw in some blue for the phototropism) especially around 680nm. The published research using deep red exceeds those with normal. Some of it has to do with reflected light--it ends up being reflected at a lower wavelenth (normal red) which can be absorbed by leaves further down... thus helping penetration. There is also a stretch response plants have to relflected light, which this helps minimize. If I ever end up building the LED array I want.. I will probably use deep red only. Anyway, just some food for thougt.

Click to expand...

I agree with you 100% on more deep red. I really wanted to fill out the deep red portion of the spectrum, but those 680nm LEDs are SOOOO expensive. Over $1 each, whereas my second most expensive LEDs are 13 cents. It'll have to be one of those experiments I do one day when I'm rich.

I haven't heard the part about reflected light dropping on the nm scale... interesting. I do plan to make smaller versions of these lights and post them around the walls of the tight little grow room. Screw light penetration, I'll just add more lights. Woo!

Treeth said:

Yeah I'm wondering about deep red myself.

I'm wondering, mainly, if its deep enough to be far red.

And the test for that is easy. Run em' 24 hours with 12/12 with some "normal" spectrums, and see if it keeps it out of flower.

I have this assumption that the far red isn't as important in terms of mass as the nearer, normal red which will keep a plant out of flower.

It seems natural to me because when a plant is tripped into flowering hardest, its nightime. Not absorbing anything, except for the little amounts still bouncing around the surface of the plant, radiating out of the ground and such, bouncing around an shit. it goes everywhere.

(go search for squ1rrely 's post entitled experiments at the cutting edge)

Which is why I think the 650- range is best, which is pretty much the upper bound of the range which the dees I have put out...

I hope!

we'll see, flowering eventually.

Click to expand...

I have a feeling that everything you wrote will make more sense once I read Squ1rrely's post. That'll have to be for another day. Off to hang with some friends. G'night everyone, and happy growing!

Cuttings2Colas said:

You may be right about the 3/5mm thing... if I need to design a new high-powered LED light, I will. As I mentioned in the last post, it'll be cake the second time around.

12" sounds fine, though I wonder how much stronger the light intensity would be closer... one day (when I can afford it), I'll just make 3 identical LED lights and space them at 3 different distances to see what kind of reaction the plants give. It's funny; I'm 33% excited about the final product (MJ), 33% excited about designing everything, and another 33% excited to do a bunch of experiments once I have a nice sea of green going. Fine tune everything with actual research.

I agree with you 100% on more deep red. I really wanted to fill out the deep red portion of the spectrum, but those 680nm LEDs are SOOOO expensive. Over $1 each, whereas my second most expensive LEDs are 13 cents. It'll have to be one of those experiments I do one day when I'm rich.

I haven't heard the part about reflected light dropping on the nm scale... interesting. I do plan to make smaller versions of these lights and post them around the walls of the tight little grow room. Screw light penetration, I'll just add more lights. Woo!

Click to expand...

That would be a sweet experiment! This is the kind of work that needs to be done.

I do a lot of journal reading for my job and subsequently have access to a lot of journals. The deep red LED article was an experiment published fairly recently in a horticulture journal (I'm not sure which.. I stumbled upon it... though I'm sure I could find it again, eventually). It was a good one though--they had LED fixtures with normal red:blue, deep red:blue, normal red:white:blue and normal redrange:blue. The deep red:blue outperformed all, with redrange:blue and red:white:blue about even and red:blue just behind that. I can't even remember what plant they were growing--I just wanted the results haha

That article made me question the "why white leds" and also mentioned results that other authors have had with different, more optimized spectrums that are plant-dependent. Some studies are suggesting that plants would have a specfic spectrum that works best for them. I don't see any way to predict except to try different combinations, or just go for the cure-all and make a full-spectrum panel, or as much as possible. Which basically answers the why white question. There is probably a killer spectrum for ultimate trichome production!

Maybe I'm crazy, but when my LEDs are about 8" from the plant they start to burn... the plants that is.. they will have brown burn areas in the leaves.. maybe hot spot or something? I don't know. With the light mover it is no longer an issue... In fact I've never had better looking plants! They look so healthy and dark green. I love LEDs.

Cool, I'm subscribed.

I starting planning out a DIY led system but it got one step above my head and I decided it wasn't worth saving $40 over just buying a premade from HTG.

ESP because I couldn't find much info on this and I didn't really want to waste a bunch of time and money.

@vip:

Yea, it sucks that theres no single stat that you can compare all LED lights with...

you should check out

http://ledgrow.eu/

if you haven't already.

lurkmaster said:

you should check out

http://ledgrow.eu/

if you haven't already.

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Interesting experiment. He's got a good start. I want better.

Isn't that always the case?

repvip said:

That would be a sweet experiment! This is the kind of work that needs to be done.

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Thank you much, I look forward to the results!

repvip said:

I do a lot of journal reading for my job and subsequently have access to a lot of journals. The deep red LED article was an experiment published fairly recently in a horticulture journal (I'm not sure which.. I stumbled upon it... though I'm sure I could find it again, eventually). It was a good one though--they had LED fixtures with normal red:blue, deep red:blue, normal red:white:blue and normal redrange:blue. The deep red:blue outperformed all, with redrange:blue and red:white:blue about even and red:blue just behind that. I can't even remember what plant they were growing--I just wanted the results haha

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If you find the article, I'd love to read it. Any experiments that have already been done can help me find a baseline to start my experiments. You know, I'm still using quite a bit of "deep red" with the 660nm. I'd like more 680, but I haven't seen a single grow light out there with 680... probably too expensive.

repvip said:

That article made me question the "why white leds" and also mentioned results that other authors have had with different, more optimized spectrums that are plant-dependent. Some studies are suggesting that plants would have a specfic spectrum that works best for them. I don't see any way to predict except to try different combinations, or just go for the cure-all and make a full-spectrum panel, or as much as possible. Which basically answers the why white question. There is probably a killer spectrum for ultimate trichome production!

Click to expand...

I understand that they're trying to "fill in" the rest of the spectrum with white. They need to do some research on white LEDs first... they're not full spectrum. Unless someone wants to take the time to design a full-spectrum board like this one, they're not going to get full spectrum through LEDs. A Fluorescent or two can be helpful... don't need much added light, just a little boost in the other colors.

There probably is some perfect spectrum, and I hope to find it. One day, I'll be doing an experiment, and one of my experiments will just be frosty-white with trichromes. That day, I'll know I've found it. Ah, it's a beautiful dream. Let's hope it comes to fruition.

repvip said:

Maybe I'm crazy, but when my LEDs are about 8" from the plant they start to burn... the plants that is.. they will have brown burn areas in the leaves.. maybe hot spot or something? I don't know. With the light mover it is no longer an issue... In fact I've never had better looking plants! They look so healthy and dark green. I love LEDs.

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"Hot Spot" in this sense is probably not related to actual heat. Since the LEDs are directional, there's probably too much of one color in one area, making that leaf suck up too much of one type of nutrients... At least, that's how I visualize it.

That's the main reason I organized my LEDs like I did... I don't want to see colored spots on my leaves, because that means they're not getting ALL colors. Every square inch of my panel will have about 36 LEDs, and they'll be mixed color. The only reason I grouped the blue/green together, Reds together, and Red 635 all by itself is the different voltages of the LEDs mean I need a certain number of LEDs in series to get close to the 24V power supply I'm using. I went with 24V instead of 12V because a higher voltage means I can get closer to the "typical voltage" that the LEDs want by placing more LEDs in series.

Light mover is definitely the solution to that problem... and it'll help with cross-lighting. I intend to nip that issue in the "bud" with mini side-panels shining on the side & under-leaves.

You're a crazy naive dreamer cuttings...

You'll burn your wings if you get too close to that glorious, burning sun!

hahaha.

Hey, what did you use to run your calculations?

Treeth said:

You're a crazy naive dreamer cuttings...

You'll burn your wings if you get to close to that glorious, burning sun!

hahaha.

Hey, what did you use to run your calculations?

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I used math. I created an excel spreadsheet where I can adjust the number of LEDs of each different color, and it tells me the change in watts, amps, cost, candelas (even though it's eye-based), and it changes that cool spectrum chart I made. I'm actually quite proud of the spreadsheet. It's turned out nicer and more detailed than I ever expected.

Perhaps I'm a dreamer... perhaps. I've seen some decent grows on LEDs recently, and there's always something I'd like to improve in their setup, so we'll see how this goes. I'm not getting my hopes up too much on this setup until I see some results. I'm fully aware that I may at least have to go to the 1W LEDs... maybe the 3W is a good middle-ground, and I can throw a nice basic heat-sink & fan on there without having to get ridiculous. Who knows, I better not get too far ahead of myself.

I definitely appreciate everybody's input. I've gained several tidbits of light knowledge from this thread, and it's made me look at my project from several perspectives. I just want to give this baby a go. It's all designed now, so the only thing missing is money (about $266 according to my spreadsheet). I should have it ordered by early June.

As per everyone's advice and my own agreement, I've slightly reduced the 590nm & 622nm LEDs and added the same number of 660nm LEDs. The 660nm is super-strong, and it's actually helped the 680nm as well.

If you check out the chart, 680nm is about 15% of what I would want if they were cheap... better than nothing, I'll take it! It only added about $5 to the overall cost, too.

Check out the updated chart!

A good place to get some feedback on the tech side of leds, would be a website called www.greenpinelane.com where they have tested all the commercial lights and where a lot of tech savvy types are building their own lights.

Good luck to ya.

Cuttings, this is absolutely incredible.

Very happy that I found this thread, I've been reading as much about LEDs as I could since I heard about the supernova earlier last week.
I could very well have seen myself doing all the same research and planning as you did, but I'm very happy you beat me to it. The excel spreadsheet you have sounds extremely impressive with all the details you've included. I don't think I could ever have come up with that, especially the comparison chart you created.

I'm interested in building an LED array myself, and I'm wondering if you could possibly throw me some of your details, such as actual hard-wiring...?
And when you say $266 according to your spreadsheet, is that the total cost of the system? It sounds like an absolute dream. Can you tell me the sources that you plan to buy from? I've seen a few websites selling LEds, but they don't have much in terms of spectrum options (e.g. the only blue LEDs are 470 nm) and the prices are around 40 cents each for the cheapest.

Keep up the good work!

should i 12/12 all the all the time ??

turtleblood said:

Cuttings, this is absolutely incredible.

Very happy that I found this thread, I've been reading as much about LEDs as I could since I heard about the supernova earlier last week.
I could very well have seen myself doing all the same research and planning as you did, but I'm very happy you beat me to it. The excel spreadsheet you have sounds extremely impressive with all the details you've included. I don't think I could ever have come up with that, especially the comparison chart you created.

I'm interested in building an LED array myself, and I'm wondering if you could possibly throw me some of your details, such as actual hard-wiring...?
And when you say $266 according to your spreadsheet, is that the total cost of the system? It sounds like an absolute dream. Can you tell me the sources that you plan to buy from? I've seen a few websites selling LEds, but they don't have much in terms of spectrum options (e.g. the only blue LEDs are 470 nm) and the prices are around 40 cents each for the cheapest.

Keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

The spreadsheet has saved me quite a bit of time. I found that whenever I started designing it on paper, I'd learn something that made me want to change the design... start over! With this setup, I can just type in a different number of LEDs. Now that I've created the exact layout, it takes about 2 minutes extra to also edit the layout, as long as I don't do something major.

You may want to hold off on duplicating this setup until I've at least tested it out. Several people seem to think the 3mm LEDs will be very inefficient, and I'll be ordering the setup at the end of the month. Also, there is the heat issue to be wary of. Once we know how it performs, I'll know if I need to do any tweaking. Who knows, maybe I'll also want to go into business selling these things... can't give away everything. I pretty much already posted the exact design, though it still changes a little bit every day. I increased the 450nm blue today and reduced the 505nm green. Now that I have all this info about IR & UVB, I'll probably be looking into that, too. IR looks to be taken care of by a minute or two of incandescent lights right at dusk (lights out), so I'll probably just research UVB as far as LEDs are concerned.

There's more than just light research into this, too. Much of the design has to do with compensating for different voltages, series vs. parallel, which parts of the design to run which way, amps/volts/watts & their relationship to each other. Finding good quality products at a good price can be quite time consuming, too.

As far as cheap 3mm LED suppliers, 7 of the 8 colors come from LEDZ.com (450nm is 5mm). The 660nm is made by Lumex, and the cheapest price I've found so far is at Newark.com. There might be cheaper of the 660nm out there, but 13.1 cents each isn't bad (qty 100-499). That's how much the 505nm & 525nm cost, though I'm not using many of those.

I found out yesterday that under a certain order size, LEDZ charges a surcharge, so it'll actually be about $15 more. Not too bad.

The beauty of my test-setup is that there's no hard-wiring. The power supply can power the breadboard via screwed-in contact points, and breadboards allow you to add and remove components without soldering. That's why I'm using breadboards and 3mm LEDs... my soldering isn't pretty, and I don't want to spend several hours on ugly solder for something I already know I'll want to modify later. I'd probably get much better at soldering, though!

I'll definitely keep everybody up to date. I'm really excited to place the order(s).

Happy Growing!

hbdamu said:

should i 12/12 all the all the time ??

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The simple answer to your question is No. The long answer is: I believe you're in an entirely unrelated thread. There is an incredible amount of information available on these forums. You could read for days on end, and you'd still be learning new things. I've been researching for months, and I learn new things every day.

Start Here: https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/

This is a favorite from within that category: https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/1326-101-already-asked-questions.html

Just by reading that one thread (101 Already Asked Questions) and the links it provides, you can be confidently successful in growing a healthy crop. If you're like me, it'll lead to having 10 windows open at once until 3 in the morning... damn.

Good luck!